San Juan or bust!

Woohoo! The San Juan Solstice went up to 200 runners! So now instead of #41 on the waiting list, I'm #191 on the confirmed entrant list! Not sure why I'm so psyched, those water crossings are gonna suck ass.

the weekend...

I'm off to world headquarters in Denver tomorrow for some drug & alcohol training Thursday and Friday, and won't have access to a computer. So here's what's going down this weekend...

Most of the next two days are filled with work crap, so I won't get much fun time in D-town. Hope to at least get a short run in with Melissa, she doesn't have much more time in Colorado.

We get off early Friday afternoon, which is sweet because it's straight to Leadville! Woohoo! Have a room at the hostel Friday and Saturday night.

Saturday morning it's off to Buena Vista for the Collegiate Peaks 50 miler. Even though I will be trying to lower my PR (8:49, set a few years ago at Sunmart), it all depends on how quickly this ear infection goes away. The pain is finally all gone, but it still feels like there's a gallon of fluid in my ear. But it's only Wednesday, and with an easy Thursday and Friday coming up, I think I might be OK. PR or not it'll be great to get in such a long run, need to start upping the distance as Hardrock draws closer.

Saturday night it's back to Leadville for some high altitude binge drinking. There might be one or two bars in that town I haven't been to, plan to hit those and then head to the Manhattan to get fucked up.

Sunday morning will be an easy run around the Mineral Belt trail. Nothing like an easy twelve miler above 10,000 feet to lose the hangover. I noticed the road back to Winfield (turnaround point for the Leadville 100) seemed clear last time I drove by, so if I have enough time I may head back there to check things out. That would also take me past the trailhead for the Missouri/Oxford/Belford loop I wanna run soon, so I can check out how much snow is on that route.

Of course, back to Manitou in time for Acid Jazz.

Woohoo! Good times!

CRUD - it's what's for dinner!

Twice in the past few days I have used the word "crud" to describe a bodily secretion of mine.

First time was Sunday afternoon. My ear had been acting up since Friday. Had used lots of ear drops and hydrogen peroxide, to no avail. Finally, I jabbed a Q-tip in there and went to town. What came out scared me a little. It was all nasty brown with all kinds of lumpy things. I showed $100 and said, "look at all this fucking crud in my ear." She about puked, but I smiled at the quality use of a quality word.

Second time was Tuesday afternoon at the CSHP health place on South Nevada. There was a nurse practicioner doing the exam. She asked me to describe my snot (she actually used the more medical "mucus" but whatever). I said, "oh, it's been real nasty. And lots of it. A sick looking yellow color, very thick, with lots of red and black/brown crud in it." She gave me antibiotics and threw me out of the hospital.

CRUD - it's what we are!

woohoo!

Looks like one of the sleeziest bars of the cesspool that is downtown Colorado Springs, Rum Bay, might be closing! Read about it here.

I've been to Rum Bay once, just to add it to my list, and I felt like I should have immediately gone home and taken a shower as soon as I walked in. There's a bunch of bars downtown - Scum Bay, Cowboy's, Quinn's, Old Chicago, Rondezvous, the Ritz, Southside Johnny's, Thirsty Parrot, Bar V, McCabes, Sam's, the Vue, Jose Muldoon's, and a few other yuppie joints I'm sure I'm forgetting. The whole scene just reeks of drama and desperation and people thinking they're a lot more important than they really are. "Million Dollar Client" type people, as Net would say.

Lost in that pit are some decent bars - Oscar's (which also might lose it's liquor license), Tony's, the Triple Nickel, Benny's, and 15C (where you can still smoke a cigar!). I rarely get to these fine bars anymore just because of their too-close-to-downtown location. If I'm anywhere near there nowadays and need a drink, I just head up Nevada a few blocks to the Murphy's/Robin Hood/Navajo/ComCor area, where the chances of you getting stabbed in the back are the same but at least it will be by a real knife.

Guess I'm spoiled by having lived in places with great downtown pub scenes - Pittsburgh, Philadelphia (much of our country's history was written in pubs I drank at as a bike messenger), Austin (which is slowly being killed off and will resemble a bigger Colorado Springs in time). Even Denver is a lot of fun, I'd much rather drive the hour to get up there to booze up than ride my bike 20 minutes to drink in downtown CS.

