PI ad

My kind of humor.  But it could hit the bottom line for Pearl Izumi, as one of the three people who actually pay money for PI running shoes is now boycotting.

The ad even pissed off unofficial PI spokesdog Charlie Brown, who said the runner featured here is way too slow and noted the golden in that pic probably just got bored of running at such a weak pace and went to sleep.

Hump Day

AM - Easy five miles on the Garden roads.  48 minutes.

Lunch - Checked out the summer clearance sale at Mountain Chalet.  Counts as outdoorsey activity since they had a ton of overpriced patagonia shit there.  Didn't buy anything as I know $100 would have killed me.

PM - PPRR newsletter stuffing.  PPRR has sunk to having professional male models on the cover to sell copies.

Expecting this weekends Black Squirrel Half Marathon to be quite the shit show.  Besides not allowing trekking poles, we got an e-mail today that the beer at the finish line will be from the People's Republic of Boulder.  If I wanted to drink pretentious beer from yuppie-ville I would have made plans to visit Boulder, not the Fort.  Who the hell is running the show up there?  With a Boulder influence I assume tomorrows e-mail will explain the requirement that I run with a 14 person film crew following me along the course.  I was getting ready to bail when my dog told me Black Squirrel benefits a great cause.  And I calmed down and grabbed a decent, hence unavailable in Boulder, beer and felt good that all my money will benefit Animal House, the greatest movie of all time.

Turtle on the Track

Back to the track.  Not very pretty.  1.5 mile warm up, 6 x 400m with 200m RBI, 1.5 mile cool down.  93, 94, 93, 92, 85, 82.  Here's a shot of my new coach, who made the trip from Oregon to watch the workout:

He said my times were good, if I were a 6th grade girl who was trying the sport for the first time.  I definitely have some work to do.

Took a hike at the dog park right after work.  There was a guy with a pistol walking around.  And he kept yelling at his poor dog, constantly screaming "I'm gonna fucking shoot my dog."  Loud enough for any children, of which there were many, within a quarter mile to hear.  Typical white trash obese guy.  He wasn't a threat to shoot anything, he was just acting tough because he had a gun.  I don't mind guns, but every time I see something like this I keep hoping they make firearms harder and harder to get.

Stopped counting the number of run/bike/bus commutes.  Been at my job for a month and have only driven to work twice.  60% bike and 40% bus.  I'm close enough that my bike ride takes about as much time as my drive time, so the truck has a lot of inactivity in her future.

Monday

PM - Easy four miles in Red Rock Canyon, 41 minutes.

Decided I'm going to take the next few months to concentrate on shorter distances.  My Colorado 5K PR is 17:45 and I'd like to see if I can get back down there.  I was going to do my usual build up to an early 2014 road marathon sub three shot, and I was about ready to sign up for Eugene, but they moved that race to July.  So I'll save up the vacation and stay local for a while.  I do have some big ideas I'm kicking around for next year (some of them lottery dependent) and it'll be good for me to spend a few months working on the faster stuff.

I have given up on any kind of decent performance this weekend at the Black Squirrel half.  Partly because I haven't been running much lately, and partly because the douchebag RD has banned trekking poles!  Plus, I don't want to jeopardize my performance at the Tour de Fat by racing too hard.  Hopefully I'm far enough under the cutoff (4.5 hours) that the aid stations won't run out of anything.  There is one section where you have to run a full 2.5 miles between aid stations, so I'm looking for pacers and crew if anyone is interested.

Before that last paragraph pisses off all you Leadville peeps, please know it was a joke.  What is not a joke, but much less believable than any of the shit I've ever put on this blog, is that the Pittsburgh Pirates are preparing to sell post-season tickets.  21 straight losing seasons for us Bucco fans.

Fri

Thurs AM - easy five miles on the Garden roads, 48 minutes.

Fri - up late monitoring the flood so no AM run this morning.

Dodged a bullet last night when the rains dropped the main load out east.  Camp Creek had about a foot of water in it but nothing too scary.  We can hear the warning sirens of Manitou and it's pretty eerie when they go off.

Off to see both shows of Dave Matthews after work, and much of my weekend will be spent in Denver.  Think I'm running Bergen Peak on Sunday and then headed to the Denver Bike Cafe to watch the bike race.  Get in touch if anyone wants to join me.

Wed

AM1 - Easy five miles on the Garden roads,

AM2 - 3.6 miles super easy to work on the bike.  16 minutes.

