Consider yourself brand savvy?  Take this quiz and see if you can name the brand based on a color palette, visual clue and a written hint.

Hint: The game gets a lot easier once you know the companies that the firm behind the game works with.

Take the quiz here: http://thebrandquiz.com/ and let me know how you do.  I scored 19…would be interesting to see if we miss the same ones!

Lots of firsts out there yesterday: first day at the loop kinda hanging with the guys, first time losing my lunch, first time I saw my heartrate go to 197, and first spring-like day in the Front Range.  Great day.

Triathlon has turned me into Wendell.

No no, I’m not back to my anti-swimming ways already.  I did wake up Saturday morning with about my 15th cold of 2010.  And I’m blaming the pool.  Maybe not the pool, but the people who swim in the pool and think it’s ok to spit in the gutter around the edge of the pool.  Why is this accepted?  I’m not 100% sure of pool filtration theory or practice, but I’m pretty sure that the water that runs down into the gutter ends up back in the pool.  Maybe some of the big old nasty stuff gets filtered out, but I’m pretty sure the germs are in it for the long run.  How much does chlorine really kill off anyway?  Even if it doesn’t come back into the pool (yea right), everyone still has to touch the gutter at some point.  So gross.  Blech.  Anyway!

I’m a huge fan of R+R, but I decided to go wild and do something different this time around with the cold.  I trained through it!  …though very easily.  I did an easy 2k swim to spread my germs around, then went out for an easy hour spin up Lookout.  I took my camera and thought of it more as a scenic mosey than a training ride.  The goal was to get fresh air in the lungs.  It helped!  I felt super fresh for my intense lap counting and timing duties at the Senior State Swim Meet Sunday night.  That’s right: 14 and ups!  No no, don’t have a wee relative I was helping out, just my teammates.  Jordan busted out a PB: 19:06!  Nice to live vicariously through him

Here’s some pics from Lookout.  It was snowing up top, by the time I got up around the switchbacks it was snowing pretty good all over.  Descending back into town in the snow was pretty fun and surprisingly not all that cold despite my lack of layering.

Looking west from Lookout

Paragliders over Golden

Getting snowy near the upper switchbacks.

Mazatlan is slowly but surely creeping up!  One month from today!  In the past week the excitement has increased tenfold, as I’ve perked up in training, and the whole team was together for Coach Sean’s wedding talking up their past Mazatlan experiences.  I love hearing about the race in past years, with huge breaks that smash apart the swim packs (perfecto!).  It should be good!

After the 1/2 marathon in Austin last month I was ra’ring to go again…I feel like I finally have the run figured out and it’s really coming together this winter.  Right after Austin I was scouting out other running races because I knew I could go faster.  Good thing Jordan talked some sense into me and reminded me there’s two other sports to train for!  That being said, my excitement with my run in Austin was understandable since my swim has been atrocious.  Then I got a new suit a few days ago and realized I have effectively been swimming in a velor jumpsuit for the past 2 months (my old suit was huge and baggy…ugh still so much to learn with this sport.  I’ve learned that if I’m not struggling to get the strap over my shoulder the suit is too big).  No wonder I was working hard and going no where.  Hopefully all of that resistance training will pay off!  =)  The Colorado winter has been kind to us and we’ve been out time trialing it up in Bear Creek Lake Park religiously every Saturday.  I’ve hardly been on the trainer, which means I’m loving riding right now.  That had to change today as we got some snow that will keep me grinding away in the garage over the weekend.

As usual, the winter training has been hard for me to get the hang of.  The volume and consistency are both in uncharted territory, and it’s hard for me to get used to never having any sharpness in my legs (or my brain!).  Luckily I have a good bunch of guys around (Jordan, Sean, and my teammates) to remind me that this is totally normal and eventually I will grow to accept it!  It’s definitely becoming easier to accept it with March approaching fast.  The light at the end of the tunnel!

