Westbound Boarder

As I train for the Salt Lake City Half Marathon (running has helped my snowboarding stamina immensely), I have been battling a nagging calve pain for the past few weeks. I think I have finally figured out what has happened. Here is my frustrating story…

When I started running longer distances (long for me at 5+ miles) in my year old shoes, my right foot started going asleep. Sever numbness DURING my run – so annoying. This I learned was because my right foot is a half size bigger than my left foot and my shoe was too small. Made perfect sense. The answer? Get a new pair of shoes. So I was fitted at the Salt Lake City Running Co. They watched me run on a treadmill and said that there is a small pronation and that I needed a more supportive shoe in the correct size. I thought that is what I was getting when I spent $150 for a pair of new Adidas.

After I got my new shoes, I went on a run in them immediately. Planning to go 5 miles in my new kicks – I could barely make it 3. I was experiencing new calve and ankle pain NEVER felt before. The next two days I paid for it (and three weeks later I still am paying for it). My inner calf/ankles were shot, sore and in so much pain – predominantly my left calf. So I called the running shop. They guy on the phone said that you should never, ever feel that much pain from a new pair of shoes and that theoretically, you can buy a new pair of running shoes and run a marathon in them the next day – the fit should be perfect. He said I needed a new pair and should come in and not run in these shoes I was JUST fitted in.

I went back to SL Running and the girl helping me said I needed a supportive shoe. I said that is what I have in my new Adidas I was just fitted in. Unknown to me that was not the case. For some reason the original looser fit me in NEUTRAL non supportive shoe – even though he told me I needed a supportive shoe. I am still so confused as to why this happened in the first place and pissed because I am now worried about my running progress as I train for the SLC Half Marathon

Anyway…I traded in the neutral Adidas and got a pair of supportive Brooks. At first I didn’t really like them because I was still experiencing the pain, blaming it on the shoes still since the pain was still there  (when in reality I had a growing injury). For two weeks I have been giving 2-3 days in between my runs because it takes that long for my calf pain to subside. I run again and then I am out for a couple of days. Call me crazy, but with the confusion of all of these shoes, I kept blaming it on my shoes. So I went for a long 6.6 mile run last night (because after two days rest my calf was feeling good) in my old Nikes, because the ONLY pain I ever felt in those was a numb right foot (what I would give for that to be my only problem now). My run in these shoes felt wonderful! I was convinced last night that these Nikes were the right shoe. No calf pain during my run – just some really annoying numbness in my right foot! Solution, just get a size bigger of these old shoes.

Well, I woke up this morning with my all too familiar calf pain. It was back – and with a vengeance. I could not believe it! So I immediately got onto the runners blogs and forms out there and it is quite clear what my problem is. I ran in a shoe that was not supportive enough and strained my calf. I knew it on that run with the Adidas that something was wrong (which is why I stopped 2 miles early). Anyway, I am super frustrated that this happened because I was fitted in the wrong shoe. Was the store just trying to promote the Adidas Boost – ironically it was the day the shoe launched when I got fitted? Why did he tell me I needed support and then give me a neutral shoe?

As frustrated as I am with the avoidable situation, I am now focused on recovery. It looks like since my pain is not constant, I have not torn my calf. However a strain is present and a combination of massage, a runners stick, ice and dreaded rest should do the trick. I just purchased a runners stick on Amazon, and will ice twice my calve twice a day for 10-15 minutes. When my leg feels better, I will run and see if the pain returns and know if my treatment is helping and reevaluate at that point.

Wish me luck and my word of advice is listen to your body on your run as these problems do not solve themselves.

We’re at Snowbird today in Utah, and while it’s a little wet out, it’s snowing hard and we’re having a blast! Here’s a photo of us going through the infamous tunnel.

But first, I have a funny story to share! (Keep in mind that I recently dyed my hair brown, so I can no longer blame this on a “blond moment”).  A couple weeks ago while getting ready to head out for a day of shredding at Whistler, I was telling Danielle about my awesome new pair of goggles – “I rode with them on the other day.  They fit well, they’re comfortable, and they’re stylish, but for some reason I can’t see totally clearly with them on.  It’s almost like they make everything foggy, in a sense – like there’s a film covering the lenses.”  As soon as the words came out of my mouth, it hit me.  I reached into the inside of the goggles and slowly pulled off a thin protective layer that had been covering the lenses.  I rode an entire day without even noticing it was there!  Anyway, moral of the story?  Don’t forget to remove your goggles’ protective layer before riding

