Oh my Oh-Nine!

As this year plows to an end, it is hard not to look back on the last few months and feel like it was a bad year. However, as I look back on all of the pictures and stories of 2009's trips, adventures, purchases, and laughs, it is clear that 2009 was 10.5/12ths absolutely wonderful!

The last few years I have set some goals for the year and then looked back at the end to see if I followed through. Always entertaining to look back on, so here it goes:

Looking forward to 2009? Well, I'm sure it'll hold many surprises just like this year. The word "surprises" is an understatement. I hope to continue to build my climbing skills, as I've really enjoyed climbing both inside and outside this winter. At this point, it's still a Just For Fun hobby with an added bonus of a bit of cross-training for bike season. With no major climbing goals in mind, I simply hope to continue to enjoy it -- safely. I would say we achieved this. We climbed a lot in the Flatirons and Eldo. We even set up a "first ascent" in La Veta (Mind Over Bat Poo). I'm sure Chris and I will continue to work toward our 14ers goals together, hopefully including some multi-mountain-multi-day trips in this summer. Almost every 14er trip this year involved overnight camping partway up the mountain. Time and lack of responsibilities allowed this and it was a blast. We never fit in the super multi-peak challenge we hoped for, but we did get Belford and Oxford done in one day. I will climb Longs Peak this year, perhaps by the traditional Keyhole route, perhaps by a different one. Yeah different one! Go me! Either way, I will do it... even though it scares me. Quite the experience and glad I met this goal! Chris and I have our sights set on a tour of the Colorado Trail this summer -- probably by bikes, but we'll have to see. This was the plan, but honestly, I wussed out. I'm not sure what our summer will look like, with Chris planning more big adventures, and me taking at least one masters class, but somehow we'll fit at least a few fun things in when we can. We did fit in many fun things and I ended up pounding out three masters classes this year. My biking goals for '09? Pretty similar to last year. I'd like to crush the 30 minute mark at Cherry Creek, in addition to trying to make the top 10 at one of the races. The 30 minute mark will be easy, top 10 probably not so easy. But I'll try. I beat the 30 minute mark. It was magical. Top ten, not so much. I want to survive Expert at Winter Park and if I can get top 3 on any race, I'll be super excited. I didn't do many of the Winter Park races this year. The desire and drive wasn't there. Sad. I've kicked around the idea of the Leadville 100. I need to decide soon, as applications need to be in ASAP. It's so expensive though, and hard to commit that much money to 8 months out when I'm trying to get pregnant, but maybe. I feel like I can do it with some good training, and I'd like to do it, so who knows. Well, our group didn't get in and now they are being greedy and jacking up the price even more, so we're priced out of this race for quite a while. Maybe one day. Or maybe one day we'll just ride the course on our own and enjoy the ride for free! That could be fun...

And so we have it. I met some of my big goals, wussed out on one, and surpassed my wildest expectations in a lot of ways. Not too bad.

Tomorrow I will post a wrap-up with pics. Tonight blogger does not want to upload any.