Weekly Newsletter: December 9th-15th, 2024

It's finally starting to feel more like winter in Utah. 🏔️Keith is continuing with his Tour Divide training plan, and we finally got some top-to-bottom runs at Snowbird! ⛷️.

Check out our new posts and videos 🆕 🎥 📝

Essential Camino Prep: Route Planning and Packing

Keith and I were inspired to walk the Portuguese Coastal Route of the Camino de Santiago. Planning the stages of the 170 miles and packing quickly became my focus for preparing for the trip.

Keith and LindseyLindsey Huster

Keith's focus on training 🏋️🚵‍♂️

Keith has been heavily focused on his training plan over the last few weeks. Each week, he completes a few weightlifting workouts as well as several training rides. The weightlifting plan will continue to be his main focus over the winter as he will be getting cardio and elevation acclimation from our weekends skiing at Snowbird. The goal of the weightlifting program is to strengthen the muscles in his legs to help protect critical tendons and ligaments that will be under heavy strain during the Tour Divide race. The stronger that his muscles are, the less likely he is to encounter physical issues along this journey.

Keith has also been completing some shorter duration, higher intensity indoor trainer rides using Zwift. These rides help to build muscle as well as explosive power which will be necessary to pedal up some of the steep mountain passes along the Tour Divide route. Keith doesn't want to lose his hard-earned endurance so he also tries to get in at least one long, lower-intensity ride per week. On these longer rides, Keith is currently targeting at least 50-60 miles (80.5-96.6 kilometers) with 2,000 feet (609.6 meters) of elevation gain.

Dinner at Eimi Sushi 🍣 🍜

For date night this week, we headed to Eimi Sushi in Provo, UT. This restaurant has been on Lindsey's list for a while now and the thought of a delicious bowl of ramen on a cold winter's night sounded too good to pass up. We shared a sushi roll and the gyoza as an appetizer. Lindsey ordered the Tonkotsu Ramen for her main meal and Keith ordered the Seafood Ramen.

Everything that we had was delicious. However, there are so many good asian restaurants around that this didn't beat out some of our favorites such as Haku Ramen House in American Fork, UT. Still, it was a great meal.

Christmas Maker's Market 🎄🧶

After the delicious meal at Eimi Sushi, we headed back to Orem to check out the Christmas Maker's Market at the Scera Center for the Arts. This event was held outdoors and included over 40 vendor booths, food trucks, smokeless fire pits, and heaters, as well as a special visit from Santa himself! 🎅

We don't typically purchase anything at events like this but we do like to peruse the vendor booths to see what people are making. We also used this as an opportunity to grab a warm cookie from the Beverly Ann's food truck. 🍪

Tram Laps at Snowbird! 🚊 ⛷️

Utah is finally receiving more snow, albeit not as much as we would like to see, but beggars can't be choosers. The additional snow has meant that Snowbird is finally open for top to bottom skiing. A vast majority of the runs and terrain are still closed due to not enough snow but top to bottom runs will at least help us prepare our legs for when the steeper runs do finally open.

We skied both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. On Saturday, we hit out first few tram laps of the season. On Sunday, we met up with some of our friends that we hadn't seen in a while. It was so much fun catching up and skiing with everyone again. On both days, we encountered winter storms and high winds which quickly reminded us of what winter in the mountains can be like. 🥶

Prior to this weekend, the Peruvian Gulch section of Snowbird had not been open while we were there. However, it was finally open to us this weekend! 😄 We were able to find some fresh snow without venturing too far off the main runs which made for some great top-to-bottom runs. We are praying for more snow so that the rest of the mountain can finally open. 🙏

Upcoming posts and videos 👷‍ 👷‍♀️️

Lindsey has recently wrapped up a series of posts on our Quick Trip to New York City. If you haven't seen that yet, you should check it out. Lindsey has also started working on the post series from our three-week adventure along the Camino De Santiago, Portuguese Route! Those posts will be published soon. We also have several prior trips that we haven't yet shared, so be sure to subscribe to our blog if you haven't done so already.

We hope that you are enjoying our newsletters. How do you enjoy the winter/holiday season? Do you have any fun holiday activities planned? Let us know in the comments section below.👇 💬