run #77

Running the Platte River half marathon tomorrow so I took it pretty easy. Off to the Kimchi hash...

Start time: 12PM
Distance: 5.5 miles
Time: 48:07 minutes
Pace: 8:44 per mile
Weather: 45F, windy

Pueblo

Pueblo is a town about 45 miles south of the Springs, right on I-25. There's a parole office down there, and I work there once a week. Pretty interesting town, very blue collar, reminds me a lot of the Strip District back in Pittsburgh.

There's no hash in Pueblo, but the P2H4 does a yearly trail there. And they once got together to paint the world's biggest on-on foot on the riverwall. Here it is, should put everyone in a good mood on a great hashing weekend:

It's a friggin' ginormous foot, probably 80 feet long or so. Pretty cool sight, I go on a walk over lunch just to see it. The rabbit in the pic is the P2H4 logo, and though you can't see it very well in this pic, a bunch of hash names are painted in over the foot.

Will probably see Chlamydia in Pueblo some day, visiting this establishment:

Pueblo is also considered the Medal of Honor capital of our country. Four of it's residents currently hold the honor. I'll do a post about that next week after I can get some pics of the memorial. For those not in the know, the MOH is the top award one can get, even beating out the Combat Infantryman Badge. Nowadays you practically have to die in order to get one, but back in the Korea/WW/Vietnam days there were a handful of Rambo-types to get the medal.

hash article

Good hash article in today's NY times. Read about it here.

running and drinking

Woohoo! I love this time of year! Check out my upcoming schedule:

Friday: Incline followed by Arctic brewing
Saturday AM: CRUD long run
Saturday PM: Kimchi hash
Sunday AM: Platte River half marathon
Sunday PM: Denver hash
Monday: DIM hash
Tuesday: Jack Quinn's Running Club
Wednesday: happy hour @ Colorado Running Company

run #76 - CRC happy hour

Sick as a dog today, still made it to the Colorado Running Company to suffer through a few miles. Lauren finally showed up, so I took it super easy and stayed back with her. I'm sure she was super impressed by my ability to shed about 20 gallons of snot in such a short run.

Start time: 6PM
Distance: 5.0 miles
Time: 39:48 minutes
Pace: 7:58 per mile
Weather: 45F, windy

for sale

My landlord, who lives in Arizona, has decided to sell the house. So if you want a sweet pad within walking distance of the pubs of knob hill, give me a call.

more hash flash

QnA's pics of the last P2H4 trail can be seen here.

run #75

Due to a psychological exam in Denver this afternoon, I took the day off. Used the time wisely to get in a decent long run. Was gonna push on for 20, but I've been battling a cold lately, and figured it would be wise not to push it too much. Ended up finding a pretty cool half marathon loop from my front yard though.

Some of the Springs runners know this place - coming through America the Beautiful park, across the bridge, the route you hafta take because of the detour. So I'm on the bridge, which is a pederstian bridge and gets bikers and runners/walkers. But at this time of the morning I'm the only soul in sight. But on the other end of the bridge, where you take a left and continue south on the Fountain Creek trail, there's a Colorado highway worker holding one of those stop/slow signs! And I have the stop sign! So as I approach her she asks if I'm going left. I say yes. And she changes the sign to slow! Holy crap, really glad I pay my takes here in Colorado, gotta support them hard working state employees!

Later on in my run, just after passing the Olympic Training Center and turning north onto Union, I'm in the middle of the road trying to get all the way across the street (it's a busy street and hard to get to the other side - kinda like Frogger). I actually feel good about myself because I pass a street sweeper. But in my gloating, the street sweeper, which can't see me, makes a U-turn and almost runs me over. Didn't know these things could turn on a dime like that. Wondered how horrible a death that would be.

Anywho, the stats:

Start time: 7:30AM
Distance: 13.1 miles
Time: 1:59:53 minutes
Pace: 9:09 per mile
Weather: 45F, "feels like" 40F, lots of fog

woohoo!

