Incline

Tuesday evening Incline in the rain.  Five miles, untimed.  Dogs first Incline in the rain.

Ended July with 266 miles, first sub 300 mile month of 2012.  Also ended it, more importantly, with that fourth Hardrock finish.

Signed up for the Denver half on September 9th if anyone is interested in throwing down.  Pricey, even with the RunColo discount, but I need to hit the shorter stuff to get ready for NYC.  Post run grub at the Cherry Cricket.

Barr Camp

Barr Camp from the Cog, 1:34 up, total 2:44 for the 12.5 mile run.  Easy effort.  Don't think it will take much to get to Barr Camp in 1:30 on race day, need that time to give me a shot at a sub three.

post-Hardrock

A whopping 12.3 miles the week after Hardrock, back up to 47.2 this week.  Some quality stuff lately, a hard ten miler on Thursday and the Paint Mines 6K on Saturday.  Have two more weeks of hard training until Pikes Peak, then it's back to the road stuff to get ready for NYC.

Congrats to the champ!

Couple of crappy videos I took.  First one is at Mosquito Pass.

Vagabond Swing

new wheeles

My other ride is your mom!

new wheeles

race report

A quick write up of my hike is over here.

commute #31

Easy five to work today, 45:46.

Got a mention on iRunFar today, see it here.  You know Bryon isn't about the money because I offered him some big bucks to give me Kara Goucher's phone number and he wouldn't bite.  Hopefully those guys can score an interview with Ryan Hall sometime and drill him about the Grand Canyon R2R2R he's mentioned in the past.

Incline

Had been almost a month since I hit the Incline, probably the longest break I'll take all year.  Did the 5.5 mile loop, untimed.  Still 92F at 7:30PM.

Kroger's

Some awesome pics of ultrarunning's best aid station are over here.

might have to frame this one...

Not a big fan of the whole child rape thing, but as a supporter of the other college football team in Pennsylvania I'm pretty stoked about how crappy the PSU football team is going to be.

Red Rock Canyon

Very easy 4.2 miles in 50 minutes with the dog.  Red Rock Canyon trails.

back at it

Post-Hardrock soreness, followed by a visit from some Austin buddies, combined to give me a 12 mile week.  Although, believe it or not, I did a 17 mile mountain bike ride on Saturday - hammered up Cheyenne Canon and took the Chutes and Columbine back down to Bristol.

Back to Barr Trail this evening.  40 minutes up and then back down, 5.2 miles in 65 minutes.

Awesome video by Carson:


Hanging out at Hardrock 100 - 2012 from Carson Rickey on Vimeo.

bump

Sorry, but I'm not going to bump this pic off the top of my blog with a pic of some ugly dude.

uniforms

I recently read an article on the Olympic uniforms, designed by Nike and resembling a golf ball.  Heard they will provide a huge advantage, even in a shorter race like the 100m.  Hopefully, they will be much faster than my uniform of choice:

track

Timko took a bunch of pics, but only one of 'em was any good.

The rest of the pics can be seen over here.

5:21 mile (getting crushed by Mike H and GZ), 14:15 for the 3k steeple (getting crushed by Vega and GZ).  I believe I'm the fourth fastest ultra guy/steeplechaser behind Max King, Vega, and GZ.

commute #30

Easy 5.2 to work, 50 minutes.  The bottoms of my feet hurt.  Which one would think could be from the steeple last night, but I didn't really jump over any of the hurdles.

Hardrock

Couple 'o Hardrock pics, courtesy of Solarweasel.

2Up!

Sancho's!

Kroger's

Kroger's Canteen is the best aid station in all of ultrarunning!

Better show of the snow down below:

Hardrock

Finish number four.  36:07.  Not quite the time I was hoping for, but I'm not disappointed with a 30 minute PR.  Wish I had stories of pain and suffering and other epic shit, but this is a course that plays to what I do well - move slowly and continuously.  I'll probably be in more pain this Thursday at the Boulder track meet than I was at any point of Hardrock.  I'll try to get a more detailed report over on Pikes Peak Sports by the weekend.

Big thanks to Ryan and $100 for crew/pacer/bartender duties.  And thanks to BT for the pic.

Think the highlight of the weekend for me was when Kirk Apt had everyone sign his finisher poster to give to Leadville Bill Dooper.  Nice to pretty much end race weekend on such a high note, since I was pretty bummed a few of my buddies didn't have the run they wanted.