Unfortunately, Rum Bay makes too much money for all involved, so I'm sure it won't close. Oh well, at least this keeps all the downtown folks from bringing their baggage to the good bars in the area.

Ron Mexico

I was listening to 1300AM The Animal sports talk on the way into work this morning. The guy who does the traffic goes by the name Ron Mexico. Had to chuckle at that one.

Free pint of Icehouse at the THL for the first person who can tell me the significance of the name Ron Mexico in the sports world.

Yes, I know I owe Paul D and Smut a beer, they can collect anytime.

thank gawd spring is here!

Easy winter here on the front range, but everything west of Pikes Peak got hammered this winter. Stole this list from the Gazette Out There blog:

2007-08 Season Snowfall Record Breakers:
Aspen/Snowmass - 450 inches
Beaver Creek - 430 inches
Crested Butte - 422 inches
Monarch Mountain - 482 inches
Powderhorn - 320 inches
Silverton - 550 inches (and counting)
Steamboat - 489 inches
Telluride - 353 inches

Silverton is where Hardrock starts and finishes, FYI.

the Lakers still suck!

Purple - it's the official color of homosexuality.

Go Spurs Go!

not lazy anymore!

Finally broke my lazy streak (I slept in 'till 5PM on Sunday, FYI) with a nice ten miler up Rampart Range Road and back down Williams Canyon. Not the best run I've ever had, but it was great to get outside again. Didn't start 'till almost 7PM, so by the time I got to Williams it was pretty dark. Which sucked, because A) Williams is a fairly technical downhill so all my attention was diverted to not busting an ankle; and B) because all my attention was focused on my feet, I was certain that every noise I heard was a mountain lion coming for supper.

i'm going to live

Bad news for everyone rooting for inoperable brain cancer. It's just an ear infection. Ten days of some super-duper antibiotic, supposed to not only clear up my ear but also take care of all the crud floating around my body from two decades of heavy boozing and fat chicks.

Best news is that I'll be all better by Collegiate Peaks!

judgment day

Received this e-mail from the Hardrock race director the other day. Everyone cross their fingers fingers for me, I'll be crushed if this race gets cancelled.

Hi Hardrockers,
I have been fielding some e-mails about the snow levels on the course and whether or not we will be canceling this years Hardrock. Traditionally, we have looked at the snow levels, rate of snow melt, etc around Memorial Day and make a decision. This year we will be getting together a week earlier (5/18) to look at everything. Stay Tuned!

Dale

P.S. From the accu-window weather station out Lois MacKenzie's window in Silverton... . she can actually see rocks poking through the snow!

40.2

Horrible, horrible week of training, which including not working out at all on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday due to this shitty ear of mine. Coming off a tremondous effort out at Greenland and ten straight days of running, so hopefully all my fitness isn't lost. Actually tried to do the Incline Club workout this morning, made it to the water treatment plant along Ute Pass before bailing and walking home, just felt really shitty. One bright side is that I found a new trail to cut back into Manitou, which some of yunz DIM hashers might see later on...

ugh

Think I'm gonna hafta go to the hospital for this ear thing. I don't even know any docs down here now that Strip Me moved to Fart Collins. I hate being reminded that I'm human.

weekend update

Good times at the MOPP hash. Thanks to everyone who came out, I think most had a lot of fun. Had about twice as many as expected, someone said the count was 41 (with a lot of virgins), which quickly overwhelmed our beer supply. Thanks to $100 for all the work she did to help the hash run smoothly, which included several trips to the liquor store. The hash went through six 30 packs of PBR, several bottles of Boone's and at least 50 jello shots. Who knows how much beer we all downed at my place afterwards.

80oz to Freedom (i.e., Edward Fortyhands) was a rousing success. A bunch of us finished - Net, Tonka, Beggin', Donnie, ESPN, Bob, Just Wally, Bonesucker, and maybe a few others I can't remember. Anywho, my house was TRASHED this morning. More thanks to $100 for doing most of the cleaning. And by "most," I mean all.

Pics will follow shortly, both from the MOPP and the Kimchi hash. Believe it or not, the new Olympus Stylus 830 all weather camera, which is supposed to be breakproof, is not very hasher proof.

