April

Easy seven miler on the Garden Roads after work on Wednesday.  Five miler up to Carson Pass with the wife and dog this morning.  Allowed me to sneak over 200 miles for the month.

41 bike commutes to work on the year, including 15 this month.  Most of my miles on the bike came on the ride to/from the office, 165 total for April.

Caught the Bonamassa show last night.  I remember first hearing that name when he was 13 years old, way back when I still lived in Austin.  The guy still kills it.

Monday

The days will get less and less fitness oriented as the week goes on.  Got in two decent runs today, an easy 7 miler in the AM, and an easy 8.5 miler in the PM.  Both on the Garden roads.  Bit sore from the race.  Bike commute #39 to and from work as well.

Looks like we got quite a bit of snow up high (over 9K) with the most recent storm.

dope

Colorado's other favorite baseball team.

weekend

Worked aid station #1 at the Cheyenne Mountain 25/50K on Saturday.  Always nice to sit around and watch others run.  But shit, I was pretty tired when I got home.  Instead of heading out for a planned 15 miler, I took a nap and hit Manitou Brewing instead.

Ran Tonia's Run 5K this morning.  Nice 30 minute warm up followed by the race.  Not a great race for me, but I'm OK with the time.  Slightly less than a world class field, I caught the leader shortly after the mile marker (5:57 first mile for me).  I didn't want things to come down to a kick, so at the halfway point of the race I made a decisive move and put a good gap between me and second place.  Was going well until a very short but very steep climb put me in the hole.  Second mile in 5:59.  The last mile I was running scared and just waiting to get passed, but I guess the dude behind me was in pretty rough shape as well.  Official time was 18:27.  Only six of the 88 finishers broke 20 minutes, again not exactly an Olympic final, but it's always fun to be in the mix up front.  Happy with the time but still feel I have a lot more in me at this distance.

More important than the win was crushing Brooks.  He ended up third.

Thanks to RD Tonia Smith for the pics.

After the race it was off to the annual Taste of Old Colorado City.  And man did it rain this year.  At least it kept the crowds down.  Sampled brews from Red Leg, Bristol, Ska, Big Choice, High Hops, Odell, and Oskar Blues.  Had some food too, mostly different variations of mac & cheese.  Good times other than the cold and rain.

Found this pic on the FB feed the other day, brought back some memories.  Back in the first few months of Iraq, I slept on the ground.  Moving on up, I eventually got my own cot in this shithole of a burnt out, abandoned building, in the town of Bayji.  About half an hour from Tikrit.  The Bayji refinery has been in the news lately, with various groups of folks trying to blow up everything.

Friday

Down couple of days due to other commitments (beer drinking) but I should still hit 40 miles for the week.  Five miles up to Carson Pass on Monday, seven mile road runs on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a rest day on Thursday.  Will be hitting the trails in Red Rock Canyon after work today for a few miles, then dropping by Fossil Brewing to help them celebrate their six month anniversary.

Doing two morning classes per week at CityRock nowadays.  Building strength.  Once I decide to commit to becoming a better rock climber this will pay huge dividends.

Also biked to work every day this week and hope to hit 40 bike commutes on the year before I leave for New Orleans on Thursday.

I'm running a 5K on Sunday and looking forward to that.  I want to take a shot at a sub 18 soon, but this probably isn't the course to do it on.  Might cheat and go for that mark in NOLA, but after two days at Jazzfest who knows what the result will be.  I do have a history of drunken running miracles in that city though.

Lots of work still left to do, but the basement bar is coming together quite nicely.  Not sure if I've mentioned it here, but The Red Rock Lounge closed her doors on March 1st.  They were nice enough to let me have a table and four chairs from the place.

50k

Meandered over to Palmer Park on Saturday to run Justin's 50K.  I wondered how anyone could squeeze a 31 mile run into two loops there, but he sure pulled it off.  Great event, and a great long run for me for the third straight week.  Ran (hiked) most of the second loop with Shad, who was gracious enough to not drop me.  I returned the favor by crushing him over the final half mile of the race, securing the cheap win over the Leadman wannabe.  Was hoping to run around 5:30, finished in 5:50ish, all in all a great day on the trails.  My only gripe about the race is that there weren't enough slow people and I would have finished damn near in last place if Shad had any kind of leg speed over the short distances.

Will be trying my best over the next two weeks to remain somewhat active.  Lots of events coming up that will play havoc with that.  Hops For Heroes up at Dry Dock Brewing on Thursday, volunteering at the Cheyenne Mountain race on Saturday, Taste of OCC on Sunday, Joe Bonamassa on Tuesday, and of course the upcoming trip to Jazzfest.  I'm also running a 5K each of the next two weekends - Tonia's Run here in the Springs on Sunday, and the Big Easy Big Heart 5K down in NOLA next week.  Good times!

20 again

Willed myself to another 20 miler on Sunday to get me to 50 on the week.  Not sure I've ever done back to back weeks with 20 mile road runs.  Here's some of the beautiful scenery along the Santa Fe trail:

Had a mental and physical breakdown about 15 miles into the run.  Most runners would have gone to a gas station for some kind of energy bar.  Pussies.  I hit Red Leg.

Easy day on Monday.  Five miles up to Carson Pass and back in the AM.  Took the dog up Red Mountain in the PM.  Her first run with me since her surgery.  She's not in great shape, but it won't take long to get her back in top form.

