First Snow

Winter has begun in Leysin. This first photo was from a night ascent in Leysin on a Friday in November. The powder was amazing! Unfortunately, we've been in a drought of snow here recently, but we're talking with Ullr hoping that he'll bring us more snow soon.


These are some views of the Matterhorn in Zermatt. I spent the first weekend in December in Zermatt. Cold, but good snow and beautiful views.


















These photos are from a morning ascent of the piste in Leysin. I saw the sun rise over the snow capped mountains. Also amazing that morning was the inversion...check out the clouds that were lower than me.

Nice & Barcelona

Recently, I've been keeping quite busy...On November 14th I ran the Nice Maritimes Marathon in (Nice) France. I hadn't run for three out of the last six weeks before the race due to tendonitis in my foot. I went in to the race hoping to finish it. My competitive side really wanted to beat my best time (3:45), but given the circumstances, I was satisfied with my 3:48 finish.

It was a hectic start...We went to the train station at 6:15 in Juan Les Pins. The train, as is typical of French trains, was 25 minutes late. When it arrived, it was full....not room for a single person. Three of the five runners in our group, including myself did not get on the train. Thankfully a second eventually came, but it arrived in Nice 20 minutes before the race! By the time we trekked to the start, it was 7:50, ten minutes before race start. I never got to warm up because I was waiting in the bathroom line for 25 minutes. (They moved the start to 8:15.) When I was entering the bathroom, they announced that there was less than one minute before race start. Maybe the lackof warm up has something to do with my quads sinching up at km 25!! Or how about the fact that I couldn't go down stairs without a hand rail for two days and even worse, not being able to get up off the toilet seat for four days! I kept my ski poles in the bathroom to help with that process.

Tiffany (not running), Todd, me, Ian, Krysten and Mike...pre-race, waiting for the train


Mike and Todd got on the train. The rest of us were not so lucky...


Hustling through Nice heading the race start...despite the train troubles, we kept smiling.


Franatically de-clothing and vaseline-ing


Old Town Nice




Krysten, me and Todd, post race at the bus stop heading to the airport. Congrats to Todd who ran the race in 3:13


Krysten and me at the Nice airport


Medals for our finish




BARCELONA

I had a long weekend in November meaning one Friday with no school. I flew out to Barcelona on Friday morning, the weekend after the marathon and stayed there through Sunday. Spain is great. One of my favorite countries. This was my second time in Barcelona and it solidified the fact that it is my favorite city in Spain.

of course, La Segrada Familia at the heart of Barcelona

Saw some Gaudi architecture. Here, the outside of one of the apartment buildings that he designed. His work continues to amaze me.






The rooftop balcony on the apartment. This was one of the chimneys










A look from the outside, street-side


Gaudi even made furniture. This was one of my favorites.









On the street




Out for Tapas




La Boqueria (market) on Saturday morning








Yes, those are real animals and real eyes








Again, real pig, real eyes, yes, in the frig wearing a red hat on display for everyone


Walking along on Las Ramblas












View of Barcelona from the high park




In the Gaudi Park