On another note, I'm currently battling some weird disease. Thought about going to the hospital this morning as it felt like someone was drilling a hole into my brain. I've had a horrible earache all day. Haven't run in two days due to being so sick, hope it clears up tonight so I can hit the Incline Club tomorrow morning, I've been having a really shitty week of running due to my sis visiting and this damn flu.

trinity brewing

A buddy of mine who has been pushing my lame ass to new heights at the Incline Club workouts is opening a new brewery. It's a ways off, as the tentative opening date isn't 'till August, but it'll be nice to have a microbrewery between work and home. This guy is the former owner of Kinfolk's and I originally met him while drinking at Arctic. Details on the brewery are here.

soon...

The east face of Pikes Peak has seen some serious melting over the past two weeks! I thought it would be at least late May until Barr Trail was passable but maybe it'll be a little earlier? Yeast Infection and I are planning on being the first people to drink a can of Fat Tire on the summit, FYI.

run

Nice run along the Garden 10 mile race course last night. Good turnout, with BLOS, IDH, Cherry Picker, and Lincoln showing up. My sister even got into the act, hiking up Red Mountain before meeting us all at Kinfolk's.

Got up to run with the PPRR this morning, but I think my sister has given me Asian bird flu. I felt horrible, chest pains and a terrible cough and a non-stop runny nose. Only struggled through four miles, though that was enough to give me my 8th Garden training run (I choose the 2005 Garden 10 miler shirt for my reward) and to give me my tenth consecutive day of running. Hopefully I recover from this cold quickly or tonight's IC workout is gonna kill me.

ain't no party like a Garden party!

On June 8th I'll be having a get together at my place after the Garden of the Gods ten miler. To gain admittance to this prestigious event, you must either A) finish the race; or B) volunteer at the race.

There will be awards. Obviously FRB and DFL trophies, but maybe some other categories if I can get my creative juices flowing before then.

If you're planning on attending, let me know just in case I decide to do some general finish schwag. So far we have:

brownie
IDH
BLOS
Ritz (that's Mopper, not olympic marathoner Dathan Ritzenhein who is obviously avoiding me)
Nibbles
Bungholio
Midnite Stroker (if Snowball comes with her it's totally a coincidence)
$100 Fuck
I Blow
Facial
NASCOCK
Herb
Cherry Picker

yeah, i'm a sexy bitch!

Go get 'em!

Two of my buddies from the Denver hash, Snowball and Chinwacker, are currently running the Boston marathon. They can be tracked here.

official results

Results are posted here. My official time was 4:23:37. Missed my PR by 43 seconds. 6th place overall, out of 85 finishers. 2nd place in my age group (which got me a pint glass, woohoo!).

FYI, I did this race last year in 5:01:12. My pace was over 70 seconds per mile faster this year.

how not to recover from an ultra

1. make sure you are seriously dehydrated by not drinking enough water on a hot day.
2. immediately after you finish, grab a beer. drink. repeat.
3. make sure you don't eat anything.
4. drive to the hash.
5. solve all the checks on a hilly trail for the Pikes Peak hash, since those guys are poofters who need Kimchi hashers to tell 'em what to do.
6. continue drinking long after the hash is over.

Greenland thoughts

Not much to say about the race. Kinda figured I'd do well since I've been training so hard lately. Not sure of my official time, but it'll be somewhere around 4:23:50. My current PR, and the time I so badly wanted to beat, was 4:22:55, set at the Rocky Raccoon 50K (Huntsville, TX) in 2005.

Ran my first three loops almost perfectly. All of 'em were in the 62 to 64 minute range. Wasn't wasting any time at the aid stations. Drank some water, threw down a salt tablet (took one per lap), and I was off. But even though Greenland is pancake flat compared to the stuff I usually run, there are some hills out there and they really grind you down lap after lap after lap. Add to that a fierce headwind you had to deal with for the first four miles of the loop and by lap four I was really hurting.

Though it sucks to miss your PR by less than 60 seconds in a race so long, I'm happy with my performance. Easily the hardest I've ever pushed during an ultra. For once, I wasn't just worried about relentless forward motion to the finish, I was actually pushing for a good time and trying to keep a quick pace. Probably ran over 90% of the race, only taking a few short walking breaks on the last lap when the wind was deflating my spirits. Most ultras, I'd guess, if I were having a good day, I'd run 60% to 70% of the race.

