bike commute 15

Mon - 5.4 miles on the Garden roads in the AM.  Red Mountain in the PM.

Tues - bike commute 14.  Eleven there, eleven back.  CityRock 23 at lunch.  Another 5.9.  Starting to get that grade fairly consistently.

Wed - run commute 13.  Five there, four back.  Some bouldering at lunch.  While at my guitar lesson it started to snow.

Thurs - run commute 14.  This came after taking all morning to dig out of a pretty big snowstorm for us.  We had eight inches at my house.  Thursday nights are now big at our house as we get pizza from Roman Villa, watch the Tedeschi Trucks show, and Andy Frasco is back with his shitshow.

Fri - bike commute 15.  Eleven to work.  Bike path was still a bit sketchy but not too bad.  Everything should melt out this weekend.

Headed down to Canon City in the van tonight.  Tomorrow it's off to the San Luis Valley for the rest of the weekend.

The week that was...

We seem to have survived the arctic blast.  Much warmer over the weekend.  Mileage was down due to the low temps but it was a good run week.

Run - 44 miles/7.5 hours

Ride - 8.4 miles/one hour

Hike - 17.2 miles/seven hours

And another good week at CityRock.

Easy six miler on Sunday AM on the Garden roads, then $100 and I jumped on the bike and rode over to Metric Brewing.  15 miles total.

20

It kind of warmed up on Saturday and I took advantage of it with a good long run.  20 miles on the Midland, Santa Fe, and Sinton trails.  3:09:26.  Still some ice out there on the trails but otherwise it was a good day to be outside.  My first twenty miler in a long time.  Maybe I'll beat the cutoff at Salida.

-16

I think we have made it through the cold.

Early Monday morning we got down to -16F, breaking a record that had been around since 1895.  Had a few days in a row where we didn't even reach 0F.  And then we got significant snow on Wednesday.  But hey, we had power, so things could've been worse!

Mon - 6.7 miles in the Garden, wearing all the clothes I own.

Tues - bike commute 13.  Straight there and straight home on the fat bike.  CityRock 19 at lunch, for the first time ever I climbed 5.9 on the first attempt.

Wed - run commute eleven.  Five there and four back.  The snow started around 2PM so the run home was nice.  CityRock 20 at lunch.  Solid hour of guitar lesson followed by Benny's, followed by some late night sidewalk shoveling.

Thurs - early morning sidewalk shoveling followed by run commute 12.  Four there and four back.  Lots of ice and snow, making these combined walk/jog suffles.  CityRock 21 at lunch.  Hit up Fossil in the evening for Shelby's last shift, good times there.

Fri - today was the light at the end of the tunnel, the beginning of the thaw out.  But when I got up to walk the dog it was 5F.  I made some coffee, took the dog out just long enough for her to shit, then played guitar until it was time to catch the bus.

40s for the weekend, which is going to feel downright tropical.  Hoping to get in a good long run on Saturday and a good long ride on Sunday.

Seems like the COVID bullshit is finally, maybe starting to take a turn for the better???  I'm optimistic enough that I bought tix today to see Tedeschi Trucks at Red Rocks for their two night run in late July...

still cold

Not much going on over the weekend.  I went to CityRock on Friday.  The temps have remained significantly below zero so I just hunkered down indoors.  Got some shit done around the house, did some reading, but nothing active.  Yeah I could have bundled up in five layers and went out and crushed some ten minute miles but I just didn't have the motivation.  I'm pretty sure this is the coldest stretch in COS since I've lived here.

For the week:

run - 28 miles/5.5 hours

ride - 62 miles/6.5 hours

hike - 16 miles/6.5 hours

I did have a good week at the climbing gym, so at least there's that.

colder

Thurs - run commute ten.  Was thinking about getting after some faster stuff, but it was 11F when I left the house.  Wasn't much warmer on the way home.  Ugh.  CityRock at lunch.

Fri - I purposely slept in, until 4:45AM, hoping it would magically be warmer out.  Nope.  5F while I was out shoveling the walks.  Dog wasn't having anything to do with going outside.  3F when I left the house at 7:30AM to catch the bus.  Gonna be a rough weekend as things won't start warming up until Tuesday.  The current predicted high for Sunday is 5F.  Yay.  We sure have had a lot of days under 20F this year.