Hit the track on Tuesday morning.  6 x 400m.  Luckily they were untimed, wasn't exactly setting the world on fire with my quarter times.  Good workout though.

Took the father-in-law up to check out the Air Force Academy on Saturday.  I had never been this close to the chapel before.  Pretty cool building.  The inside was pretty sweet as well, and I wasn't struck by lightening when I went into a church for the first time in many, many years.

Tour de Left Hand

Marc and I made our annual pilgrimmage up to Left Hand Brewing for their Hops & Handrails beer festival a few weeks ago.  Made a few tweaks to the route which I think made for better riding, but of course the one thing that didn't change was the fact that a lot of beer was consumed.

Kicked off things at Fossil Brewing with a Mammoth IPA.

And then it was over to Red Leg Brewing.

Then the standard Red Leg to Pikes Peak via the Santa Fe trail.

We decided to take the journey west this year, heading to Palmer Lake and jumping on CO 105 to take us north.  No trip to Palmer Lake is complete without grabbing a brew at O'Malley's.

Then it was a long ride up to Sedalia.  We battled the wind and earned a stop at Bud's Bar.

One last brewery stop for the day.  Really love Living The Dream and their Arrogant Hipster Lager.

Then it was off to the hotel.  Which doubled as a dinosaur exhibit.  Pretty cool.  And it was right across the street from the Rusty Bucket, a local Steelers bar.  Met up with Kircher and Garcia here and drank a shit ton of Iron City.

Kircher continued with us on Saturday morning.  After some wandering around trying to get across the I-70 barrier, we made good time to the first brewery of the day, Four Noses.  We were deep inside GZ country at this point and tried to get him to come out and play, but he used some lame excuse about family to bail.

Then it was off to Louisville.  Awesome stop at what was probably my favorite brewery of the weekend (playing Phish certainly helped), 12 Degrees.

Breweries were falling into our lap at this point.  We didn't even know we'd be passing Liquid Mechanics.

At some point we actually did get to Left Hand.

We were pretty late getting to the actual festival, but we had a blast on the ride up there and made the most of the time we had at the beerfest.  Even saw my old arch-nemesis.

Neither of us do much of anything anymore, so whenever we get together all we talk about is how good we used to be.

One more brewery on the way to the hotel after the festival.  300 Suns Brewing.  My 119th Colorado brewery.

There was even more debauchery after that, but my mind gets kind of fuzzy.  I know I ended up at Oskar Blues at some point.  And on Sunday we went back to Left Hand and then to the Tasty Weasel before catching a ride back to the Springs.

Awesome weekend of drinking beers and riding bikes.  70 miles the first day, 50 miles the second day.  Thinking of adding a ride up to the annual IPA fest at Avery this year, this kind of trip is way too much fun not to take advantage of that opportunity.

Tortoise & Hare

Ran the local Tortoise & Hare 5K on Saturday.  I volunteer to help with registration beforehand then do the race, a combination which always leads to a poor race for me.  Yesterday wasn't too bad, though I did throw in the towel on the last mile (ran 5:55, 6:05, 6:17).  Finished in 18:43 for the 3.06 mile course.  Not too horrific as this is basically a solo effort on a slow Santa Fe trail, but I still think I can go sub 18 on a good day and a fast course.  Talk is cheap though, and I need to get below that mark soon.

Pics courtesy of Pikes Peak Sports.

slacking

Life getting in the way of training once again.  Wisconsin's run to the championship game and the ensuing late nights of drinking, Woodshed Red on Wednesday at Front Range, a visit from the father-in-law and a trip to Fossil Brewing, dog spending all day at the vet and having to come down from the bad trip due to the pain meds, and even the front tire of the Salsa having to go to the shop.  So this week won't be the most physically active week for me.  Definitely need to ratchet down and get some work done before the NOLA trip at the end of the month.

Dog is fine, and cleared for all activity.  Can't wait to start pissing off all the dog-hating nancys on the Incline again!

This is hanging up at Pikes Peak Brewing:

Tuesday

Wisconsin's run to the championship game, and the ensuing boozing that went with it, have set me back in the running and blogging game.  I'd hate to see how much of a mess I'd be if Pitt ever won a championship (we'll get to find out in football and hoops in 2016!).  I swear I'll get pics of the Tour de Left Hand up someday.

Not a bad view on the dog walk through Rock Ledge Ranch this morning.

20

Of all the goofy shit I've done in all my years of running, for some reason nothing scares me more than a road 20 miler.  But I got the job done yesterday.  Garden and Manitou.  Even got to check out Graffiti Falls.

The wife is super stoked after last night's Wisky/Kentucky hoops classic.  Feel free to drop by the house on Monday for an Old Fashioned.  She'll have some in the freezer so they're ready to go.

March

Good month on the workout front.  200 miles running, 330 miles on the bike, and 16 hours of strength training, be it climbing or lifting or yoga.

Think I will keep the 200/300 run/bike mix for the summer.  Enough to allow me to get into good shape, but not so much that I can't have a social life outside of the endurance world.  Beer festivals, outdoor concerts, patio drinking, I like to balance out the healthy stuff with the unhealthy-but-fun stuff.  Though I always do my best to combine the two.

Dog should be cleared for full physical activity next week.  She's looking forward to getting back on the trails.