Another unusual thing about this race was that I didn't carry anything on me. No camelbak, not even a water bottle. They had aid stations about every four miles, and that was fine for me. Finally got a little parched at the top of the final hill, about three miles to go, so I grabbed some snow and chewed on it just to wet my throat. Had a hammer gel at the halfway mark and some twizzlers at the final aid station, and that was it.

Think I hit the marathon mark in under 3:30, so I was happy about that. Started falling apart immediately thereafter, but it was a nice comeback after my 5+ hour debacle at Salida. The guy who I outkicked over the last two miles at Salida, Bob from Boulder, wasn't too far behind me this time, and we laughed over beers afterwards how our times at the 50K were a lot faster than our Salida times.

Also happy with how I toughed out that last lap despite how bad I was hurting. Nobody passed me, and there were quite a few folks trying. The top female surged real hard on the last hill, and got within shouting distance of me. But once we crested the hill I surged and she couldn't hang. She still ran a great race considering it was her first ultra. After she finished we were talking and after I congratulated her on a great race I told her, "I knew you were coming, but I didn't want to get chicked today." This pissed her off, and she gathered her stuff and left almost immediately. Probably home to give her man a blow job and cook him supper, I guess.

Congrats to Ritz who finished the 25K, the longest she's ever run. I should blame her for the lack of a PR for me, since she wouldn't move over when I lapped her and made me go around her wanker ass.

Anywho, I'm hurting today much worse than after any other ultra I've done, including Leadville. Next up is the Collegiate Peaks 50 miler out in Buena Vista. My current 50 mile PR is 8:47, run on a Sunmart course that is a lot easier than BV. But I've run BV in under ten hours before, and I'm in much better shape now, so I plan to attack my PR out there too, and I'll be disappointed if I don't get it.

chubbs

Meet my new pet raccoon, chubbs. He lives in the abandoned car in my neighbor's front yard, but he hangs out on my porch every night. I first met him late one night stumbling back home from Manitou Ave. I thought he was my neighbor's cat, and I tried to pet him. We've been good friends ever since.

good quote

Saw this on Nips's shirt at the Pikes Peak hash yesterday:

"The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."
-Jack London

Garden

Pic from the PPRR Garden training run on April 17. Great run, even though Manitou got about five inches of fresh snow, it hadn't laid on the roads and that morning was actually somewhat warm.

ouch

4:23. I was in view of the finish line and could have hit it with a rock when my PR came and went. I'm having trouble walking now. More details later.

support your local record store!

Saturday is National Record Store Day! So head down to your local record joint and show 'em some love! Let 'em know that iTunes isn't taking over the music world. Me, I'll be picking up the new Apocalyptica album so I can sharpen up my mad air-cello skillz for the big show on Tuesday. Of course, I'll then be ripping off record stores by burning the CD and sending it to a bunch of friends...

it's the lunges, stupid!

Figured out why I was so sore from the track workout. I had forgotten that we did a bunch of running drills after the workout. High knees, skipping, running backwards, stuff like that. Reminded me of my old Rogue days. But we also did a bunch of lunges, which caused my legs to feel dead. No worries though, the Incline Club hill climb yesterday put some life back into 'em.

ouch!

Still sore from Tuesday's track workout. I'm a pretty quick recoverer, it's rare that I'm still sore two days after a hard effort. Guess that short rest between intervals really shook things up. But it's all good, I'll do tonight's Incline Club hill climb and rest tomorrow before Greenland.

This morning's run was fun. Only went five miles, trying to get over that rough workout. We got about five inches of snow in Manitou last night, but it didn't lay in the streets and it was somewhat warm out this morning. Made for a real scenic run through the garden.

first round bye!

It's all a go - first round Nuggets vs. Lakers. Can't wait to cee crybaby Kobe coming up with lame excuses for the first round exit! Donnie, don't forget to bring my 40oz with you.

damn it!

Just remembered I left my windows open. It was super nice this morning. My house is gonna be freezing when I get home.

wtf?

It was 80 degrees yesterday. I ran without a shirt.

Right now it's snowing. We're supposed to get up to five inches tonight.

Gotta love that Colorado weather.

Happy Grilled Cheese Month!

