In prep for the XC race next week I decided that yesterday would be a good day to do a little workout.  It was cold, raining, and by the time I got home it was getting dark.  It was perfect.  As luck would have it, I was able to recover my training log from my junior year of college.  I had it on Blogger and now have conveniently imported it into this blog, so if you’re ever so inclined you can read all about my deep, dark, past (like..my summer 2005 swim training - honestly didn’t remember swimming even this much, accounts from my second trip to CO to visit Jordan,  my first multisport race, and much much more!  sadly I wasn’t too into providing any details or anecdotes, so it’s pretty much just my training with little fluff.  the log ends abruptly, because I quite obviously get injured…this happens several times.)

I knew I wanted to do the boil, simmer, boil workout, but I couldn’t remember how it went.  Thankfully, I found it here.  You can’t have a bad day running when you’re boil, simmer, boiling.  It’s impossible.  There’s no distance to worry about.  Just boil for X amount of minutes, simmer for X amount, and boil again.  Boils are at race pace, and simmers are around tempo - not hard, not easy.

Last night I headed to my favorite trail and boiled for 5, simmered for 4, and boiled for 5 again.  After running easy for 4 minutes I did it again.  It’s a little different than the original BSB workout, but variations are definitely allowed.  The workout went very well and I’m surprised with how good running feels.  Next week the “race” is totally just for fun but it’s exciting to be preparing for something different…even if preparing consists all of 8-10 runs haha

As you can probably tell, I’ve been very nostalgic for XC lately, which is funny b/c I was never too fond of it.  I really liked the concept of it, but never ran well during the fall.  It was firmly implanted in my head that I couldn’t run any distance beyond the 800.  Now that I’ve run 2 decent marathons I know that isn’t true, but still fall into that mindset all the time…like every time I have to run a 10k after biking and swimming.  Someday I’ll get back into the whole running thing, but that’s a ways off.  I’m enjoying the little bit I’m able to do now, because come October 1st I’ll be drenched in the most chlorinated water you can imagine for many hours a day.  I’ve got some big plans.  …but for now, I’m going to keep on simmering.

Next time you’re racking your brain for a running workout to change up the routine, try out the boil simmer boil, and the best part: you don’t have to adjust your times for altitude!  Cooking joke! AaaYO!!!!

One of the coolest things about our company is that we do almost everything in-house.  It’s pretty rare to find a small business with a decent amount of sales that has built their own site from scratch, without the aid of any templates or content management systems (Joomla, ZenCart, OSCommerce, etc.).  It’s like making brownies with Duncan Hines mix — it gets the job done, but can you really be proud of it since the brunt of the work isn’t your own?

Jordan built the first MileHighAthletic.com using some very basic HTML.  It was just for informative purposes, you couldn’t buy anything on the site.  Over the summer of 2007 he learned PHP and the site took a huge leap: customers could buy skis directly from the site and skip eBay altogether.

MileHighAthletic.com circa December 2007. Table-based layout, no CSS.

Aesthetically the site was still primitive, and so in January 2008 I started learning XHTML and CSS, and with our forces combined we churned out a pretty decent looking site.

An improved, CSS-based site. Circa February 2008.

Since then, Jordan’s PHP skills and my HTML/CSS skills have far improved.  Jordan’s PHP has allowed us to have a one-of-a-kind CMS designed specifically for  selling used skis.  From a design and user interface perspective, we knew what worked with the old site and where we needed to make improvements.  Thanks to Google Analytics, we know that a lot of our customers use our “Ski Finder” feature, a wizard that narrows down products we have available to what they are looking for, be it a price range, ski length, ski type, etc.  The overall navigation worked well too, the menu was easy to find and since it was chunked into smaller pieces, easy to find what you’re looking for.

One of the biggest problems with the old site was the landing page, or the page you first arrive on when you visit Powder7.com.  Instead of displaying our products (what we sell, what we do, a very important message to get across to customers, especially online where attention spans are very short), I had rotating graphics of some skis we sell.  The graphics were pretty dense, and though I meant well, there was no way I could keep updating them to coincide with what we have in stock at that exact moment.  I grabbed photos of of some of our best-selling skis and created a visual spread that placed each ski within a classification.  Jordan wrote some code that randomly selects three skis from each category and displays them under the category.

One of the categories, displaying our most popular women's ski: the K2 Burnin Luv.