PM - Home from work via Cheyenne Canon on the bike.  The up always crushes me, but I forget about that as I don't have to pedal at all the second half of the workout.  14.6 miles in 1:36.

Kind of sad seeing so many folks bitch and moan about Leadville this year.  Pb was my first hundred miler and I have three finishes out there (along with one DNF and a bunch of miles pacing various parts of the course) and I still have a soft spot for the race in my heart.  But obviously a lot has changed since I last ran it way back in 2010.

Of course Lifetime fitness is there to make money.  Did this surprise anyone, knowing the management guys at Lifetime were the real life basis for the Globo Gym team in Dodgeball?  This race was started with the sole purpose of bringing money to the area.  So selling out, or over-commercialism, or whatever folks are calling it today, is not only part of the race's history, but it's really the entire history.  Ken made no effort to hide this fact, but now that he's gone racers seem appalled that Lifetime just might be in the business to make a buck or two.

The next generation of Hardrockers will mostly come from Leadville, and it's not looking good.  So much crying about the Hopeless aid station.  Folks, if you need three aid stations to get from Twin Lakes to Winfield and back, you're going to get crushed once you try a difficult mountain race.  And then to get to Hopeless and have your day ruined because they had Evian instead of Perrier water or whatever the issues were up there says a lot about the toughness of some of the runners.  Even if they were completely out of everything, it's four miles downhill to Twin Lakes.  Tough it out.  Or kill a llama and drink the blood.  Whatever.  Just get the damn job done.

And the folks who complain about the overcrowding.  Sheesh.  Same type of people who sit in traffic and complain about traffic.  "It was so crowded that my crew of ten people in four different cars had trouble seeing me every five miles."  I wonder if the issue was really overcrowding, or the fact that a pacer couldn't get a facebook picture without another runner in the shot, ruining the solo mountain picture that every ultrarunner seems to strive for today.

So yeah, maybe it's not the race that's the problem.  Maybe it's the runners taking part in it.

Not to take anything away from some awesome individual performances that were thrown down.  But as a whole, the Pb class of '13 doesn't have a whole lot to be proud of.

me & my dog

Another Hardrock pic I dug up.  Just after the river crossing at mile 98.

Almost Famous

Got my pic in the Gazette on Sunday.

Hardrock

My secretary Shad came across these the other day.  Thanks to Tanner Johnson for sharing all these.

These were taken pretty late in the race.  In professional wrestling terms, this is what I was doing to Rob at this point:

Post Work Workout

Nice ride/run combo after work today, or a "brick" as it's called in the multi-sport world.  But I can't use that word since I don't wear spandex or shave my legs.

14.5 mile bike up the road through Cheyenne Canon to the top of High Drive and back down to the house.  The Cross Check doesn't have a granny gear so I was working pretty hard on the climb.  63 minutes to the top of High Drive and 95 minutes on the whole ride.

As soon as I got back I went for a quick five on the Garden roads, 42 minutes.  

Hump Day

Tues PM - 8.5 miles on the Garden roads, 73 minutes.  Other than Fuller's Pb night run, this is the only decent run I've had since Hardrock.

Wed AM - Four miles in Red Rock Canyon with the dog, 47 minutes.

Due to a combination of recovery/laziness since Hardrock, I'm not expecting much from Pikes this weekend.  More likely to push for a sub four than a sub three.  The new "A" goal for the weekend will be to not let Brandon drop me as he crushes Leadville.

I heard Memorial Park will be off limits this weekend due to flood damage.  Packet pick up at Seven Minute Springs (the gazebo right behind Memorial Park) and a scaled down race expo at City Hall.  Still haven't heard anything official though.

An old hasher friend of mine from Houston was killed on Monday night.  Hit by a car while riding his bike.  RIP Shuttle.

new toy!

Big plans for this puppy!

I'm alive

Still here.  Been busy as hell with some traveling and a new job.  Running has been in a funk since Hardrock.  Recovery, both mentally and physically, has been slow.  Actually been biking quite a bit but that's not a real workout.  I know I haven't gotten completely out of shape just three weeks after Hardrock, but I feel lost and sluggish every time I've go running since then.

Did have the dubious honor of DNF'ing twice in one day on Saturday.  Bailed on the Summit Donut 50K after the Incline, and then only ran half of Fuller's Pb night run.  Good times all day though.  Thanks to Timko for the pic of all the ugly people in Leadville.

Today was pretty solid for a Monday.  AM run on the Garden roads, 6.5 miles in an hour.  After work I took the bike up to the top of High Drive and back, 12 miles in 90 minutes.