Woohoo! More good music rollin' through the Black Sheep! If there's anyone out there that ain't afraid to live a little on a Tuesday night, Boobs and I are gonna meet at Quinn's at 6PM-ish to warm up. Possible side trip to Il Vicino before heading over to Knob Hill.

And mark your calendars - New Monsoon is making a return trip to the Sheep on May 9th!

hash flash

Pics from Bloody Z's alphabet hash can be seen here.

run #74 - Incline Club

Hungover as hell from drinking 20+ jello shots yesterday, but still managed to hit up the Incline Club. Did Crystal Park, Intemann, and Section 16. Over post-run beers at Kinfolk's, I found out I took the wrong way back and may have run a few miles further, but I'll stick with the IC page for the stats.

Start time: 8AM
Distance: 14.7 miles
Time: 2:51:27 minutes
Pace: 11:39 per mile
Weather: 50F

Leadville week #17

Pretty decent week for a recovery period. Gonna ramp things back up, starting with today's Incline Club workout.

Week #17 distance: 21.7 miles
Week #17 time: 3:49:22
Average week #17 pace: 10:34 per mile

Total quest distance: 540.5 miles
Total quest time: 87:32:17
Average quest pace: 9:43 per mile
Average weekly mileage: 31.8 miles
Average daily run: 7.4 miles

run #73 - who'll stop the rain

Been fighting a cold recently, so maybe going for a run in the rain wasn't the best thing. But wanted to get a few miles in, and besides having to hit the bathroom every quarter mile it was a pretty good run.

Start time: 7AM
Distance: 9.0 miles
Time: 1:24:13 minutes
Pace: 9:21 per mile
Weather: 45F, steady rain

run #72 - the incline

Took Mosey over to the incline today. Good times, weather was great. Can tell more folks are getting out for a workout, there were two puke piles on the way up. Small source of pride for me that I did the incline weekly through one of the worse winters in recent Colorado history. Didn't push real hard, reaching the top in just under 36 minutes.

Start time: 4PM
Distance: 4.0 miles
Time: 58:39 minutes
Pace: 14:39 per mile
Weather: 55F

he said it...

"Obviously the harriers are whipped and the harriettes are in charge at the Pikes Peak hash."
-Davey Crotchit

Salida results

Final results are posted here for the Run Through Time. I finished 26th out of 94 starters. I think I was in 16th place when I hit the wall, so my crash wasn't too bad and I would've still been well above the four hour mark had I held the pace, so I'm not quite as disappointed as I originally was.

hard at work...

I've now updated all three of my blogs. Not that anyone ever reads the other two.

The CoTex blog has a few pics of the dude ranch where the event will be held.

My Pikes Peak blog has a few new pics, including a great shot from the last Kimchi hash. The Pikes blog was inspired not only by my infatuation with the mountain but by this blog, which unfortunately hasn't been updated since August. Maybe Wiley will read this and be shamed into an update for the ex-Austinites.

run #71 - the W's

Had to fit in a quick workout today, but was able to get a decent run to the top of the W's in. Felt pretty good. I had reported earlier that the Incline Club started their tempo runs today, but that's not for another two weeks. Glad to get a jump on those guys though. Made it to the top of the W's in 26:29, not blazing but not too bad for so early in the season.

Start time: 5:30PM

Distance: 4.0 miles - Barr Trail

Time: 46:55 minutes

Pace: 11:43 per mile

Weather: 60F!

run #70

Back to the grind. Didn't plan on taking four days off after Salida, but I pushed myself pretty hard there and my left knee had swelled up pretty good, so I decided to play it safe. Felt pretty good today, body is still a bit tired but nothing major.

Start time: 5:15AM
Distance: 4.7 miles
Time: 39:35 minutes
Pace: 8:25 per mile
Weather: 43F, "feels like" 40F

Leadville week #16

Decent week. Highlight was obviously the marathon. Ran well there, lots of work ahead but I think I'm on track for Leadville. Taking a recovery week, of course recovery weeks in Colorado Springs include the start of the Incline Club Thursday Barr Trail tempo runs! Woohoo!