Obviously I am excited to RACE in Mazatlan (a little redemption is in order), but I am equally excited to chill out afterward…surfboard under my arm during the day, margarita in hand at night =)

[I might be through my anti-triathlon blog phase.  This has been prompted by none other than the Canadian triathlon contingent who have the best blogs going and do a great job keeping it all in perspective even though they are superstars.  Specifically: Kirsten Sweetland, Lauren Campbell, Simon Whitfield]

If we’ve talked in the last month or so, you know I’ve sworn off all triathlon-related websites/media/social-media/etc for the sake of my sanity.  I’ve also sworn off writing about said sport*, because when you spend hours and hours training each day, who really wants to write about it?  And does anyone really want to read about it?

However, as I prepare for my first foray into race directing (Littlefoot Triathlon on May 17th), I did make my way over to Slowtwitch this afternoon.  My intention was to scan message boards for people’s favorite awards/race momentos, but then I was drawn to my all-time favorite recurring article on Slowtwitch, Jeff Henderson’s pieces on his experiences as race director.  This one is my favorite, as it spoke of triathlon as art and not in the cliche human performance sense, but in the art of putting on a great race.  Check it out, it’s a quick and worthwhile read.

http://www.slowtwitch.com/RD_Aids/Henderson_s_2010_RD_diary/On_Design_1153.html

…also feel free to share what your favorite race awards have been (aside from cold hard cash, obviously!).

*Except for random and sporadic entries on the Riptide blog.

Whenever I fall off the blogging wagon it’s usually due to 1 of 3 things:

- training is not going well
- work has been busy so there’s no time for side projects to write about
- instead of writing, I contemplate quitting blogging

This month, it was a combination of all three!  Things are on the up and up now: I’m almost fully recovered from a whopper of a cold that’s left my training diary in shambles, Cyber Monday is behind us, and I’ve convinced myself to keep blogging.  All is well.

In a little more depth…

Training isn’t really going horribly.  I’m really enjoying running again, and look forward to staying with the guys for as long as possible on Sunday mornings.  Some times this is 9 miles, other times it’s 40 minutes.  Swimming is so-so.  I’ve made some improvements to my stroke, but haven’t spent too much time in the pool the past couple of weeks because of being sick.  I’m not dealing with the bike right now.  Some rides here and there.  Nothing significant.

Hands down this is the best time of year at work.  Obviously because ski season has begun, and sales are up because Christmas is a comin’, but it adds an element of fun to the whole thing knowing that what we’re selling is going to make a lot of people really happy on Christmas morning.  It’s super corny, but totally true.  A couple of weeks ago Jordan and I went on a little reconnaissance mission to Lake Tahoe, and after we were done with the work aspect, we were able to run on the flume trail near Incline Village and collect giant pine cones, among other things!  (See all the photos from our trip on my Flickr, here)

That’s it for now.  The first post is always the hardest.  But I’m back on the wagon, and I promise not to fall off until next November.

View from the trail leading up to the flume trail.

After 70 minutes of climbing, on the flume trail at last! Um yea, the run was an hour fifty...

Sunset on Lake Tahoe.

Proof that we did some work too -- a shop dog that is almost as big as ours.

I look forward to this time of year because it’s one of the few opportunities I get to do anything with print design.  Riptide is starting its hunt for 2010 sponsors so we’re starting to roll out the marketing materials.  The 2010 Team Preview is a summary of our 2009 accomplishments and a look at what we’re planning for 2010.  Also included is all the information potential sponsors need about what is involved in sponsorship and why it benefits them.

Very simple cover with a little gloss.

Last year was the first time I took on a print project like this and learned a lot as I went along. I was very careful not to repeat those same mistakes this year. Though we print out copies of the guide, it also has to  be easy to view online.  Last year’s guide was so heavy that the file took forever to load on our website.  So this year, I opted for the super clean and simple look.

I scrounged the internet for famous quotes that went along with each section of the book.

After last year’s printing debacle (I waited until after I had designed it to figure out where to print it), I knew I wanted to use Blurb.com and plan for that from the get-go. I got caught up playing with their book-making software, BookSmart, and laid out the entire book in that, using Fireworks to create the graphical text.