April is National Grilled Cheese month. Seriously. Read about it here. Some interesting facts about the grilled cheese sandwich:

-Due to its superior melting factor, American cheese is the most popular cheese chosen for a grilled cheese sandwich. Cheddar and Swiss take second and third places, respectively. (Mintel's Menu Insights)

-About 22 percent of U.S. households serve grilled cheese sandwiches at least once in a two-week period. (The NPD Group, Inc.)

-Lunch is the most popular meal for a grilled cheese – 64 percent are consumed during this meal. (The NPD Group, Inc.)

-In 2004, a grilled cheese sandwich bearing the image of the Virgin Mary sold for $28,000 on eBay. The owner saw the likeness toasted onto the sandwich and kept it for 10 years before auctioning it on the site.

-Americans make 2.2 billion grilled cheese sandwiches at home each year.

Damn, suddenly I'm hungry for grilled cheese...

"All of Colorado is burning"

Over 30 square miles of Colorado is on fire this morning. About 15 of those are right down the road near Fort Carson. No big deal at Carson, as there's nothing really important out there to burn, though I'm hoping the fire doesn't spread over to Phantom Canyon, which is one of my favorite drives in Colorado. You can see the haze from the smoke way up north where I work, but other than that the fire won't get anywhere near my neck of the woods, either in Colorado Springs or Manitou. If you smell something burning in Manitou, it probably isn't a forest fire!

Free pint of Icehouse to the first person to tell me who originally said the above quote...

run

Good workout at the Manitou high track yesterday. Started out with 2 x 200m with 30 seconds rest. Hit those in 35 seconds. Then did 10 x 400m with 60 seconds rest in between. Finished with 2 x 200m.

Ran the first 8 400m repeats all between 81 and 84. I had never done track work with so little rest in between, so I had to take it easy to see how I'd respond. The short rests made for a rough workout, but I managed to open things up on the last two quarters and hit 71 and 74. Then hit 34 for the final 200's.

Afterwards some of us hit Kinfolk's to shoot the shit. Good times!

This morning it was out the door at 5AM to do the Garden 10 miler course. Wanna break 65 minutes for that race, but it's a real tough course so we'll see. That race starts by my house and a bunch of people are doing it, so I'll probably have some kind of shindig at my place to pass the time between the end of the race and the beginning of the hash.

clear the track!

Switching workouts tonight, track intervals move from Colorado College to Manitou High. Should be good, haven't done a track workout with folks my speed in a long time. It'll be nice to have guys to push me again, maybe I'll have flashbacks to my days at Shikellamy when I lived on the track.

damn!!!!!

Edging out Buster Martin at the London marathon this past weekend was American Ryan Hall, running 2:06:17 to take 5th place. I might be able to ride my bike that fast, if there weren't any hills on the course. For those keeping score at home, that's a 4:49 per mile average over 26.2 miles. Check out this guy's splits:

10K, 29:11
20K, 58:58
1/2, 1:02:13
30K, 1:28:38
40K, 1:59:23
finish, 2:06:17

Damn, could we actually have a US contender at the Olympic marathon this year?

congrats!

Buster Martin became the oldest person to ever complete a marathon over the past weekend, finishing the London marathon in about ten hours. There are now reports that he may be "only" 94 years old, but it's still an impressive feat. He stopped at the halfway mark for a cigarrette, sandwich, and, of course, a beer.

helluva weekend!

Great weekend filled with awesome music, dive bars, and even a 10k at 10,000 feet. I'll do a write up shortly, until then the pics are here.

on-on to the mountains!

Off for a great weekend in Leadville, Copper Mountain, and Vail.

Rosie's brewpub (highest brewpub in the world). The Silver Dollar. The Manhattan. DAM brewery. George Clinton. Ben Harper. Matisyahu. Hot springs. Drinking Pabst (and probably gin & tonics with BLOS) above 10,000 feet. Not having to run 40 miles this weekend.

Woohoo! I love Colorado!

Congrats to C-4 and Net!

C-4 had her baby last night! I heard she's gonna take a break and wait at least nine months 'till having another one.

Incline Club hill climb! New PR!

Great workout tonight at the IC hill climb. One mile warm up to the start, then a 30 minute tempo run up Barr Trail. It was more like a race than a tempo run for me though. Hammered as hard as I could, held second place (first place if you don't count Matt) for 27+ minutes. Someone who paced themselves a little better was able to get me at the end, but the next guy was quite a ways back.