Week #16 distance: 37.2 miles
Week #16 time: 6:00:38
Average week #16 pace: 9:41 per mile

Total quest distance: 518.8 miles
Total quest time: 83:42:55
Average quest pace: 9:40 per mile
Average weekly mileage: 32.4 miles

Mr. Blowmaster

Seriously, there's actually a guy in the DOC with that last name. With a moniker like that, I'd really, really, really think twice about choosing a path in life that could end me up in jail.

Pitt/UCLA

So if any of yunz Springs peeps wanna get out for a bit this Thursday, I'll be at the Finish Line Lounge at 7:30PM to watch Pitt dismantle our former coach and the rest of his Bruins.

run #69! - Salida marathon

No shit, there I was...

Start time: 9AM
Distance: 26.2 miles
Time: 4:28:26 minutes
Pace: 10:14 per mile
Weather: mid 40s at start; rising up to mid 60s during the race

job hunt

So I’ve been fairly fed up at my job lately, and have been actively looking for another one.

Had an interview up in Denver two weeks ago with the Department of Labor. Wouldn’t have taken the job, just wanted to get in some interview practice. Which is a good thing, since I ended up getting lost and showed up a full 20 minutes late. Weird interview, it went well but the guy asking all the questions kept telling me to apply for a higher paying job with the same company. I applied for that one, but it’s in Englewood, and I don’t really wanna leave the Springs.

Despite getting shitty drunk at the Nuggets game last week, I still made it to some special “multi-tasking/typing” test to work for the City of Fountain 911 dispatch center. Nursing a raging hangover, I was clocked at 59 words per minute and got a 97% on the other part of the exam. The lady in charge said it was a great score and they would contact me for an interview. I think the hours for that would be pretty weird though, nights and weekends and stuff like that. Not sure I wanna get into that, but it would be an exciting job. And I’m sorry, C-4, but I didn’t get all dressed up to come bring your phone back…

Got a call from the DOC today and I’ve passed the background check on the road to becoming a parole officer. I’m scheduled later this month for a psychological exam. The DOC wouldn’t be wasting this much money on someone they weren’t interested in hiring, so this might be looking pretty good. In a perfect world I’d get a job here in the parole office, which happens to be the same office I work in now, the only difference is that I’d actually be above the poverty line for once. Plus, I’d get to go to the PPCC Peace Officer course, and I’d be allowed to carry a gun. That would go over really well at the Kimchi hash!

If things really go to hell quickly here, I can always get put on orders for the Air Force. They always need cops out at Cheyenne Mountain.

Ugh, is it 5 o'clock yet???

Quinn's

Boobs and I, recovering from another harsh Quinn's run. First short-sleeved run of the year!

happy anniversary!

Today marks the 4th anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I'm so glad we did that country such big favors like dismantling their WMD operations, finally ending the partnetship between Osama and Saddam, and bringing a peaceful democracy to such a backwards country. I'll never forget the day I rolled into Iraq with the 4th ID (the Iron Horse brigade, FYI, so buy me a beer at tonight's hash happy hour) and the happy Iraqis met us with signs and shouts of "Hooray, our liberators are here!" Good times!

I hate my sister!

Seriously, like I didn't waste enough of my life on the internet already...

Salida

This was taken moments after my 4:28:26 finish in the Run Through Time marathon in Salida. Forgot how friggin' hard this course was. Was on pace for a sub four hour finish until about the 20 mile mark (around three hours), then I pretty much fell apart and really struggled to the finish. Race report to follow a bit later. Congrats to Dani, finishing her first half-marathon in 2:35.

Took a few pics down in Salida, they can be seen here.

run 68

Took Mosey out for an easy five today. Great weather! Felt pretty decent, think I've recovered in time to go kill myself tomorrow. Fitting that my first epic run of the season comes in at #69!

