This guy will be in Motherlode next year ... anyone need a partner?

Want to watch some seriously awesome vball this weekend? Here’s the scoop:

Thursday Sept 2: Men’s Seniors and Women’s Masters play, with the finals at 6pm at Koch Lumber park.
Friday Sept 3: Men’s Masters play at Koch Lumber park. Co-ed divisions play, with the finals at 6pm at Wagner park.
Saturday Sept 4: Men’s and Women’s Open begin play at 8am. Men’s A, BB and B, and Women’s A, BB, B begin play at various locations in Aspen at 9am. Men’s Masters final rounds begin with finals scheduled for noon Koch Lumber park.
Sunday Sept 5: Men’s Open, A, BB and B, and Women’s Open, A, BB, B continue play at various locations in Aspen. *Grass start times contingent on player check-in and park conditions.
Monday Sept 6: Amateur finals at Koch Lumber Park grass court; Men’s and Women’s Sand Open finals at Koch Lumber Park Sand Courts

Amateur Championships – Koch Lumber Park Grass Court

• 9am – Women’s B
• 10am – Men’s B
• 11am – Women’s BB
• noon – Men’s BB
• 1pm – Women’s A
• 2pm – Men’s A

Beach Championships (Pros) – Koch Lumber Park Sand Courts

This is some seriously awesome volleyball, sand and grass, so make sure if you’re around you at least stop by for one game!

I want to be good enough to play …

I’m seeing it tonight. After happy hour where I plan on trying some new Thirsty Planet beer.

Yep, Austin has a new brewery–Thirsty Planet–that has three beers: a super-hoppy Buckethead IPA (I won’t be trying that), a 50/50 barley/red wheat Yellow Armadillo, and a malty Thirsty Goat Amber. Part of the proceeds from each beer go to different charities.

Then, tomorrow we’ll head to Salutation Nation free yoga at 9am for a nice streeeeetch before celebrating the Grand Opening of SicFit Austin, CrossFit Central’s underground training facility (“the next level”). BBQ, beer, and good cheer starts at 2pm.

Sunday I’m hoping for brunch.

They say: Salutation Nation is not a revolution. We are not out to change the world in one hour. If one person laughs; if two people meet for the first time; if a group of friends starts a Saturday morning bonding on their mats before breakfast, Salutation Nation will be a success. Whether you have a daily practice or have never practiced at all, everybody and every body can do yoga! What better way to celebrate this fact than to take your asana outside on August 7th and do some yoga with a few thousand people across the continent?

Want to get your downdog on? Check out the Salutation Nation Facebook event page. For a list of all locations doing Salutation Nation, click here.

Austin’s Salutation Nation will be at 9am at Festival Beach. Christina Sell will be leading an all-levels flow class. Don’t forget BYOM (Bring Your Own Mat) and lululemon will bring the food and prizes!

No word on any Salutations in Colorado. Maybe they do enough yoga already?

That might be an overstatement. I’m getting decent, like where people might actually pass me the ball and not expect an immediate turnover.

Nali, however, thinks I’m fantastic.

1) Bleeker Street Gym

Of course it doesn’t have a website, because this is the bodybuilder’s gym where all the meatheads go, and they’re way too legit for that. Honestly, the gym is crowded with equipment, bodybuilding photos line every inch of wall space not consumed by mirrors (there’s not even a place for me to kick up for a handstand pushup), and it’s so low-tech that you sign in upon entry. Literally, on a piece of paper, with a pen–sign in. But Joe, the owner, is friendly and tough, and the clientele are mostly the same. It’s a good, solid gym and it’s definitely the cheapest in town.

It’s in Obermeyer Place – since there’s no website, you’ll have to just drop by. This town continues to amaze me with its low-tech lifestyle.

2) Aspen Club & Spa

Let’s not lie: I can’t afford to join the Aspen Club & Spa. It’s tailor-made for Aspenites, the kind of Aspenites that give Aspen its reputation: they fly in on private planes, take private Pilates lessons, eat at private dinner clubs, and want private hot tubs and steam rooms in their private gym, assuming it’s not in their private home. Naturally, the allure isn’t in the PRIVACY inasmuch as the exclusivity possessing privacy declares.

Anyway, I occasionally weasel my way in to the Aspen Club & Spa because I actually like the people who work there, and I enjoy working out in the brightly-lit, double-high-ceilinged main gym floor, despite the fact that I have to share the elbow room of my olympic lifting space with the bench press. The facilities are top-notch and both classes and personal trainers are plentiful. It’s really a destination, complete with spa, salon, and cafe.