Smashed my PR to the top of the W's along the way. Old record was 23:17, ran last year at the Barr Trail Mountain Race. Hit that point today in 21:29, taking almost a full two minutes off my old PR! Slowly but surely I'm working my way into the best shape of my life.

Good quote taken from the IC newsletter. After the tempo run up Barr Trail, we do four hill repeats on Hydro Drive, which is the short but steep road up to the Barr Trail parking lot (or that nasty bitch hill at the very end of BTMR). This was overheard last week:

"We do hill repeats for our cool down. Do you really want to know what the 'workout' is?"

platte river pics

Ladies, not only can you get the usual life size posters and coffee mugs and such, but they now offer Wheaties boxes with these pics on 'em! For a small extra fee I might even autograph 'em.

ultra article

Good article on Tony K. from Denver's Westword newspaper can be seen here.

It should be noted that I regularly run longer on the Wed night CRC runs than he does. Yeah, he always cries about running 40 miles that morning and doing the CRC run barefoot, I guess we all have our lame excuses!

garden PR

Unlike some people, I didn't oversleep for today's Garden training run. Hard workout, and I was rewarded with a new PR for the tempo 7.2 mile loop. Ran it in 49:49. Doesn't sound too impressive, but it's a pretty hard loop. Had to throw in a huge surge from balanced rock all the way back to the parking lot to break 50 minutes.

Later today it's off to the Incline Club hill climb for a 30 minute race up Barr Trail. Should be shitty weather. Woohoo!

C-4 is going to try to steal my thunder later today. Good luck to her, but I think sub-7 minute miles in the Garden is much harder than giving birth. Case in point: how many high school kids can run seven miles in 49 minutes? Not many. How many high school girls give birth? Seems like all of 'em. So don't be whining to me about squeezing a basketball through your cooter or whatever analogy you chicks use, it can't be that difficult!

thunder!

Heard my first thunder of the year! Did a nice 13 miler out the Intemann trail, throughout Section 16, and even a little bit through Red Rock Canyon. Nice to see it finally raining instead of snowing.

sick day!

Phoned it in today, gonna try to rehab my aching shoulder! Woohoo! Think what it might need is a nice 20 miler up in the mountains...

Platte River

Up at 5AM and on the road by 5:30AM. Horribly hungover. Used to be able to compete hungover and not lose a step, though that was way back in high school. Not quite that kind of machine anymore. From all the looks I got, I'm sure people could still smell booze on me when I picked up my packet. Which was fine with me, I love pissing off road runners.


Had a goal of breaking 90 minutes for this race. Then I thought running 1:33:57 would be acceptable, as that's Boston qualifying pace.

Didn't feel like running at all, so I skipped the warm up. Figured I'd just start slow. And I did start slow, or at least it felt so. Hit mile one in a very surprising 6:38.

Continued to mentally bitch myself out for drinking so much the night before, for wasting $45 and ruining my race before it even began. Yet somehow during my self-scolding I was clicking off 6:30 miles. Somewhere around mile eight I said to myself, "self, maybe you should quit whining about what you did yesterday and race." I did, and I passed a ton of people over those last few miles. Had to push like hell to keep the same pace, as my legs just aren't used to spinning that fast, but while everyone else was fading I was holding steady.

And it paid off, I passed hundreds of people after that first mile. Finished in a time of 1:26:09, much faster than I thought I could run. Good for 24th place out of at least 800 runners (they only list the top 800 on the website - there were probably about 1200 runners who started).

I'm not suggesting that racing hungover is a smart thing to do, but I'm proud I didn't use it as an excuse to bail on a race effort. Last year I was hungover and threw in the towel at this race and ran 1:41. Shows you the difference between my training for Hardrock and what I did for Leadville. Taking things a lot more seriously this year. Fighting tooth and nail to meet cutoff times isn't something I'd like to go through again.

Next up for me is the Greenland 50K. My first ultra since Leadville. My current PR for that distance is 4:22, ran at the pancake flat sea level course at Rocky Raccoon. It'll be tough to lower that on a Colorado trail, but that's what I'm gonna go for.

good times!

An oldie but goodie. One of the early Austin invasions of the HCH3. At McDermott's, a doublewide trailer turned into a bar.

something new to whine about...