Start time: 11AM
Distance: 5.0 miles - Fountain Creek trails
Time: 42:12 minutes
Pace: 8:26 per mile
Weather: 70F!

Video X SUCKS BIG FAT DEAD NASTY DISEASED OFF TRAIL DONKEY BALLS!

Seriously, Aaron Gray rocks! He averaged a double-double in the toughest conference in the country. Wright State was triple teaming him, which left our shooters open to bury the Raiders. He'll be a first round pick come NBA draft day.

run #67 - Quinn's

great Great GREAT weather last Tuesday! Temps in the 70s! Woohoo! Got to Quinn's a little early, decided to leave the watch in the jeep and just run, so the time/distance is a guess. Still a bit sore from my run on Saturday, but the great weather kinda made me forget about the pain. Good to see Boobs back in town, he had tons of stories about how the Austin hashers are all wankers!

Start time: 5:45M
Distance: 6.0 miles - Fountain Creek trails
Time: 50 minutes
Pace: 8:20 per mile
Weather: 70F!

hell yeah!

Nuggets 113
Lakers 86

You can view the pics here.

hoops!

I predict a blowout win by the Nuggets tonight!

Night Train

Seriously, if I ever get the bright idea to down a bottle of the stuff again, somebody punch me in the face. Because that pain won't even begin to compare with the hangover the express brings.

MeatGazer has a dirty whore mouth...

...and that's why she gets to meet people like Willie Nelson.

small victories

Yeah, I argue over a lot of small stuff, but it irked me that CoTex was listed as a P2H4 event when the most important parts of the weekend, beer and trails, are being handled by a Kimchi hasher. Technically it's not being run by either kennel, but since they listed Pikes I bitched and moaned until we got our due!

http://www.otsportsbarandgrill.com/south_park.htm

And even though we have an official website, I'm still updating the CoTex blog. Keeping everyone posted on the goings on with running a decent sized hash weekend. I'm of the opinion that it shouldn't cost $69 bucks to do a hash weekend, so I hope to post budget stuff once the weekend is over for everyone to see.

But next up on my list of internet things to do is to get the Austin hash a link on the Kimchi page. Go here to let webmeister extrodinaire Lick My Lincoln that he's a fag as long as there's no love for the A-towners on the Kimchi site. Of course, if he does put a link up, he'll still be a fag, and will remain a fag until he attends the Focus on the Family "hey, quit banging that dude in the ass" three week retreat.

happy S&BJ day!

Hooray, it's finally here!

my new hero

"If you're active it saves you sitting in a wheelchair."
-Buster Martin

Just read about this guy in The Week. The story:

A 100-year-old British man managed to fight off a gang of three teenage muggers. Centenarian Buster Martin, who still works full time as a car mechanic, was walking home from a pub when the teenage gang "pushed me against a wall and tried to take my money from me." Furious, Martin shoved one mugger and king-fu kicked another between the legs. "They ran off scared after I did that," said Martin, "and I still had all my money."

Sounded a bit too good to be true, but I googled the story and it looks legit, as seen here and also on wikipedia.

So, at 100 years old, this guy staggers out of a pub and kicks some ass on the way home! Hell yeah!

march madness!

Pitt will beat the following teams on it's way to the national championship:

Wright State
Duke
UCLA
Kansas
Texas

Yes, I have been drinking today. A lot. But I just know we'll get the made-for-TV matchup of Ben Howland vs. Jamie Dixon, and after that anything is possible.

Gagger, when A&M loses to Penn in the first round, do you automatically root for UT the rest of the way? How great would it be to see A&M-Corpus Christi make it farther than the Aggies!!!

tourney time

Head on over to Tiffany's blog to enter her college hoops pool. The real fight will be for second place, as I'm sure I'll win the thing going away.

beer pong

Start practicing, the championships are coming...

Leadville week #15

Hell yeah, nothing says "taper" like bumping up your weekly mileage by a third! Hard week, probably won't allow me to recover in time for the Salida marathon on Saturday, but I'm still gonna try to break four hours anyways.