3) Jean-Robert’s Gym & JR’s Gym Downstairs

The multi-level gym has very different personalities. The top, Jean-Robert’s Gym, is upscale, sleek, shiny, with all-red equipment, wood floors, and lots of windows. They have the latest in cardio equipment (including one of those crazy treadmills that doesn’t put stress on your knees), naturally, and all the weights match. I didn’t see anyone working out while I was up there.

I took my workout down to JR’s, the windowless literal basement of a gym that used to be the Aspen Athletic Club. It’s a maze of multiple layers with equipment crammed in where it can fit, but I had room to weightlift and they had a rower, so my CrossFit self was happy. The people down there were there to get in and get out–not unfriendly, but no sense of camaraderie. The most remarkable thing to me was the two-lane lap pool, whirpool, and–get this–ice bath! The only gym I’ve ever been to that had an ice bath. You bet I enjoyed it, until I realized I could just go get in the river by my house to ice my poor sore self (see: me, broken, after the half marathon I ran recently).

And there you have it, folks. The three gyms in Aspen. There are some other boutique personal training gyms (like the one with the owner who told me he was too expensive for me–without me asking a single question), but these are the main “box” gyms!

But unless you’re purely out for the fitness, once is enough I think.

After a little over 3,000 vertical feet ad right at an hour and 45 minutes, Nali and I reach the top! We’re pictured here at Sundeck, where undoubtedly less tired people relaxed all around us with glasses of wine or cups of water. At the top of Aspen Mountain, which you can ride the gondola up to for free if you had a season ski pass or about $24 if you didn’t, you can play frisbee golf, hula hoop, kids do kids rope courses, somewhere there’s some sort of giant swing … it’s a veritable playground at the top of the mountain.

But let’s begin at the beginning, that is, at the bottom, where Nali and I walked straight up from the gondola, straight up Ajax, aka Aspen Mountain. Staying to the right of the gondola, you pretty much walk straight up a really, really steep road for about an hour. I naturally walked on my toes up the steep stuff, but tried to go heel-toe to alleviate some of the achilles pressure.

Wearing Vibram Five Finger shoes, with their minimal soles, was an interesting choice–I’m glad I wore them, but the trail was much rockier than I remembered. All was good until I accidentally walked in some mud, making the Vibrams wet, causing a blister to rub on the bottom of my foot.

Aspen Mountain from the Gondola

At Ajax Express lift, the trail sort of dissipates and you’re left to your own devices on getting to the top. I alternated between going up under Ajax Express and the main gondola, indecisively deciding that each path was better when I was on the other–the grass is, literally, always greener. When we were almost to the top, I realized I had lost Nali’s leash somewhere along the way.

Being resourceful, I attached the end of the ski pole I had found to her collar and walked her on a ski pole. I wish I had a picture. No one even blinked, like it’s normal to be walking a dog by a ski pole. Nali, being skittish, naturally freaked out. The guys up at Sundeck found me a rope and tied her a leash, and we rode the gondola down.

Nali stares out over the terrain we just climbed

She’s not afraid of the gondola as much anymore! YAY!

There are people who hike this once a week, and I think they must be doing it for fitness, to get in shape. There are so many amazing hiking trails with stunning vistas and lakes and ponds that Aspen doesn’t seem like the best hike … then again, reaching the top IS a pretty freakin’ awesome feeling of accomplishment, and there’s plenty to do there …

Anyway, we came home and laid by the pool the rest of the afternoon. All in all, a wonderful Aspen Saturday.

Yoga Workshop Schedule (full schedule here) … I’m just listing the classes with Aaron, my instructor at King Yoga, who I LOVE and who trains Lance Armstrong, so even if I didn’t ALREADY think so, he must be badass.

1) YoGroove Yoga: Aaron King and Amy Baker with the music of Cameron Williams

Nest Patio & Pool, FRIDAY, 5-6pm

YoGroove- Vinyasa flow class that infuses Live Guitar by Cameron Williams and Heartfelt Rocking Yoga by Amy Baker and Aaron King.  An all levels sequence of yoga asanas to the sweet grooves of a guitar creates a healing positive vibration in the mountains of Snowmass, Colorado. This class is a Donation based yoga class. All Welcome!