My ankle is no longer the #1 item on my "things that hurt" list. Somehow I jacked up my right shoulder. Think I slept on it wrong or something. If I lift my arm up past my shoulder, I get rocked by a sharp pain. Doesn't effect my running at all, but my workout at the rock gym this afternoon sucked ass.

saturday

Great day on Saturday. Up at 5AM for a killer long run. Five hours that took me to the summit of Red Mountain, along Ute Pass, around Waldo, up Longs Ranch Road (one of the worst hills in the area), down Barr Trail, and back to my place via the Intemann trail. Felt good, and I was able to run the entire thing, minus the very top of Longs Ranch. Stuck my kankle in Fountain Creek afterwards. I don't recommend that, it's kinda so cold it feels like someone is jabbing a knife into you.

After a quick shower it was off to Will's pub in downtown CS for the Pikes Peak hash. Not a big fan of downtown hashes, but I had to go support No Girth since he's a Kimchi hasher at heart. After a bunch of drinks at Will's, Boobs, BLOS and I went on trail all the way to Southside Johnny's. Luckily for me, they had the 24oz cans of Pabst. We ran into a hasher home on leave from Iraq at SJ's, real good to drink with him for a bit.

Rest of the trail was uneventful, save for finding one of Tonka Butt's maxi pads on trail. The hash ended at an old stomping ground of mine, the Triple Nickel tavern. Always have pitchers of PBR for $5.55 there, woohoo! Circle, run by Wong Way, was a good one, and I drank quite a bit. Don't remember taking my pants off, but looking at some pictures I suppose it may have happened.

Bob and I left to head back to my place. On the way there, Boobs calls and tells me that Bristol brewing is having $0.33 pints to celebrate the end of prohibition. A couple of illegal u-turns later Bob and I pull into Bristol to join the party. Several more pints here and we end up back at my place for some PBR.

$100 Fuck shows up and drives my drunk ass back downtown to McCabe's to see Boobs off. No way I should have continued to drink, but oh well. Saw a bunch of wankers I hadn't seen in a long time down at McCabes, that was cool. Pounded three pints of Guinness at McCabes which sent me over the edge and I don't remember much after Tonka and MeatGazer showed up. Next thing I know, my alarm is going off at 5AM...

81.2

Another good week, getting in over 80 miles for the first time ever. I'll hafta take a break this week due to being out of town. Probably a good thing, I'm starting to feel a lot of minor aches and pains which I should let heal now before they become big problems.

Highlights were Saturday's rough 24 miler (my house - red mountain - ute pass - waldo canyon - longs ranch road - barr trail - intemann trail - my house) which was definitely my best battle against Longs Ranch ever, and of course Platte River on Sunday.

weekend

Couple 'o pics I stole from other people. Sure was one helluva weekend. Won't be topped again until this weekend - when I head out to the mountains (Leadville, Copper Mountain, Vail) for some hiking and some killer live music.

Platte River

Ran 1:26:09 for the Platte River half marathon. Much faster than I thought I'd go, and I think I would have been 1:24 had I not had a raging hangover from sending Boobs off last night. Splits I can remember:

Mile 1 - 6:38
Mile 2 - 13:01
Mile 3 - 19:33
Mile 10 - 65:45

Really struggled in keeping up the pace over the last 5K, but I pushed hard. Pretty psyched about the race, didn't think I could run that fast. Plugging that time into the runner's world calculator predicts a marathon finish of 2:59.

This is my fastest half marathon ever. First Colorado PR. Even beats my Slacker time. Ran this same race last year in 1:41. Next race up is the Greenland 50K, my first ultra since Leadville, and I'm gonna try to lower my current PR at that distance (4:22).

Race report to follow, as well as hash trash from the Pikes Peak and Boulder hashes. All in all, one helluva weekend!

good times for Pirate fans!

My Buccos enter the weekend atop the National League Central! The Astros are last place in that same division, FYI.

Then some other Pirates take over a French cruise ship! Read about it here. Pirates there are complaining about the body odor of French people...

Global Pirate attacks rose by 10% last year, so be on the lookout! Arrrrrrrgh!

Incline Club hill climb!

Figured not too many brave souls would show up tonight, but about 30 ICers toughed out the crappy weather for the first Thursday hill climb of the year. Did 15 x 1 minute repeats up Barr Trail, with one minute easy in between. I hammered the repeats and walked the easy part, need to make sure my hiking skills are up to par for Hardrock. Was hoping to make it to the top of the W's, and I got there as my 13th repeat ended. Great workout, which included stops at Kinfolk's and the Townhouse on the way home.