Highlights of the week definitely were finding the new trails up in Boulder and right here at the AF Academy.

Week #15 distance: 59.7 miles
Week #15 time: 10:26:43
Average week #15 pace: 10:29 per mile

Total quest distance: 481.6 miles
Total quest time: 77:42:17
Average quest pace: 9:40 per mile
Average weekly mileage: 32.1 miles

run #66 - Falcon Trail

Actually behaved myself this weekend and got early enough to run with CRUD on Saturday. Met at the Sante Fe trailhead at Woodman road. The plan was to run the four or so miles onto the Air Force Academy and do the Falcon loop. Supposed to be about 20 miles.

Only four of us showed, a pretty small turnout. The other three were much more faster than me, so I knew I was in for a long day.

The first two miles along the front range trail were uneventful, but then the trail running started. Stream crossings, shiggy, rolling hills, it was awesome. The Falcon trail just might be my new favorite trail here in the Springs. You do all kinds of technical trail running through the woods, and then pop out for a breathtaking view of Blodgett Peak. Then it's back into the woods for more killer trail running and you pop out right by the Cadet Chapel. Even the part that runs through the golf course is fun, kinda brings back memories of my cross-country days.

I had an inspired run and managed to keep up with Sticky Fingers for a full two and a half hours before falling back. I was hurting, but I managed to rally and keep up with the chase pack for the rest of the run. The chase pack included a former Western States 100 mile winner and a guy who had just completed his 88th marathon, so I still had to hoof it to keep up.

Ended up calling it a 21 mile day, though everyone else thought it might be longer. I was sore as hell the rest of the day, even taking DFL honors at the Pikes Peak hash later on.

Start time: 7AM
Distance: 21.0 miles - Falcon Trail
Time: 3:59:13
Pace: 11:23 per mile
Weather: 45F

run #65 - Boulder!

Boulder is somewhat of a mecca for distance runners, but even though I live about 90 miles from there I hadn't made it up there. No more, as I met Melissa in Denver to head out for some great trails and a summit of Green Mountain.

Starting at the Chitauqua trailhead of the world famous Mesa Trail, we took off on the more technical paths toward the peak. Very steep, very rocky. As we gained more and more altitude there was more and more snow, and the last half mile or so to the summit was pretty trecherous. Coming down on the east side of the mountain was a lot worse, lots of ice. But it was a great run, had a blast!

Rest of the pics can be seen here.

Start time: 2PM

Distance: 9.0 miles

Time: 2:13:48

Pace: 14:52 per mile; watch kept running during a long break at the summit

Weather: 50F - my first run of the year in a short sleeve shirt

who reads this shit???

So I'm at the Colorado Running Company on Wed, enjoying a bottle of Tommyknocker after a good seven mile run, and my CRUD buddy Gordon comes up to me and says, "jesus jt, I checked out that link on your Incline Club page..." and it really got me thinking about who reads my blog. I check out sitemeter every now and again, and it's pretty amazing, peeps from all around the world with nothing better to do.

My IC page can be seen here. Should probably get around to updating it now that I've been in Colorado over a year.

Anyways, at the CRC, a few non-hashing folks were talking about how good Arctic beer is. Pretty cool. I woulda invited them to the brewery but that's a little over the top for the local running scene. Still, there's a group that goes to Kinfolk's every Sunday to have Arctic, so maybe word is getting out about how awesome their beer is.

run #64 - track

Had a shitty workout down at the track today. Just couldn't get moving for some reason. But I toughed it out, hitting 4 x 800m before having to bolt to watch the Pitt game. Times were 3:04, 3:01, 3:05, 3:04. These were all done entirely in lane 5, not sure how much distance that adds.

Start time: 6PM
Distance: 5.0 miles - Colorado College track
Time: 50:00
Pace: averaged 3:03 per half
Weather: 40F

I need a cigarette...

Jesus, not only did we just beat the crapola of Marquette, but in doing so we actually made a few free throws! Woohoo!