So mostly indoors this weekend.  Highlight will be watching the Pearl Jam show that starts streaming tonight.  Lots of guitar practice as well.

$100 has had both her vaccine shots.  I've had one and will get my second one in early March.

cold

Sunday - good ride up to Pikes Peak Brewing and back, just over 40 miles as I ended up at Trinity Brewing.  Longest ride of the year so far.

Mon - pretty sore from the weekend, but still wanting to start hitting the track again, I headed up for 5 x 200m super slow.  Seven mile ride at lunch on a new trail in Red Rock Canyon, then Red Mountain in the evening.

Tues - bike commute 12.  6.9 miles through Sondermann there, 4.9 miles back home.  Really good climb at lunch.

Wed - run commute nine.  Five miles there in 45 minutes, 5.7 super slow miles back home via Sondermann.  CityRock 16 at lunch.  

It has been trending colder each day for a while.  Culminates on Sunday where the current predicted high temp is 8F.  Yay.  Glad I got in some miles this past weekend, 'cuz ain't much happening this weekend.

18

Good day on Saturday.  Nice 2.5 mile hike with the dog over in Williams Canyon to start the day.  Always forget how awesome that place is.  Followed that with a solid 18 mile run on the Santa Fe trail, all at MAF pace.  Headwind most of the way, but the run felt great.  2:47:23.  After that I was lucky enough to get in a second dog hike, hanging out with my boy Moose and Amanda’s new dog Milli Vanilli.  

Manitou Mardi Gras is cancelled this year, but we celebrated on Saturday.  Trails End, then the bus to Manitou for the Royal and Manitou Brewing, then back to Fossil.  Good times.

It was like a dog park at Fossil.

run commute eight

Wed - run commute seven.  Five miles to work along the Midland and Santa Fe trails.  Pushed fairly hard the middle three miles, hit them in 7:07, 7:06, and 8:03 (some of that was at a red light), which is as fast as I've run in a long time.  CityRock 13 at lunch, and a very easy four miles back home.  Guitar practice in the evening, where we worked on Tom Petty's Wildflowers.

Thurs - bike commute eleven.  Ten there, eleven back.  CityRock 14 at lunch.  Started up the garage gym sessions this week, lots of sandbag get ups and leg blasters.  Good stuff.  

Fri - run commute eight.  Legs were toast from all the leg blasters.  Five miles to work in 48 minutes.  Not on social media anymore, including Strava, so I am now able to run different routes to work instead of defending my stupid local legend status on the Midland Trail.  Today I took a different route that runs on a long overpass over highway 25.  Pretty cool section that isn't well known. 

Recent piece on the Roman Villa, where we have eaten once a week since this COVID thing started.  I climb once a week with one of the owners, and they throw in two meatballs each week for our dog.   

Not much on deck for the weekend.  Long run on Saturday.  Ride on Sunday.  We'll see whatever else comes up.  

A lot (three, plus a Colorado resident who was killed in an avalanche in Alaska) of avalanche deaths in Colorado over the past few days, including the owner of Bonfire Brewing.

airplane

Pretty lazy this weekend, which I justified by saying I was trying to get ahead of this hip discomfort.  

Finished the land nav course on Saturday, kind of a refresher from my Army days.  Got to play around North Table Mountain in Golden so that was cool.

On Sunday we all headed down to Canon City so $100 could fish the Arkansas.  Hiked the dog for an hour before heading over to Brothers.  Then hit Florence Brewing on the way back.  Good, lazy day.

On the way there, we came upon some weird traffic.

This plane had to make an emergency landing.  On the highway.  Then get towed to the local airport, very slowly.  

For the week.  Low numbers due to the shitty temps and nagging injury:

run - 19 miles, four hours

ride - 58 miles, 5:44

hike - 19 miles, eight hours

For the month:

run - 25 runs, 141 miles, 26:15

ride - 25 rides, 236 miles, 23:11

hike - 41 hikes, 109 miles, 42:45

Right on the money as far as the yearly distance goals go.

Mon - just gonna try to manage this hip thing.  It's not bad, and I'm hopeful it goes back to 100% from it's current 85% soon.  Still got out for a good 14 mile gravel ride in the afternoon, then hit Red Mountain after work.  Got two summits of Red as I ran into Marc on the way down the first climb.

Tues - bike commute 10, CityRock 12.  Trying to get in the bike miles before the shitty weather rolls in later this week.