Coach Cary's Blog
Thoughts, Opinions & Inspiration
Introducing Stella! And Paddleboarding with Puck Take 2.
Meet Stella. Mark built her for me and she is so beautiful it was hard to get her dirty the first time (ok, not that hard). Don’t let her looks deceive you though, Stella is one tough chick. And thanks to me she already has the scars to prove it. Let me explain. It...
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The Circus is Back in the Butte
We arrived back in Crested Butte Monday, just in time for the 4th of July holiday madness. The lack of fireworks did not dampen anyone’s exuberance for the Crested Butte 4th of July celebration. After running the Gothic to Crested Butte 1/3 marathon with Alexis (and 2...
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The Dynamic Duo Takes on Trail Maintenance
Years ago, we co-adopted several trails with one of my oldest and dearest friends and her father (also a dear friend). They lived up near us in Fraser back then and had recently lost Mary, mother and wife, to cancer. Being avid trail users, we adopted several of our...
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Montana: A quick trip home and an 18 mile suffer fest.
I’m writing this from Missoula, Montana where I am visiting my Dad for the weekend. When I was planning this trip, I “noticed” there was a 30K trail race in Bozeman on Saturday. It seemed logical that I would combine that with my visit home. Right? The Old Gabe 30...
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Puck + SUP = A lot of laughter
I realize the above photo has nothing to do with stand-up paddle boarding, but it was difficult to take photos on our adventure today. I figure I can’t go wrong with cute Puck + Bandit photos. So…today I attempted to paddleboard with Puck. It didn’t go well but I...
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It’s all about attitude.
I’m not talking about throwing shade, copping an attitude or whatever the cool kids call it these days. I’m talking about a general attitude toward life and toward sport. This past weekend I flew to Chicago to be a volunteer coach (i.e. coach in training) at the...
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Slightly delayed recap of my week in Colorado Springs. & respecting recovery
I spent the week of May 14th in Colorado Springs (at the Olympic Training Center!!) for the USAT Paratriathlon Coaching Certification Clinic. It was an amazing week. I love coaching – for my coaching brain, every athlete is a unique puzzle to figure out – but pursuing...
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Happy Mother’s Day! & A week at the Olympic Training Center.
First things first: Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. Puck and I celebrated Mother’s Day (hey, dogs and cats count) with an early morning trail run in Fraser. At the start, I was cranky (poor sleep) and he was snotty (forgot to poop). But about a mile down...
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5 days in Santa Barbara! & Cary’s rookie navigation mistake.
Hello from beautiful Santa Barbara. Ok, it’s actually overcast and muggy at the moment, but it has mostly been beautiful for my stay. I arrived Saturday. My trip has been a mix of athlete meetings, mountain biking, and a secret project I will tell you about later....
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St. George & Fruita trip recap in two words: NEW TOY!
I’m sorry I haven’t written. My days were busy: Run with Puck. Bike with Mark. Post ride coffee and snack (occasionally post ride beer). Afternoon third coffee. Dinner. Repeat. We had a great trip. We started off in St. George for a week. I say St. George, but the...
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St. George, Utah: Falling in love with a new mountain bike.
Hello from sunny St. George, Utah. Mark, Puck and I are in St. George for a week. We are here to mountain bike after hearing so much about the trails. What I have learned on this trip: St. George (or more accurately, Hurricane, which is about 30 minutes from St....
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Puck’s first post: PLEASE SOMEONE CALL THE SPCA!
Hi, this is Puck. My Mom told me I could write whatever I wanted for my first post. Boy is she going to be mad when she reads this. A few things you should know about me: I’m a little OCD. I can’t help it. Sometimes I fixate on things, like annoying snow stuck to my...
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Salida Part 2: It’s not windy! But it IS snowing.
I’m sure glad we camped at the start of this trip. As cold and windy as it was, it was dry. This morning we woke up to snow. Not to be deterred, we headed out to the trails for a run. The soil is quite sandy, so it was not muddy at all. It is lovely to run in falling...
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Fun in Salida… with a little side of misery.
I am writing this from the warm, heated space of our Airbnb. Heaven. Our first camping trip wasn’t a glowing success. Puck seems to have mostly forgiven me; but it was one of those times I was glad he hasn’t figured out how to call the SPCA. I had been worried about...
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Puck and I embark on a new adventure!
We are ready for spring. The lack of snow has created one long mud season here and we are just over it. So tomorrow Puck and I will head to Salida! To camp. Just the two of us. I like to think I can be pretty brave in new situations. And I grew up backpacking with my...
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I may be ready to call myself a runner again.
Not a fast runner. Or a long-distance runner. But still a runner. I started running about a year before I started business school. That was 20 years ago. Holy moly, 20 years ago?! It wasn’t love at first run, far from it. I was a smoker, I worked a lot, I partied a...
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Why you should care about your run cadence. And what to do about it.
If you have been following my return to running, you have heard me talk about improving my cadence. You may have wondered why I care so much about this number. In a perfect world, we would all diligently start each run with a nice long warm up followed by 15 minutes...
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Dogs: The secret to happiness.
I’ve been remiss. Sorry. I don’t have anything all that exciting to report. But I’m going to report anyhow. It has been a good week. My friends have been out of town, so I have taken Frank and Edgar out with me and Puck every day. On some of the days, we grab Bandit...
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