And congrats to Aaron Gray, named to the third team All-American squad!

Quinn's

From Jack Quinn's, two weeks ago. Me enjoying a pint of Laughing Lab; Bloody Z, always the fag, finishing up his pint of fresh squeezed lemonade.

world beer tour - mini tour #1

Along with the overall World Beer Tour, Old Chicago's periodically has mini-tours, which gives one a chance to blow even more money at the bar in exchange for a cheesey t-shirt. Last night I completed the St. Pat's day mini tour. The beers consumed:

Guinness Irish Stout

Harp Lager

Killian's Irish Red Lager

Blarney Stone (Guinness and Killian's)

Black and Tan (Guinness and Bass)

Murphy's Irish Stout

O'hara's Irish Red

Beamish Irish Stout

Not nearly as cool as the green LVH3 "Patrick 3:17/Don't hafta be Irish to throw up on St. Pat's day" shirt I have though.

run #63 - moseying along

Went to pick up Dani's dog Mosey early this morning. Poor dog doesn't get out enough and was starting to get fat, so I figured I'd step in before I called the SPCA. Easy, short run, feel a lot better than better than before I started.

Start time: 5:20AM
Distance: 4.0 miles - Rock Island out and back
Time: 34:11
Pace: 8:34 per mile
Weather: 34F, "feels like" 29F

run #62 - CRC happy hour

Downtown for the final night run of the season at the Colorado Running Company happy hour run. Starting to distrust my garmin, as I ran fairly hard straight out the Fountain Creek Trail for 3.1 miles...in 30 minutes. Then I turned around and went back the exact same way...for a total of 7.0 miles. Oh well, still got a good hour of running in, followed by some Laughing Lab and Tommyknocker, followed by a trip to Old Chicago where I finished up my first mini-tour and got a green shirt I can wear to the St. Pat's day hash. Now I am going to relax with a PBR and watch "Jesus is Magic," one of the funniest movies ever.

Start time: 6PM
Distance: 7.0miles - Fountain Creek north from CRC
Time: 60:10
Pace: 8:35 per mile
Weather: 40F

run #61

Nice and easy run around the Knob Hill area. Crossing my fingers, maybe spring has finally come to the Springs!

Start time: 5:30AM
Distance: 4.7 miles - Knob Hill South
Time: 35:57
Pace: 7:38 per mile
Weather: 40F

it's comming...

Get your livers ready, the Platte Road Challenge is less than six weeks away. The bars:

1. Calamity Jan's
2. Putting Green Lounge
3. Baby Doll's
4. Wagon Wheel
5. Black Sheep
6. Knob Hill Lounge
7. Irish House IV
8. Walkabout Pub
9. TexMex
10. Skybox Lounge
11. Bijou Bar and Grill
12. Arctic

Dive bars, strip clubs, non-English speaking dance halls, industrial rock hangouts, drug dens, retirement homes, a gay bar, and a brewery. Covering all the bases here!

Air Force weekend

Had a pretty decent weekend out at Schreiver. Was supposed to take a PT test on Sat morning, but turns out it was too cold!

Found out that I get to fulfill my two week annual tour by going to the Air Force NCO professional development course. I asked if it was similar to the Army PLDC, which I went to way back when it was still a month long (it's only two weeks now) and someone laughed and said, "yeah, except it's a lot easier and you don't go outside." So I'll get to crash at my place every night and won't miss any hashing. It's a two week course, the last week of April and the first week of May. Trying to play the patriotism card to get my civilian job to pay me while drawing military pay and BAH, we'll see if I can swing that.

Also got out of duty the weekend of the Platte Road Challenge. Gonna announce a start time soon. NIPS and I will be doing the Greenland Trail 50K that morning, so I'm looking at a late afternoon start, to give me time to finish and recover.

Not a whole lot else happened during the weekend. Lots of sitting around bullshitting. Got out early enough on Sat to say hello to the Kimchi hash and then hit the Banff Film Festival (it's coming to Austin on March 25 and any outdoor lover should go check it out) and early enough on Sunday to head out for a nine mile run while the sun was still up.

here's to the hares...

