The Long Christmas Post

Dave says: I finished a final paper just in time to send it off and jump in the car to head down to Cedar City. On the way, I stopped to buy some ski gear for Daniel (at the request of my mom) and to pick up Parker in Provo. The driving was only half over when we reached Cedar City as we hopped in with my parents and headed to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

The next morning (Friday, Dec 18th), we hiked down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon to Phantom Ranch. On the way out to see us off, my 85 year-old grandpa Ivan slipped on some ice and tore his hamstring. Fortunately, he is recovering quite well.

The trip to the bottom began in the snow as we headed down the Bright Angel trail. We had lunch at Indian Gardens where the snow was long gone and as we headed into the inner gorge, the temperature climbed up to the mid-50's. After a late start, we made it to the bottom with just enough daylight and didn't have to wait long before it was time to head to the mess hall for beef stew.

Going to the Grand Canyon with my family over Christmas is a longstanding tradition. It seems that we go at least once every three years and on this trip, we stayed in the same cabin that we rented two years earlier. The only missing member of the group was Alisha who unfortunately couldn't get a week off work to make the trip.

The next morning we took a day hike from Phantom Ranch up the Clear Creek trail to get some good views of the river and the inner gorge. Daniel and Katie spent the afternoon getting their junior ranger badges and I was glad to be a bit too old to participate. Breakfast was at 5:30 am the next day and we had to go back to the cabin afterwards for a bit to wait for the sun to come up. We hiked up the Kaibab trail at a slow, steady pace and arrived on the rim by the afternoon. On the way, we saw a big horn sheep that crossed the trail only a few feet in front of us.

Our timing was excellent as the weather turned colder and dumped snow during the night. The next day was like a blizzard outside and I spent the day at the visitor's center, the store, and back at the room playing Mario Kart DS with Daniel. I also played in the snow with Kaylee who is now two and a half and likes to knock down icicles from the roof and stomp on snowballs.

After a day inside, I was ready for some more adventure. Christine and Parker missed the first trip down to the bottom and wanted to do it as a day hike. We blazed down the Kaibab passing a mule train and plowing the way through fresh snow. After lunch at Phantom Ranch, Christine led us up the Bright Angel at a brisk pace.

We headed back to Cedar City on Christmas eve after Parker and I played a complex game of tetris figuring out how to load everything into the back of my parents' suburban. I arrived at Alisha's parents' house just in time for dinner and was excited to see Alisha after a whole week apart.

We are lucky to have parents living in the same place as we were able to spend Christmas in two places. Both families now have young children that are just starting to understand what Christmas is and are a lot of fun to be around. We also played a bunch of fun games with Alisha's family which has practically become a tradition at her house. Another delicious tradition is steaks for Christmas dinner. We drove home yesterday and I am now enjoying two more weeks off before school begins.

(Best picture of the trip: The Bezansons Unplugged!)

*Note: We sent out our Christmas card via email but discovered that some of the email addresses we have are old and don't work. If you didn't receive our card, it's because we don't have a current email address for you. If you would like to leave your email address as a comment we will make sure to send you a copy. Thanks!

Cross Training

Dave says: Does DDR count as cross training? I hope so because it has been unconscionably cold in SLC this week. On Saturday we never left the house and that is definitely a rarity. With temps in the 20's, I initially thought it might be a good day to bust out the MTB's to keep the speeds a bit low. However, as we were getting ready to leave the house, the snow started falling and whatever small bit of motivation I had to attempt a below-freezing ride was gone.

Instead I spent the day staring at the TV screen. First it was an hour and a half of DDR (which is still a lot of fun even if it's been around for awhile). Alisha said that I wasn't allowed to take a picture of her dancing in her pajamas for the blog. Then, I watched the first half of the Florida/Alabama football game while riding the trainer. Alisha was "watching" the game while listening to her Ipod to avoid too much commentary from me as I watched the Gators go down in flames. After a brief attempt at studying, I was pleasantly surprised to discover more football on television and watched Texas barely beat Alabama (whose defense got the team closer to scoring than their offense).

Alisha has already done some 3 hour blocks on the trainer which is tough stuff, even with the 2009 Tour de France on DVD. My own favorite form of torture is currently the 6-8 hour blocks of studying for finals in my chair by the window (writing this blog is today's break at hour 4).

However, last night we enjoyed a bit of respite as Alisha scored us Jazz tickets from a coworker and we watched the Jazz claw back from quite a deficit to beat San Antonio. We took a brief walk through Temple Square to see the lights on the way to the game. Today I awoke to several inches of new snow. From my chair, I am enjoying the occasional drama of a rear wheeled car unsuccessfully attempting to drive up our street. Right now the snow makes me a bit more happy. If I've got to sit in my chair for 8 hours, it might as well be a blizzard.

Thanksgiving

Dave says: We headed down to Cedar City last week for a great Thanksgiving full of food, family, and fun. This is an important time of year to remember all the things we are grateful for and the people we appreciate. We had thanksgiving dinner with Alisha's family at her Aunt Corinne and Uncle Rod. The food was awesome and included some tasty smoked meats from her Uncle Jim.

We also got to undo some of the Thanksgiving damage with some long rides in St. George. On Thursday, we went around Quail Lake and Sand Hollow before eating Thanksgiving dinner. Then, on Friday we rode from Coral Canyon out to Gunlock, Veyo, and back for a good four hours. On Saturday we met up with some of the Color Country Cycling Club for a ride out to Zion. As always, an "easy" ride with Lasse inevitably turns into a showdown. By the end, we were trying to rip each others legs off and I was absolutely fried after three big days.

