Tuesday, May 27, 2014

College before/after

The past four years of my life here in Colorado have been a blast.  While my personality may not have changed much - I arrived a hockey player and now kinda enjoy swimming, biking and running.
The past month and a half has been pretty busy. This post serves to be a recap of some recent events and shows some before/after pictures.

Engineers are required to work on a senior design project to gain experience in real-world applications.  During the last month of school, we finished an 80 page report and presented our project to a range of audiences: from 10 year old girls to practicing engineers.  

Freshman dorm on move-in day and four years later, post graduation

 Senioritis made finding motivation to work on projects and study difficult during those last few weeks.  But we made it!


Last weekend my family was able to come out to Fort Collins to celebrate graduation.  Seeing everyone again was great!  We have some things in common...Upon arrival, my parents took off for the pool while my brother, sister and I headed to the gym.


My four years at CSU have flown by.  Moving into the dorms freshman year doesn't seem that long ago.  The next step for me will be graduate school at CSU where I will work towards a master's degree in civil engineering.  I'm excited to continue living here in Fort Collins.



Go Rams! (Left: post graduation, right: touring CSU in 2010)
Instead of staying at a hotel, our parents rented a house via VRBO...which made hosting a grad party easy.  Thanks to all the tri-team people and others who showed up, once again confirming that no amount of food is too much for triathletes. 


With more races around the corner, I've been stringing together some solid weeks of training with the help of the endurance community in the area.  We've had some great group rides up to Estes Park.  My main focus has been on longer workouts in preparation for Boulder 70.3 which is in mid-June.  In order to stay hydrated, I've been making sure to use Skratch on longer rides and in between workouts.  Being correctly hydrated has made workouts much more enjoyable.  On another Skratch note, I got a rice cooker and that thing is awesome!

A group headed up to Estes 
Same ride, 3 years apart. (Spring 2011 vs spring 2014)  Fort Collins - Estes - Trail ridge. Yes that's a rack on the old bike.  
Thanks EMJ, Louis Garneau for the kit that kept me warm and comfortable at 12,000 ft!
This weekend I raced Pelican Fest Triathlon in Windsor, Colorado. Being able to sleep in your bed the night before a race is terrific.  The race was sprint-distance triathlon that had a low-key, fun environment and supported a great cause with Athletes in Tandem.   Since the last time I raced was at Collegiate Nationals (over a month ago) I was excited to get back a race-day routine.  


1st at Pelican Fest triathlon. Thanks Eric for the photo.
I'm grateful I was able to get some small mistakes out of the way (hopefully) because summer is shaping up to be busy.  I was also able to race in the Team Every Man Jack kit for the first time, sharp-looking and comfortable.  The next couple events for me are Escape from Alcatraz and Boulder 70.3.  

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

1 comment:

  1. "humiliating" before and after photos? you look exactly the same! and the bike rack isn't humiliating, it's badass. I saw a guy towing a cooler up and 6,000 ft. climb yesterday, think he was humiliated?

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