Proof that not only was I at the Kimchi hash on Saturday, but I was actually FRB. I give the new beermeister an E- for his first trail though. What the hell was up with the Beast light? Are we going all healthy now? Will there be tofu at the next hash?

run #60

Felt like being lazy and chillin' on the couch after the AF weekend, but the weather was too nice to sit around. Hit the usual Sante Fe/Fountain Creek loop, an easy nine miles. After sixty runs, I'm averaging 7.1 miles per run, FYI.

Start time: 5:30PM
Distance: 9.0 miles
Time: 1:13:23
Pace: 8:09 per mile
Weather: 40F; nice to see the sun staying out longer, gawd I can't wait for DST!

Leadville week #14

Really good week, especially considering that I didn't count Sunday's Register workout as part of the stats. Highlight was the 22 miler, plus renewing my membership in the Hill Country Trail Runners. I want my virgin 100 miler picture frame when I finish Leadville! Also aiming for another hundred at the Cactus Rose in November!

Week #14 distance: 40.4 miles
Week #14 time: 6:38:04
Average week #14 pace: 9:51 per mile

Total quest distance: 421.9 miles
Total quest time: 67:15:34
Average quest pace: 9:33 per mile
Average weekly mileage: 30.1 miles

August pub run

If any of yunz can talk Panther into having an Austin duathletes pub run on August 30th, I can make it. I got a report date of Sept 5th at Lackland AFB in San Antonio. I'm also gonna start lobbying for the Austin hash to have their annual hashmas party on Dec 8th so I can make it!

warda

If Social Retard goes to the hash on Sunday, make her drink! She won her age group at the Warda 25K trail run this morning! Sure do miss my two favorite mountain bike ranches, Warda and Rocky Hill. Though rumor has it that the Rocky Hill Saloon closed down? That sucks, Fat Chuck would definitely kick my ass now that I'd have no ice cold Shiner waiting for me at the end...

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

So I came home this morning to find out the shower upstairs broke. It's pouring water into the tub. No damage, though it drained the hot water and I had to take a cold shower this morning, which really, really sucked. Couldn't fix it with my leatherman, so a plumber is gonna hafta come over. No big issue, I'm just really annoyed, especially since I gotta head out to the Air Force and I don't really wanna worry about this all day.

Should I be looking for a new apartment?

run #59 - the incline

I can see the Incline from my office at work, and it looked like it was gonna be impossible to climb. Snow covered the entire way. I was gonna bail, but I realized that if I started using excuses to get out of this workout it would lead a domino effect and I'd never head over to Manitou, always having some lame reason to skip this hard workout. Tough going with the snow, but do-able. Hit the top of the Incline in just under 37 minutes, hit the bottom in 67 minutes, and did an extra mile back up the Barr trail for good measure.

Start time: 3:30PM
Distance: 5.0 miles
Time: 1:19:26
Pace: 15:53 per mile
Weather: cold, below 30F, and it only got worse as I gained altitude

world beer tour

Little more sore from my run than I thought I'd be, plus it was freezing outside, so I decided to bail on the bike pub crawl. However, I began a new chapter in my beer drinking adventures, I started my list for the world beer tour at Old Chicago's. I know I'll take some flack for going to a chain, but A) I'm downtown a lot, and there just aren't a whole lot of good, local bars downtown and I need somewhere to drink down there and B) OC's was founded in Boulder, so at least I'm supporting a Colorado chain. And it's not like I'm gonna stop adding to my list of local dive bars.

Anyways, to finish the world beer tour you gotta drunk 110 beers. I had three last night.

1. Blarney Stone
2. Black and Tan
3. Killian's Irish Red Lager

They're currently having an Irish themed "mini-tour" and if you drink eight Irish themed beers by March 17th you get a t-shirt and a blow job from a leprechaun.