But now the part of this post that you really care about – the giveaway.  A few weeks ago, Anarchy Eyewear sent me a pair of their new Deflekt goggles to try out.  Now, I’ve owned my fair share of goggles over the years (for some reason, I seem to go through at least 2 pairs per year, partly which I attribute to my ferret who has eaten the lining out of at least 3 pairs of them).  These days its not that difficult to find a good pair of goggles for a reasonable price, but I do have to say, I really liked the Anarchy Deflekt pair.  My favorite thing about them was the fit – sometimes, especially for women since many of us have smaller facial features then men, it can be tough to find a pair of goggles that actually fit well and are comfortable (without making us look like we’re wearing an oversized scuba mask).  These goggles, though, are very comfortable, and they’re cute too!  I love how the design uses so many colors because they match almost every snowboard outfit I have.  My only advice to Anarchy?  I’d tell them to make sure they put in big block letters “remove film before use” – you know, for people like me   (And I must note that the visibility was great once I did remove the film).  Otherwise, they make a pretty legit pair of goggles. And now one of you will have a chance to win a pair of your own!

The Giveaway: One lucky reader will win a pair of Anarchy goggles.

To Enter: There are four great ways to enter this giveaway, and you’ll receive one “entry” point for each way!  Using the entry form below, you can either comment on this blog post and tell us why YOU need a pair of Anarchy goggles, like Anarchy on Facebook, like Westbound Boarder on Facebook, and/or follow @WbBoarder on Twitter (and while you’re at it, send us a tweet and let us know why YOU deserve these new shades!)  Or you can do all four for extra entries.  The entry period will run from Tuesday, Feb. 19 and will close at midnight on Thursday, Feb. 28.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Have you ever experienced a face shot (get your minds out of the gutter). I am talking about on the hill, you know when the snow hits your face, blinds you and suffocates you when you turn your skis or board. This is a phenomenon caused by really light and deep snow.  Scientifically, light snow has very low moisture content (less than 7%). This is the type of snow you see in Utah, Colorado and Montana. If you are from the West coast the moisture content of your snow is upwards of 50%. So whats the big deal? Well if you are asking that you have never experienced the light, cold smoke of the inter-mountain West, and well if that is the case, I am sorry for you.

One resort known for their super light snow, is Bridger Bowl in Bozeman, MT. If you don’t know, Bridger Bowl is a flashback hidden gem of a ski resort outside of Bozo. One of our contributors, Rochelle who lives up there now was lucky enough to have a day off in the middle of a record storm. It was a couple of weeks ago it was literally puking snow up at Bridger and over a few days the storm brought over 52″ of cold smoke pow. Rochelle’s pictures speak for themselves.

We never let a year pass by without a snowboard trip and this year was no exception. Our good friend Cara works for Four Seasons and was able to score a killer room in the Blackcomb Village for basically free. Since Andrea lives in Seattle flying to her, to drive up to Whistler was a no brainier. So here we are at 8:45 am looking at the hill while it dumps snow! Not exactly…it is actually raining out. Boo. What can you do? We take this little trips each year and I never ever let the weather get to us. You never ever know what the weather will bring and you hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The bright side? It is supposed to clear up today and be sunny today and tomorrow. This means fast groomer days and more apres ski fun than if it was dumping out. And hey, I am OK with that.

I don’t want a burger, I don’t want a burger, I don’t want a burger.  Wait a minute, I think I read something about this once – the power of positive thinking?  I am craving a green juice, I am craving a green juice, I am craving a green juice.  There; does that sound better? On with day two of my Evolution Fresh juice ritual…

7am: Alarm went off, and as much as I would love to say I felt GREAT… I felt okay.  We’ll leave it at that.  Even though I got a full 8 hours of sleep, I do feel like my energy levels are a bit lower than normal this morning.  And, not gonna lie, I really want a cup of coffee.  Okay, so I did cheat just a little bit (again) and made myself another glass of Teavana matte tea, but at least I didn’t fully cave and have coffee, right?  Also, I can’t completely confirm the validity of this statement, but I heard that the reason you’re not supposed to have coffee while doing a juice cleanse is not actually because of the caffeine, but more so because of the acidity of coffee.  Soo, I figured with my little glass of matte, I’m fine.

8:30am: Normally, I don’t typically drink my breakfast (I have a green smoothie every morning) until I get to work (and after I have my second cup of coffee of the morning), but this morning I was STARVING!  As I was waiting for the elevators I actually felt like I was going to pass out.  So the first thing I did when I arrived to the office was bolt to the fridge so I could grab my breakfast.  After I downed my juice I felt satisfied, but still a little weak.

