One weekend to go

This past weekend was my next-to-last weekend of ski instruction. I skied moderately hard this weekend, with Sunday being the most vertical feet I've done with the kids all year. It's hard to believe that another season to teaching skiing is almost gone. Two of the children in my group have been skiing with me for six seasons now, meaning they've skied about as many days with me as they spend with a school teacher for one year.

After talking to a number of parents, I'm expecting about half of my group to move up or move on next year. My oldest student will not return to ski school. My second oldest - the daughter of my ski instructor "mentor", needs to move to a more challenging group. Two other students are probably going to move to a freestyle program, focused on mogul competitions and terrain park events. That will leave me with the younger portion of my group for next year, most likely.

For the most part, it's a really great job - hanging out with kids, teaching them to ski, and in many ways, watching them grow up. It has its downsides as well, and I have a few students right now who can be particularly difficult. But, it's a service job and you can't pick your customers.

On another note, I lifted this morning and had a good workout. For the next two weeks, I drop my reps on my current lifts from 3x10 to 3x8, and I drop the rest intervals to 30 seconds. I added weight on squats and lunges and barbell push presses this morning. I had been stuck for a while on squats, and I added 20 pounds to last week's weight for my 3rd set today.

I'll run an easy 6 outside tonight. Rain later in the week will probably keep me on the treadmill for more miles this week than last week.

I'm reading Gary Taubes's book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" right now. I'm still very early in the book, but the prologue gives enough information about where the book is going to go. I have the impression that the advice by the end of the book will be very similar to the Paleo Diet. I've read The Paleo Diet for Athletes, and I try to follow that book's recommendations to some extent. I try hard to stay away from sugar and other refined carbohydrates, but it's often hard to stay away from foods that I like so much, especially bread.

One thing that will be good about the end of ski season is that fact that I won't be buying lunch on the weekends at a ski area, where most of the food is expensive and unhealthy.