Each returning athlete from 2009 has a photo with his/her background information.

All was well until I went to print it as a PDF so I could upload it to the Riptide website. Blurb doesn’t let you know that when you do that they watermark it to death, rendering it useless for use in public. I went back and made each page into a PDF using Illustrator (I still don’t have InDesign…definitely my next big purchase…that or a Powertap…) and then compiled them. BookSmart is definitely a great little piece of software, but next time I’ll do it all with Illustrator, or hopefully InDesign.

The photos really make the book, and I can't take credit for a single one. A huge thank you to David Liu and Beth Mackenzie.The details.

Despite the BookSmart incident, Blurb really impressed me. It’s so nice when you send something off to print and it comes back exactly how you imagined it would look.  Highly recommend!

The details.

This year it’s been really hard to get back into training.  I’m an all or nothing type of person, and lately the nothing option has been very very tempting.  Last weekend I felt like I was getting back in a good grove, but had some sort of cold thing going on during the week so only swam Monday, Wednesday, Friday.  Not surprisingly, I got back out of the groove and back into wondering why am I doing this?  Sports have been a huge part of my life since I started playing soccer when I was 5…maybe it’s time for a change.  Pick up a new hobby, something to keep me busy, and experience life from another perspective.  No pressure to get workouts in, no traveling all over to races, ….I could sell my bikes and buy a really sweet camera and get into photography, just for fun.  Or maybe become a hardcore backcountry skier and take some avalanche courses.

Friday night I got to thinking that even though all that stuff sounds awesome and fun…it’s not me right now.  I pictured myself, 20 years from now, telling my kids that yea, one summer I had this crazy idea to become a pro triathlete.  So I did it, raced three times, and in my first nationals I got lapped out by the narrowest of margins and got a nice DNF next to my name.  Then I quit because I figured the whole thing wasn’t for me.  Not exactly a good role model, huh?  Wouldn’t it be much better to say, I got lapped out in my first go at ITU, but I buckled down and worked like crazy to get my swim together, and the next year I went back to nationals and finished in the top-10?  So with that nice revelation on Friday and watching Kona all day on Saturday, I think I’m officially ready for the winter.

This morning I met up with the Vista Trail group, and suffered through 94 minutes of running.  Sonja came and another girl, Bre, and we hammered away together to keep up with the guys.  It was exactly what I need right now, in perfect company, and on the most beautiful trail I have EVER seen.  If you’re somewhere around Denver/Golden/Boulder, come run with us every Sunday at 9am.  =)

Now I’m off to the gym for some core work, and then the POOL — dreaming of my next go in the Black Warrior River all the way….

PS- We got snow here yesterday and it’s absolutely beautiful here right now…unfortunately no pics from today’s run, but I got some yesterday:

Pedestrian bridge near home.

Favorite run close to home.

The mountain tops are still covered by the clouds today. Can't even see the School of Mines' "M".

Gully's favorite spot on a snowy day: under the covers.

While perusing some ski forums yesterday I came across the K2 Pink Chase, an event at Keystone that pits teams of 3 women against each other, racing to cover the most vertical feet in a 6 hour span.  It’s a fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  I immediately contacted my  two fittest (and most competitive..) ski bunny friends, and they were more than up for the challenge!  On December 12th, Sonja Wieck, Michelle Ford, and I will compete for the overall championship: most vertical feet, most money raised, and most spirited.

To learn more about the Pink Chase click here…if you think you can take us down, click here and sign up

To donate to our team, Bunnies for Boobies, click here.

Thursday morning (post-swim) Jordan and I drove up to Aspen for a quick business trip.  The mountains were getting some snow and driving over Independence Pass was absolutely beautiful.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have our camera, so all I have is iPhone pics.  Though not great, they give you an idea of how amazing fall is in the Rockies:

Along 24 between Leadville and the turnoff for Twin Lakes.

Coming down Independence Pass into Aspen.

An aspen grove on the Western side of Independence Pass.

So much color!