I love the riding in St. George and miss the warm weather in the winter. We have been riding outdoors in SLC and it has been cold. We dodge patches of ice on the road but it is better than the trainer. Yesterday we did a loop out to Saltaire and the Great Salt Lake and we also frequently go up Legacy Parkway to Bountiful. However, today the temperature dropped down into the low 30's which is about as cold as we can go on the road bikes.

We also had a fun time seeing family on our Thanksgiving trip. All of the kids are growing a lot. The last time I saw Quinn he was a newborn and now Brody runs around the house and talks. We had some fun times playing hide and seek and banging on things. He particularly liked riding the horse when I tried to tip him off from side to side. As always, we also enjoyed hanging out with Wayne, Debbie, Shane, Mandy, Amber, and Devin.

Now we are back and into our usual routine. Alisha has been waking up at 5:30 to go to the gym. We go riding right when she gets off work at 2 pm and finish right as it is getting dark. I'm getting ready for finals which is always a busy time. Last night we took the young men and young women to see the Christmas lights at Temple Square. Since no one got lost or run over I'd say it was a moderate sucess (I only heard "I'd rather be playing basketball" about a dozen times).

Bat-O-Lanterns

Alisha says: This year for the Halloween pumpkin contest at work I decorated three mini pumpkins as bats.

Part of the Work Crew
Alisha (Pirate), Heidi (Flapper), Lynda (Graduate), Rosie (Caution Girl), Mary (Santa Clause)

On Halloween Tayler and I ended our ride at Wheeler Farm in time to watch the cross races. It was such a nice day and the races were really fun to watch because a bunch of the racers dressed up for the occasion.

Dave as Himself

Teammate Skunk Chantel

Baby Bart and Ali

Cross Dresser Clint

In other news: SLC got its' first snow storm in the valley last week and then this week it almost feels like summer again. Weird. In this picture I am wearing almost all of my cold winter gear and yesterday I rode Emigration without any arm or leg warmers, it was awesome!

Mud in My Teeth

(Thanks to MTBRaceNews for this great photo of Tom and I that seems to really capture the essence of this crazy race and for providing great coverage, as usual, despite the weather!)

Dave says: Dark clouds rolled in over last Saturday's cross race in Draper. However, the rain held off until 2:10 pm. Unfortunately, we started racing at 2:15 right as rain and hail began to dump. I got a good start and ended up behind Bart in 2nd when we hit the craziest part of the course. It was a downhill, off camber, slightly turning section where the mud made it like a sheet of glass. I literally held my breath and slid down it sideways without an incident (this time) while riders behind went flying (check out the huge glob of mud on Alex Grant's head).

It was a slop-fest where your bike sounded like it was about to break, your tires slid sideways in every corner, your sunglasses were so dirty that you couldn't see, and your hands were so cold and wet that you couldn't feel them. This is "real" cyclocross at it's best. I worked with Reed Wycoff for awhile in the middle of the race. His brakes were basically non-functional and I watched him slide out right in front of me. On the next lap, I went around him right before the tricky hill and then promptly crashed and dropped my chain. As a result, my face was covered with a little extra mud for the rest of the race.

The crash through off my groove as I slid out again a bit later. Near the end, I worked with my teammate Tom before he dropped me at the end and I took home 6th. I have mixed feelings about whether it was fun or not. On the one hand, it was one of the craziest races I've done. On the other hand, no one should ever be riding a bike under those conditions. Check out this sweet video of the race (which regrettably shows mainly pavement sections) and you'll get an idea of what cross is like.

Fall Break

Dave says: It was fall break this week and so Alisha wrote me a chore list to keep me busy. However, the weather was so nice that my list is only half done. Instead, we did a long ride on Monday (see previous post), and some hiking on Thursday and Friday.

Alisha took the rest of the week off the bike to rest up before her structured training begins again in November which meant that by the end of the week she was antsy to get outdoors. Our Thursday hike up Big Cottonwood Canyon took us up into the snow by Dog Lake. On Friday, we spent a couple hours on the shoreline trail by Red Butte Garden checking out the fall leaves.

Two long hikes right before a cross race is not a good idea but I don't take cx that seriously. Even worse was helping some friends move from their third story apartment on Saturday morning. I showed up at the race in Heber feeling as tired as if the event was already over. However, I managed to pull together a pretty good 60 minutes in a chase group of six following the two leaders. With about 2 of 9 laps to go, I noticed that my front tire had lost some air and was starting to roll on the corners. I was pretty tired anyways but had to back it off and lost my chance to sprint it out in the group. However, I was pleasantly surprised that things turned out decently well under the circumstances.

Exploring on Columbus Day

Dave says: I think a new Welsh family tradition will be to go explore somewhere new on Columbus day. We rode from Park City through Brown's Canyon, past Echo Reservoir, up and over to East Canyon, and back to Jeremy Ranch. It was a 70 mile loop with the last 10 miles on a pretty little dirt road that a road bike can handle. This is a very low traffic loop and we were passed by probably a dozen cars in 4 hours. We also had a blustery tail wind that put us up near 30 mph for about two hours of the ride. Of course, the other two hours were right into the wind at 14 mph but what can you do.