2) Rhythm Sanctuary Dance Party (FREE)

Nest Patio & Pool, FRIDAY, 6pm

3) Yoga for Cyclists: Aaron King

Salon 1m SATURDAY, 12:30-1:30pm

An hour of yoga designed to maximize your strength and flexibility and breathe while cycling.  This class will focus on opening our hips and heart through a specific sequence of poses to release tightness from riding alot. All levels welcome.

Tickets for the whole weekend are $80, individual classes/sessions are available for as little as $25.

Things I signed up for today: the Aspen Valley Half Marathon.

Things I haven’t trained for: the Aspen Valley Half Marathon.

Things I am nonetheless excited about? You got it. The race is almost all downhill, on easy gravel terrain, and it’s going to be a gorgeous, cool Saturday morning (at the ungodly hour of 7am, but I digress). I’ve been itching to run lately, so I figured why not? The most I’ve ever run before is 12 miles, and that was in crazy hilly Austin, so surely I can do 13, right?

This is the inaugural event for the Aspen Valley Marathon, a 13.1 mile half marathon from Woody Creek to Basalt following the beautiful paved Rio Grande Trail. The organizers intend to host a full marathon and half marathon on the same weekend in 2011 and it is hoped that the 2011 Aspen Valley Marathon will be a ‘Boston qualifying event’. Times should be super fast with the downhill!

Deets:

Saturday, July 10, 2010 @ 7:00am (ha!) / Jaffee Junior Park to Basalt Lions Park.

Fees: $50 until July 8th, 2010, $60 thereafter.

Course:

The course starts at the Jaffee Jnr. Park on the banks of the Roaring Fork river one mile South of Woody Creek just outside Aspen. The start of the course takes runners up an incline and out of Woody Creek Canyon for approximately the first half mile where the course meets the paved Rio Grande Trail and heads steadily down valley towards the town of Basalt. Please note that you should park at the Intercept Lot at Brush Creek & 82. We will bus all participants from intercept lot to start of event.

Um, is anyone else crazy enough in Aspen to join me in a random half marathon?!

[UPDATE] A gchat with my friend Lisa revealed that I’ve actually run 12 miles TWICE!
Lisa: your blog made me laugh….i wanted to post “do you remember what happened when you ran those 12 hilly austin miles??!!!”
but i know the situation was way different
me: hahaha
what happened?
I remember it being fine!
Lisa: you almost died!
me: (selective memory)
Lisa: you were on that cleanse
me: oh that was a different 12 miles!
I totally forgot about that!!

It was a terrible, awful, no-good cleanse where I couldn’t eat any carbs, not even veggie carbs, so I was grouchy as all get out, lethargic, and when I tried to run 12 miles, I had to stop and sit down by the side of Town Lake, then walk like three miles home. I tried to hitchhike home it was so bad. That won’t happen again!!

Saturday you can start the day out with the first annual Great Austin Beer Fest (4-8pm), then head to the 5K Keep Austin Weird Run at 7pm, or just to the party afterward.

Great Austin Beer Fest

… sounds awesome! Local faves (512), Independence, Shiner, St. Arnold, plus some nationwide microbrews (VT’s Magic Hat, Portland’s Deschutes, both breweries I’ve been to and beers I enjoy), full brewery list available here. Tix for the thang are almost sold out, cost $40, and according to the facebook page comments include samples of as many of the 41 breweries as you want … erm … Great Austin Beer Festival

Keep Austin Weird Fest

Always an Austin special time. The Fest starts at 2pm and goes on through the race time (7pm) with headliners Bright Light Social Hour playing at 8:30pm. Costumes are the big deal during this day/race, the latter which includes such unorthodox water stops as ones with Amy’s Ice Cream. There’s tons of food and a big party before AND after the race too.

It’s a National Forest, so dogs have to be on leash the whole time. Nali carried her food and water bowl:

Reward for the grueling hike:

Yes, please. Then, camping!

Fire + bison hot dogs!

So Nali didn’t run away and get eaten by a mountain lion:

Hiking out the next morning too early:

Gorgeous!

Getting down was quick. If you’re looking for a hike in Aspen, it’s definitely a gorgeous one, and you get to go through Aspen forests, up some rocky mountainside, over some switchbacks, and to the lake. I’d bring hiking poles, I know I need to invest in some. And next time we want to get to Electric Pass–just past Cathedral Lake but up to 13,600 feet!!