9am: I really want coffee.  Really.  In attempts to try and curb my craving, I went into the kitchen to grab a glass of green tea, and of course saw a group of coworkers all holding fresh cups of coffee (and one person was even pulling a few espresso shots, while another was streaming her milk).  Ah the agony!  I stayed strong though…

12pm: Just got out of a three-hour-long meeting (yes, three hours!) so after it was done I b-lined for the fridge to grab my second juice.  So far, so good today, although I have gone through points where I’m getting a tad bit light headed and dizzy.   And I’ve still had the off-and-on headache.  I can already tell that day 2 will be far worse than day 1…

2pm: Surprisingly, I don’t feel as hungry today as I did yesterday.  Although I have noticed slight food cravings that I didn’t experience yesterday.  After my 1pm meeting ended, I decided that it was time to eat my daily dose of almonds (I need at least some protein!) – I grabbed a small handful of about 4 almonds, and before I knew it (approximately 22 seconds later) I realized that the entire bag was gone.  I guess I gave in to my food cravings a little bit (buy, hey, at least it wasn’t a big, processed piece of cake!)

4pm: Remember my previous comment about not feeling hungry?  Throw that comment in the garbage!  I just opened up my fourth juice of the day – the Spicy Lemonade.  Despite the handful of almonds I ate a bit earlier (and I have a confession to make – I even opened up and stole a few from my portioned-out bag for tomorrow) I feel a lot worse today then I did at this time yesterday.  For the first time since before breakfast, I’m actually pretty hungry, but more than that my stomach just feels… empty (and kind of funky and waterlogged as a result).  Part of the reason I’m feeling this way could be because my afternoon has been pretty light on meetings (whereas yesterday I was rushing from one meeting to the next, so I didn’t really even have time to think about how I was feeling).  Or it could just be because today is day two, which apparently is the toughest for everyone to get through.  On the bright side, my coworker who sits next to me said he’s about ready to eat his arm off, and I guess I don’t feel that terrible.  That’s a bright spot, right?

8pm: Day 2 is almost over!  I got home from work around 6pm or so, and I was SO hungry (I didn’t have my fifth juice before leaving – saving that one for later) so I immediately made my daily kale, cucumber, tomato and avocado salad that our coach recommended.  Normally I try to wait until at least 7:30 to have dinner, but not tonight!  And I swear, my salad was at least double the size of the one I made last night (instead of using an over-sized bowl I used a gigantic tupper – I’m pretty sure this was NOT was our coach had in mind when she recommended we eat a “small” kale salad!)

Anyway, it’s already 8pm and the salad’s done a pretty good job of holding me over.  And (shoot!) I just realized I left some tea steeping in the kitchen that I started about an hour ago.  Well, so much for that.

Aside from being full, though, I DO have something to look forward to – Danielle arrives tonight! We’re headed to Whistler for a long weekend full of snowboarding, and I cannot wait!  Although I’ll probably b ea pretty grouchy driver during our 4-hour drive up to the mountain tomorrow (Daniele and Cara – if you’re reading this, don’t say I didn’t warn you!)

Now, off to clean my apartment, watch another episode of Downtown Abbey, then to the airport I go!  Day 3 is oh so close…

Today marked the first day of my Evolution Fresh juice ritual!  So far, so good.  I took a few moments throughout the day to jot down how I was feeling at different points, so read along and feel free to share your comments below!

7am: When Drew and I first wake up, Drew typically always makes a large French Press of Starbucks coffee. He fills his to go mug for him, leaving just enough in the press for me to have a small cup (roughly 8 ounces… you know, the size a true “cup” of coffee should be!) NOT this morning! I woke up as normal, but instead of drinking what was left in Drew’s French Press, I made myself a mug of Teavana matte tea (which actually has 100% of the caffeine that a normal cup of coffee has) – I’m not quite sure if this is cheating, but since I didn’t sleep particularly well last night, I felt like I needed it.  If not for me, at the very least, for the sake of my coworkers (who would have otherwise had to deal with the uncaffeinated version of me – not a pretty picture!)

11am: Juice #1 (Vital Greens), down; 5 more to go. Surprisingly, I’m not really that hungry yet, although this could be because I’ve already downed 3 cups of decaffeinated green tea. Hellooo bathroom! I’ll probably grab my second juice of the day (this time, an Evolution Fresh Sweet Greens mix) soon.

