It’s been a few days since I’ve been able to get into the gym, or yoga hot room for that matter.  In the mean time, I’ve found myself spending quality time with good friends, and of course, my girlfriend.  I’ve even been fairly good at motivating myself to run up some short trails near Snowmass and Carbondale, though nothing is really quite like a muscle-busting workout with Spencer Keep or a ligament stretching yoga sesh with Kate Giampapa .

Anyway, even with a nice Sunday afternoon off, I find it difficult to stay motivated for these daily workouts.  Luckily, some stoke comes from the people that count the most: my friends.

I had a chance to meet Arly Velasquez during my trip to Mt. Hood earlier this summer as an assistant coach for the Challenge Aspen Competition Team .  Arly was attending the summer camp spectrum in a racing capacity for the NSCD out of Winter Park, CO.  When his team left Oregon, he stayed on to continue working on his skiing and racing.  He hopped in our truck and trained with us for a couple of days before we had to make our exit as well.

Check out this YouTube video Arly produced about his trip to Mt. Hood and see what I mean about his stoke.  It’s people like this that keep me motivated to get strong, stay healthy, and shred pow all over the world.

Click here to check out Arly’s Facebook page !!

Well, this lazy ski bum has finally taken it upon himself to find some help in getting back in fighting shape. Or is that skiing shape? Whatever the colloquialism, I contacted my good friend Spencer Keep to assist in this process. Spencer has been working out through a program called CrossFit for the past three years, and has recently begun training others in the intense physical fitness program.

Many of my close skier friends have been participating in CrossFit recently, so I decided to take Spencer up on his offer to come and check it out. I met him down at the Roaring Fork CrossFit gym and after a thorough explanation of what the program is, how it works, who’s doing it, and why it’s just plain awesome, Spencer put me right into my first session.

Each workout is given a name, usually a woman’s name, and Cindy was the belle of my first ball. Cindy consisted of rounds of 5 pull-ups, 10 pushups, and 15 squats over a 10 minute period.  The goal is to do as many rounds of the three sets as possible before time runs out.  Because I’m still rehabbing my shoulders (and boy are they weak!), my pull-ups were modified to jump pull-ups, the pushups were off a raised bar, and my squats were sans any weight.  Even with all the sissy adaptations, by the end of the ten minutes I found myself staring down at the half-digested hot dogs and chips I had eaten only an hour before.  So much for junk food before an ass-kicking workout!  heh.

So, my indoctrination into the CrossFit family was a quick and queasy one at best, but I think I may have found another key to success in my long road to the top of the Freeskiing World Tour.  Now, excuse me, I have to go slam down a protein drink to make up for the lost nutrients into the sewage system off of Willits Lane…