No time to bask in the glory, Pikes is looming.

Another stolen BT pic, proof that at one point I was beating Wilcox.

breakfast of champions!

Bacon cheeseburger at 8am at the W Cafe in Gunnison!

Finish

203

Colorado hashers

Silverton!

tapering

Moonlight!

commute #29

Two day work week, but I kept the streak alive.  5.2 miles, 44:15.

yard

We have decided to use the windfall received from hosting the Fat Ass to revamp the start/finish area (I heard Nick used his cut on blow and hookers, at least we're giving back to the ultra community).  Hopefully this assures O'Day will not have any more competition for the Valley's worst lawn.

Hardrock splits

KT - 3 hours (9AM)
Chapman - 5 hours (11AM)
Telluride - 8 hours (2PM)
Kroger - 10 hours (4PM)
Gov - 11 hours (5PM)
Ouray - 12.5 hours (6:30PM)
Engineer - 15 hours (9PM)
Grouse - 17.5 hours (11:30PM)
Sherman - 22.5 hours (4:30AM)
Pole Creek - 26 hours (8AM)
Maggie - 27.5 hours (9:30AM)
Cunningham - 30 hours (noon)
Finish - 32:55 hours (2:55PM)
Silverton Brewery - 33 hours (3PM)

Picking up Ryan K at Grouse.  Was prepared to go without a pacer since Shad bailed once he decided to train full time for an upcoming 3000m steeplechase, but a recent hungover DeCaLiBro hike reminded me it might be a good thing to have someone out there.

The crux of the race will be from Grouse to Sherman.  Last time I ran Hardrock, I was not mistaken for Usain Bolt as it took me nine hours to cover 13.5 miles.  I need to cover that section a little faster this year.

Think I'm going to use my iPhone for music, so updates will be spotty until I hit Grouse.  $100 might be able to get some interweb access on the laptop at Telluride and Ouray, and I'll have her let the FB/blog world know how I'm doing.

Starting to get nervous.  Should be confident as I feel I'm in much better shape than I've ever been for this race, but all I seem to think about now are doomsday scenarios.

Monday

Easy 35 minutes with the dog in Red Rock Canyon this morning.  We got a shitton of rain this weekend, lots of mud over there.

55 miles last week, including a solid two hours of Barr Trail on Saturday and a good effort at the Summer Roundup.  The taper is going well.

53:58

53:58 at the Summer Roundup 12K.  31:04 out and 22:54 back.  A little harder than I planned to run, but I still had a gear I could have gone to had I wanted.

Currently sitting in second place in my age group for the Triple Crown, behind Tommy M.  I never realized how small of a dude he was.  Sure wish they would add a steel cage wrestling match to the Triple Crown, I might have a shot to win the age group.  That is Tommy on my shirt, FYI.

fitness = cheap hot dogs

Go Sky Sox!

commute #28

Easy run to work.  5.2 miles, 48 minutes.

Pirates have a two game lead in the NL Central!

Loves me some pie charts:

give me tapers!

The hay is in the barn, or however that saying goes.  Was planning on a two week taper, but that was sort of turned into a three week taper due to recent shit going down.  Just over 40 miles last week, looks like I'll get about 50 in this week, including the hikes of DeCaLiBro and Elbert.

Focused a lot more on long runs this time, as opposed to getting out there every day for shorter efforts like I've done in the past.  100K, three 50 milers, a 50K, and two marathons.  Sure hope this strategy pays off, we'll find out in ten days.

Hope to get splits and all that crap in order this weekend.  The goal is 32:55, a ten hour improvement from when I first finished this race.  The running/hiking part isn't really the issue, it's how much I sleep.  I can say I have at least four beer stops scheduled: Kroger's, Ouray, Handies, and Cunningham.  I also need to find out if cigars violate the current fire ban.

And the drama continues to build: will this be the race where I finally beat someone from Fort Collins???

it's coming...

mobile slurpee machine

update

DeCaLiBro this morning with the dog and some buddies.  5+ hours, all above 12,000 feet.

Waldo fire is 70% contained.  All parks are now open!

fridge

If Marc and Amanda ever ask for crash space, say yes.

I heart Colfax!

Sancho's!!!!!

Booooo!