Noon: I’m freezing today!  I had no idea why (did someone turn the air up?), but then I overheard one of my cleansing coworkers saying that she wore her warm outfit today. In asking why, I learned that cleansing makes you really cold! When you’re feeding your body juice only, it doesn’t have to work as hard to digest everything, resulting in a loss of warmth. Good to know! Otherwise, I’m still going strong. I just finished my second juice of the day, and am nearly through my first gigantic mug of water.

4pm: Okay… who put cookies in the kitchen?! Cookies are my one and only weakness! Not only were there cookies at the office today, but there was also a bomb-looking cake to celebrate someone’s one year anniversary with the company, and I also saw various loaf cakes floating around after one particularly long meeting. Someone is trying to single-handidly derail me from this juice cleanse! Other than my slight sugar temptations, though, I just finished juice number 4 (a “hydrating” cayenne pepper lemonade mix) and I’m not feeling too bad! I did have a handful of almonds along with my third juice (which I had around 2pm) but fortunately almonds are allowed

6pm: I have a throbbing headache. I’ve actually had a pretty bad headache all day long, but right now it’s coming out in full force. It could simply be the aftermath of a day full of no coffee (addict, what?) or it could simply be my body flushing out its backlog of toxins.  Either way, I consider my headache a good thing! (It’s a good thing, it’s a good thing, it’s a good thing…)  On a more positive note, I’m not really even that hungry, and I’ve only finished 4 and a half juices (I was trying to down my fifth juice before leaving the office, but I wasn’t hungry!)

7:30pm: After running a few errands, I came back home and found I was starving!  Apparently Nordstrom can bring back any girl’s appetite   A few days ago, one of my coworkers sent around a few dinner suggestions for all us juicers.  Our options were a) drink another juice! (straightforward enough); b) drink a glass of nut milk; or c) make a salad with chopped, raw kale, tomato, cucumber, and avocado, drizzled with a little bit of olive oil and lemon juice.  I opted for the latter, and made myself a huge kale salad.  Even though the salad only contained veggies (I typically always add at least one grain to my salads to fill me up) I was very full after I finished.

10:00pm: After my amazing salad, I tried just to take it easy (although I did do quite a bit of cleaning and packing for my WHISTLER trip coming up this weekend!)  I finished two episodes of Downtown Abbey (I started watching this Sunday and am addicted!) hoping that my headache would subside.  Well, it didn’t (remember, the headache is a good thing!) but what I did notice is that, turns out, a simple kale salad wasn’t enough to hold me over.  I ended up downing the last half of my fifth Sweet Greens juice, and I’ll probably end up having a few more almonds before I go to bed to help me sleep (I hate trying to sleep with a grumbly tummy!)

Overall, despite the challenges, day 1 is down!  And though it wasn’t easy, it’s definitely not as bad as I thought it would be.  However, I have been told that day 2 is the worst… apparently I have a lot to look forward to.

Some call it a “juice ritual,” while some simply call it a “fast” – whatever you choose to call it, I’m hopping on the bandwagon, and tomorrow marks the day!

Even though we’re almost to February (can you believe it?!) a few coworkers and I decided we’d start the New Year out right by embarking on the Evolution Fresh juice ritual together (disclaimer: Evolution Fresh is owned by my employer, however the decision to start this cleanse was my own).  As part of the Evolution Fresh juice ritual, my coworkers and I will go three entire days with only having juice (we’re given 6 juices total), and the intended outcome of the cleanse is to rid our bodies of all the toxins and impurities we’ve accumulated over the years.

I’ve tried cleanses before in the past (I even had a short – and might I add, failed – stint with the Master Cleanse a long while back, which studies have since shown can do more harm than good for you).  However, I have never done a juice cleanse before.  I’m really excited to try it; I’ve talked to a lot of people who have done them in the past (my dad is a huge supporter) and I’ve heard really great things.  In fact, my former hair stylist juiced for an entire month and said she could have gone longer!  For me, I’m looking forward to totally cleaning out my internal system and starting afresh, but more importantly I’m excited to see if juicing lives up to the hype.  And it’s actually not the only having juice I’m dreading most – it’s the not having any coffee for three days part that scares me!  (Seriously, try telling a bunch of Starbucks employees they can’t have coffee!  Now that’s scary!)

Over the next couple of days, I’ll take a few moments to share my thoughts and how I’m feeling – although I’m warning you, who knows what uncaffeinated Andrea will say or do…

Wanted to escape the Park City crowds yesterday, so we opted for Solitude. If you just want to ride hard and don’t mind not having a terrain park for the day, Solitude is where it is at. No lines, a playground of terrain and great ticket prices. Check ‘em out!!!

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