Around the OTC

It's been a busy couple of days...I've worked two days, spent one day at Intern Assimilation, did the Incline again (cut my time down to an hour...and I ran all four miles down the Barr Trail to the bottom!), made friends with athletes and interns, and got my first taste of Colorado Springs nightlife.  I also managed to take a couple of pictures of the OTC for you guys!

The outside of my dorm...it's one of the older dorms

Courtyard where we spent a lot of today laying out

Back entrance of the Athlete Center...I ran into Michael Phelps right here yesterday!

The view...not bad, eh?

Me in my dorm room on move-in day

Life in the dorms is fine...everyone wants to be here, so they all take pretty good care of everything.  My roommate, Emily, is nice and we have pretty compatible sleep schedules fortunately.  Every night, there's usually a group of interns watching TV in the lounge...most of the time, they're watching sporting events but sometimes it's a movie.  The food in the Athlete Center is healthy and good...some of the other interns aren't big fans of it, but I like it.  

This weekend, I went out to two bars with most of the interns, the Thirsty Parrot and Cowboys.  The Thirsty Parrot is a pretty standard bar...Cowboys, on the other hand, is a three-story country bar with line dancing, a mechanical bull, and karaoke among other things.  It was certainly an interesting experience.

Now, I've got to get to bed cause I've got a long work week ahead of me!!

OTC and Manitou Incline

Today is my brother Jordan's last day in Colorado Springs...so he got to decide what we were doing today.  His decision?  The Manitou Incline.

Now, ever since I found out I would be spending my summer in Colorado Springs, I knew I wanted to tackle "The Incline" at some point.  However, I figured "at some point" would be after I'd had a few weeks to adjust to the altitude and get into a regular exercise routine...I certainly wasn't expecting to climb it on my second full day here!  But Jordan wanted to go for it, and Steven enthusiastically encouraged it.  Ruth and I were a little less optimistic but we still went for it...even though it meant waking up at 5:45am.

A little background on the Incline for those of you not familiar with it...it consists of the remnants of an old cog railway that closed in 1990.  Following the railway's close, hikers, athletes, and people looking for a unique workout took over, turning it into an unofficial hiking trail.  It is technically illegal to climb because it's private property (so hiking the Incline is trespassing), but you'd never know that by looking at it.  On any given day, there are plenty of people climbing up and down it.  The Barr Trail to Pikes Peak meets it twice, once about halfway up (providing the "bailout trail" for people who don't think they can make it up to the top) and then again at the top (so most people take the Incline up and the Barr Trail down).  The Incline ascends over 2,000ft in a mile and a half...so it's a very challenging workout but gives you a lot of personal satisfaction when you've reached the summit!

The Manitou Incline...and me regretting my decision to climb it

Believe it or not, this is the easy part.

Made it to the top!

Jordan, Ruth, and I made it to the top in just under an hour and a half, which surprised all of us, I think (we were half-expecting to have to use the bailout trail).  I'm already anxious for my next trip to the Incline...climbing stairs up the side of a mountain has to be a good workout for speedskating!

And, as promised...here are a a few pictures from our trip to the US Olympic Training Center yesterday!

Ruth and I imitating the short track speedskater statues behind us

Jordan hurt himself trying to imitate the above karate pose

This is for you, Hillary!

We mainly just goofed around with the statues, obviously...we drove back by the dorm that I'll be living in, but we weren't really sure if we were allowed back there or not.  So, after our exploratory drive and our goofing around, we headed back to Ruth and Steven's apartment!  

We ate dinner at Trinity Brewing Company, which was excellent...I unfortunately didn't take my camera, though.  We had cheesecake made with beer!  And more surprisingly...it was really good!  Jordan and Steven were more interested in the beer that Trinity brews themselves, though.

That's it for now...tomorrow probably won't be too interesting because I'll be recovering from the Incline!