The new landing page.

We also updated the item display page, making it easier to find the ski’s specs and replacing two medium sized photos with one big photo of the tops of the skis and a smaller one of the bases.  Clicking on the photos takes you to a giant-sized photo of the tops and bases that you can zoom in on.

Item display page - notice the navigation is consistent throughout the site.

Finally, since a site that is too bland can look a bit unwelcoming, I perked it up with a background:

Might be a bit hard to tell in this small image, but the background is our logo.

Next up: Part III - Our First Ad Campaign

Last week I was summoned back to the pool by Sean.  The first day of swimming wasn’t so bad, but each day thereafter got worse and worse.  I’m not ready to be submerged for 2 hours everyday, and really haven’t been too into the whole exercising thing for the past few weeks, let alone training several hours a day for a race season that is months and months away.  So yesterday I skipped swim practice, worked later, and then drove up Lookout Mountain for a run that turned into more of a hike….

I’m not sure if it’s the time of year, getting out in the fresh air, or reading my former teammate, Mollie’s running blog, but for the first time in awhile I feel like running again.  When I’m training for triathlon, running is my least favorite of the 3: it can’t take me far away like cycling can, and I don’t see the improvement I see with swimming.  Running always gets the backburner while I develop in the other two, and hopefully someday I’ll be able to come back and focus more on running.  I thought I might be able to do that this winter, focus on running for a month or 6 weeks, and go run some indoor races at BU (I admittedly have ulterior motives…).  After I got crushed on the swim in Tuscaloosa, it’s obvious that plan was not a sound one: I have to spend my winter in the pool.

…but it’s not winter yet, it’s cross-country season!*  I’m taking the next month or so to find as many XC races as I can.  It’s a little hard to do as an adult.  I could probably pass as a home-schooled high schooler, but I stumbled across this little gem and now I don’t have to: a Euro-style cross-country race in Addenbrooke Park!  Water jumps!  Mud!  Grassy field!

It’s less than 2 weeks away, but I’ve run twice in the past 3.5 weeks (both this week), so I’m ready to go.  I did actually get off my lazy rump and start training today though: 62 minutes from the new office, up into White Ranch — awesome!!!  Not sure if I mentioned how great our new office is?

*Clearly this does not mean I don’t have to swim…I just am not subjecting myself to 4-5000 yards/day right now, just a few shorter workouts per week so I’m not starting from scratch later on.

My friend Beth has one of the sweetest blogs going over at fatbustermack.com.  She has tons of recipes and loads of great photos.  It’s great for anyone, no matter what your relationship is with food: trying to eat healthier, maintain a healthy lifestyle (but you’re running out of ways to cook lima beans..), or just looking for some good eats.

I wrote a guest post that ran today featuring a recipe for one of my favorite feeds: caramelized onions — check it out and leave Beth some comment love! =)

http://www.fatbustermack.com/2009/09/triathlete-tuesday-chicken-apple.html

There’s been a slight change of plans.

After Tuscaloosa I got back into the training for a few days, but my body wanted nothing to do with it.  Mentally I felt very ready to go, but my workouts have been hurting for the past few weeks, and I knew deep down it was time to pull the plug.  I talked it over with Jordan and Sean, and then solidified the decision by not packing any workout clothes for our weeklong trip to the East Coast.  It was glorious.  The trip was awesome, but more on that and the BEST DAY EVER later.  Now we’re back in Colorado, ski sales are picking up and we’re getting ready to move our office and warehouse to a new location in Golden.  And oh yes, I’m still doing a whole lot of nothing when it comes to training.  Walking Gulliver and tubing in Clear Creek are about as rigorous as it gets.  Thursday will be two weeks completely off.  I was getting worried because I have had no desire whatsoever to run/bike/swim…do anything.  Today I had a slight desire to do something, but I’ll give it until I have the feeling where I’m going to go crazy if I don’t get out and do something.  Luckily, there’s been lots of other stuff to do and Jordan is gearing up for his big comeback, so I’m living vicariously through him and a few others.  For now.

The extent of my training. Though I did give my parents a lesson in flipturns...

Jordan and I crossing the lovely Lake Champlain on the ferry after an awesome time on Grand Isle/South Hero.

Back in Golden: tubing fun with Jordan, Alexis, Matt, Cyrus, and Gulliver.