So three down, 107 to go. Not nearly as cool as Lovejoy's beer college, but at least I'm still in pursuit of beer knowledge.

holy friggin' crap!

Sweet mother of Jesus, Cheers Liquor Mart has Pabst 30 packs on sale for $13.69!!! That comes out to less than $.46 per can of sweet, sweet nectar!

run #58 - sick day long run

Despite being on my death bed, I decided to head out for a long run this afternoon. Been getting some quality miles in, but I have a marathon looming in two weeks and I haven't done a 20 miler in quite a while. Actually thought of doing 26.2 miles today, but decided to wait so Salida can have the honor of being the first marathon of the season.

Lots of notable happenings on today's run:

-For those that don't believe me and think I just took a long nap and made this up, I saw Catwoman out running. Just to point out the type of guy I am, I actually stopped to say hello to her, despite the fact that she only has a Forerunner 101, the mark of a lower class, less fortunate human being. Yup, sometimes I like to slum it with the hobos. Of course, I made sure she knew I had the Forerunner 201, and I slapped her if she looked directly into my eyes.

-The run along Fountain Creek after America the Beautiful park is awesome. You have a nice creek flowing on one side of you, and killer views of the mountains on the other side. But as I leave the trail to head back north to my house, I cut up on a sidewalk with the Colorado Springs impound lot on one side, the El Paso County jail on the other side, and a huge junk metal recycling shop in front of me. Quite a drastic change of scenery.

-The run down Las Vegas St was awful. After the jail/impound lot, there are a bunch of industrial sites, including the city wastewater plant. Plus, the wind was horrible here. Miles 15 to 18 were so shitty that if someone would have offered me a ride home here I probably would have taken it.

-Shortly after finally getting off Las Vegas St, onto south Nevada, there's a train underpass. It's going up a hill, and it curves, so even if I had been paying attention I really couldn't see much coming the other way. So my brain suddenly registers that I'm about to be run over by a kid on a BMX bike, but I didn't have enough time to do anything. The kid rams into me. But I don't even move. Despite a near direct hit (his handlebar hit high up on my left thigh) the kid, who is overweight and probably weighs about what I do, and the bike bounce off me and skid along a fence and finally come to rest about ten feet past me. This amazes me, as I know I have just defied the laws of physics and should have been horribly injured. So I run back to check on this kid, who is a cartoon-ish pile of limbs and bike parts, he's pretty shaken up but not hurt seriously. He looked about 13 years old, and has a great future as a hasher as throughout it all he didn't lose the cigarette from his mouth. Thank god for the fence, or the kid woulda been thrown about eight feet down into the street and probably run over by a car.

Anyways, the stats:

Start time: 12:30PM
Distance: 22.0 miles
Time: 3:24:47
Pace: 9:18 per mile
Weather: weather.com reports 30F with a "feels like" temp of 16F, but it seemed a lot warmer.

Galactic

Woohoo! Galactic will be playing a free show at Sunsation/Copper Mountain on April 7th!

I was browsing Galactic on iTunes, since I lost all the G music I had, and on their newest album, "Live at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival" (that's JazzFest to you folks) they have a new song titled "Good Job, Brownie."

It's obviously written about me, being that I'm such a huge fan. I'd like to thank the guys in Galactic for thinking of me. That song will now be included on all bootleg CDs I mail out, but if you just can't wait you can download it off iTunes for a buck.

music

Well, due to my computer smarts, I've managed to recover a good chunk of my iTunes library. There are some notable losses, such as my entire Galactic, MOFRO, and Gov't Mule collections, as well as a few live Panic shows I had. But I was able to save over 9GB of music, so it's better than nothing.

HA!

All that anticipation for the folks trying to rego for the Pikes races, and the server crashed!

Pikes Peak races

sick day

Be nice to me today, I'm sick. Cough, cough...

By the way, it took me a friggin' hour and a half to get home from work yesterday!!! Not bad if I were working in Denver, but my office is only six miles away from my house! Gawd, I hate winter in Colorado.