Lack of Posts

Sorry for the lack of posts.  I have crew everyday after school along with homework so my hands are tied.  My posting might become a little less consistent.  Sorry Guys:(!

 

Ten Useful Websites to Make Life Easier

I have compiled a list of 10 websites providing great information or a service.  These are in no specific order.  They are just top ten not ranked in order of preference.

www.humyo.com

Provides 10 GB of free space.  Perfect if you are running out of memory on your computer.

www.aviary.com

A great site for remixing and editing music.  Great for if your serious about your mixing or just playing around

www.bubbl.us

A great site for brainstorming and making “mind maps”

errorlevelanalysis.com

For when you get that cool picture from a friend and are not sure if it’s photoshopped.  This site analyzes photos and will tell you if its real or not.

www.flightstats.com

Waiting to pick up a friend from the airport?  This site will show you the current status of the flight so you wont be waiting hours in the airport.

gasbuddy.com

Check the latest gas prices right from the comfort of your home.

www.citrify.com

Great for editing photos.  You can whiten teeth,erase blemishes and wrinkles.

www.boxoh.com

Anxious to receive a shipment?  You can check the status of your shipment with this site.

www.dabbleboard.com

Perfect for brainstorming, this site is a virtual whiteboard that you can use for a multitude of things!

www.wolframalpha.com

Wolframalpha is a great site.  You can get answers to math problems, look up dates in history and see the history of your name.  This site is awesome!

 

Add links to any additional sites you think are coll in the comments.

Womens World Cup GS

Today I had the pleasure of going to the Womens World Cup in Aspen.  Today the women raced GS.  Two americans advanced to the final containing 30 skiers.  Julia Mancuso who came in 4th for the qualifier and Lindsey Vonn who came in 20th at the qualifier.  Vonn has not had such great success at the GS and is more of a downhill skier but she did get her first GS win this year.  

Sorry for the crappy photo quality, I had to use my phone.  I do have Videos but for some reason WordPress won’t let me upload it!

Anyways Julia Mancuso came in third place and Lindsey did not quite make the podium.  At one point Vonn was in third and the girl coming down looked like she could beat Vonn.  She ended up in 4th place losing to Vonn by 1 one-hundreth of a second!  Now there were still racers to go so they did not get third and 4th place but it was fun to see!  Mancuso was in second until the last racer was going. We knew she was going to get the podium no matter what because there was only one more racer to go. Mancuso ended up getting third place!  The U.S has not made the podium at that race since 2005.  The race was filled with happiness and tears.  Some falls ruined some dreams and opened up others.  All in all congrats to all the racers!

The womans world cup is tommorow and I have been very busy so sorry for the lack of posts .  I will be attending the womans skiing world cup tommorow so expect a detailed post on the race with some good pictures!

Breaking the 60 mph Barrier

This post has to be short because I am very busy so I am sorry for the shorter post.  Today was the first day of my ski season and I decided to try out this app I got called SkiTracks.  This app tracks your runs down the mountain and gives you data on it.  This includes max speed, average speed, distance travelled, elevation lost and many other things.  Since it is the start of the season the snow is not particularly soft.  There is a lot of man-made snow and no powder.  This makes for some fast skiing conditions.

It was opening day for Aspen Mountain and there were not to many people.  There is a certain run called Spar Gulch which is groomed and somewhat steep.  It is long so you get a while to build up your speed.  Anyways I always love bombing down this run.  Today I went down it like I have in past seasons but probably a little faster than normal because I wanted to see how fast the app said I went.  At the base of the mountain I checked the app and I had gone 60.2 mph!!  That amazed me.  Now of course I was not going this fast for very long but still…60.  My first thought was no way I am 5 foot 4 inches 110 pounds, I couldn’t go that fast.  It turns out that the app is very accurate and I really did go that fast.  The only problem is that since I can now see my speed I will constantly want to make it faster.  I have a feeling this will eventually lead to a trip to the hospital.

Hopefully that does not happen because I would be pissed if I missed a ski season.  I wish all of you great seasons and make them injury free.  Oh and by the way, Happy Thanksgiving!!  Tell us about any cool ski stories you have in the comment section.

How To Run Pain Free

Many people are unfortunate enough to experience pain while running.  This can end your run for the day or even months.  There are some simple things you can do to prevent injury while running.  I will give a list of things you can do to reduce your injury rate drastically.

Form

Proper form is key if you want to get rid of pain while running.  Make sure you have light footsteps and do not land on the heel of your foot, rather land on your mid-foot.  This will most definitely take some getting used to.  This can save you from pain in the knee.  Slamming your heel into the ground will cause pain in the kneecap whereas light steps on the mid-foot are much less stressful to bones.  Standing up straight is also good to do while running.  This probably will not alleviate any pain but it will help your running.  This is my go to site on how to have proper form.

Warm Up

Before every run you should go on a very light, slow, warm up.  This should be around a half a mile but it depends on your workout.  The warm up is essentially just to get the juices flowing and loosen your muscles so you don’t strain them during the workout.  Only after the warm up should you stretch.  The stretching will be much more beneficial to you if your muscles are warmed up and loose.

Stretching

A lot of people probably roll their eyes when I say this but it is so important.  I cannot say that enough.  You must stretch before all your runs and do some stretching after.  Before your runs get your hamstrings, quads, calves and any other parts that are sore.  When you stretch it should come after the warm up but we are still getting to that.  Stretching will prevent pulled muscles and also can help alleviate knee pain.  If you experience pain on the side of your knee you might have a tight IT band.  The IT band is the outside of your leg.  A great way to get rid of knee pain is to use a foam roller on your IT band.  I had some knee problems this year and with a few days of rolling I was good as new.  Stretching will also increase your range in motion, which will increase your efficiency as a runner.

Common Sense

You can save yourself from a week of injury from taking a day off.  Common sense is key when preventing injury.  Know your limits and don’t push yourself to far.  If you start to feel pain make sure you ice when you get home and either take it easy the next day or just don’t run.  For you beginner runners make sure you ease into distance.  You don’t just want to start running 30 miles a week with no training.  Slowly inch your way up to the desired mileage.  Patience is key, add a few miles to your weekly distance each week. E.g. 10 miles week 1, 15 week 2 and so on.

I hope all of you find this helpful and have an injury free running career.

A Different Point of View

With our very busy lives we rarely get the opportunity to sit back and observe our scenery and how cool the world is.  I would like to show some photos, some mine, some of the internet, that show how beautiful the world is.

Beautiful view of the Milky Way

I found this on the internet.  It is a long exposure shot.

I took this while on a backpack.  The sun is setting.

Another long exposure shot with some rocks in the foreground.

This is a mountain I took a picture of while backpacking in Colorado

I found this on the internet.  Very cool editing.

Once more I took this while backpacking in Colorado.  We are on a peak looking at the other peaks.

I took this on a hike in July!  It was a very long snow field that we glaciated down.

I found this on the internet.  I think it is the Grand Canyon but do not hold me to that.

I took this while on a hike we started at 2 am.  This is above tree line at around 5:30 am.

I hope you enjoyed some of the photos I found and took.  Some of these were found using StumbleUpon.  I hope you enjoyed some of the pictures and realize what a cool place we live in!