Have a very important race on Sunday which I hope to break 90 minutes at. My taper since Tuesday has included two 7 mile long tempo runs, a 4 x 1200 track workout, a weight workout at the Y, three straight days of the rock gym, the IC hill climb, the Incline, and a twelve mile easy run. Tomorrow is a rest day, only hitting the rock gym, the Y, and the Incline. Saturday it's a 25 to 30 miler in the morning, followed immediately by the hash. Should leave me good and fresh for Platte River.

the witches of Manitou...

Good article in this week's CS Independent concerning all the rumors about Manitou being a haven for witches. I had heard this ever since I started hanging with the Pikes Peak racers in Austin. The nice people of Colorado Springs think Manitou is some kind of Harry Potter magicland. I even believed it, though I just assumed Manitou was full of wiccans, who I think are weird, but I figured I'd have much less of a problem with them than the jesusfreaks in CS.

But I have never, ever seen any evidence of a witch in Manitou. And even before I moved here, I spent tons of time on this side of the highway.

Couldn't find a link to the article, so you'll hafta pick up a copy of the Indy if you wanna read it. It's in the special "annual manual 2008" section. I'll copy the final paragraph of the article:

"By the way, my little quest turns up six witches. None lives in Manitou. And none of them knows any witches who call Manitou home."

“Adventure isn’t hanging on a rope off the side of a mountain. Adventure is an attitude that we must apply to the day to day obstacles of life - facing new challenges, seizing new opportunities, testing our resources against the unknown and in the process, discovering our own unique potential.”

-John Amatt

the bet

Me. Pete. Imogene Pass. A bottle of the respective state's finest vodka. It's on like donkey kong!

32:48

Made it up the Incline in 32:48 this morning. Hope to be back down below thirty minutes by the end of the month, and setting PRs by the end of May.

Some Army guys had a huge lead on me going up, but I caught them early and passed them like they were standing still. Very sad, I would expect that from Air Force folks but I was hoping the Army could hold me off a little longer. Hopefully they weren't Infantry. Probably commo pogues.

i'm so glad i'm a trail runner

Road runners are such dorks, proof of which can be seen here. Unfortunately, in today's sue-happy society, I can see this passing.

GO BUCS!

The Pittsburgh Pirates began their world championship season last night, routing the Atlanta Braves. We're on pace to go undefeated with the highest scoring offense of all time! And we're ahead of the Astros!

Salida

Stole these pics of the Colorado Runner website. Two pics that illustrate why I keep going back for the Salida marathon. The first pic is the start, shows you how scenic the course is. The bottom pic is when you finally start the trip back down into town. Your legs are already shot to hell, then you gotta bomb down 2.5 miles of rocky, technical trail to get that hard earned PBR. Good times!

Garden training run #1

Not all of us slept in this morning. I drug myself out of bed at 5AM to hit the Pikes Peak Road Runners Garden training run. This is a pretty decent run attended by those willing to rise early, not sleepyheads like Susan.

Anywho, I decided this year to bail on the trail guys and hang with the fast group. They have a bunch of groups this year - fast, slow, two trail groups, and a social group. The fast group is a bunch of tri-dorks and other serious road runners. Wasn't sure I could hang, but I figured I'd try and at least get a good workout out of it.

We started at 6AM sharp, and a group of three shot out of the gate. I followed. The Garden is a bunch of rolling hills, it's actually a pretty hard run. But I hung on. Eventually, two of the group (a guy and a gal) faded, and it was down to two of us. Several times the remaining guy tried to drop me on the hills, but I held on. And on the final hill, I attacked, leaving the guy in the dust. So, at least for today, I was the fastest guy at the run!

6.7 miles in 46:32, under seven minutes per mile. Pretty good pace for the hills of the Garden. I'd like to run around 66 minutes for the upcoming Garden 10 mile, this was a good start.

MOPP hash

Scouted trail for the upcoming MOPP hash on Sunday. Here are a few pics. The rest can be seen here. Thinking of using this same trail for the CO Invihash pre-lube as it would be a super-cool trail for outta towners. So all yunz locals need to come out, do this trail, and let me know what you think.