Between Seasons

The average November rainfall for Vancouver is 181 mm (7 inches) when measured at the airport.  Although, this hasn’t been a record setting month, we surpassed that amount by the middle of the month this year.  The mountains get snow with one storm and rain with the next.  The sun rises at 7:30 am and sets again just past 4 pm.  Rain and dark.  The time of the year that recreational cycling is passed by in favor of yoga,  cooking, drinking beer, reading in front of the firplace and giving nightly hommage to the snow gods for an early season.

Our marriage has given Scott a reason to ditch the board and take up skiing.  His second day ever on skis was at Cypress Mountain.  Home of Freestyle Skiing and Snowboarding for the 2010 Olympics.   

Scott had a lesson in the morning while I tried to find my tele-legs (I’m still looking for them).

We convened for a beer with a view of the grandstands for the Olympic venue.

The following weekend, Scott took skate skiing lessons while I nursed a corporate Christmas party hangover (I think it was the taxi ride that did me in…I don’t get hungover when we ride home from downtown). 

We went out for another snow fix on Sunday and my first day skating this year.  We’re still getting Scott’s skate gear dialed in.  His boots don’t work with the bindings on his Craig’s List skis, so he’s been renting skis.  Scott is doing great and I think another couple of days skating and he’ll have it down.  Now we just have to wait for the lit night skiing to start!

November was also to be our 30 day yoga challange.  A very simple agreement to practice asanas regularly.  I did my yoga teacher training in 2002 at the wonderful Salt Spring Centre have a collection of classes in my files so we could practice at home and not spend $20 each on a drop-in class!  After only 2 years of dabbling in endurance cycling, I felt like a normal person.  It was very humbling to have so many asanas no longer accessible!

We were on a really good track until my unfortunate incident with the agressive driver during an evening commute.  Scott had noticeable improvement and is getting close to mastering sirsasana (headstand).  I think that we missed 5 out of the 30 days (and I missed getting a good picture of all of Scott’s headstands), so this is a goal we will have to keep working towards.