Took a week off to get fat and lazy. Included a night outside up on Red Mountain and lots of drinking, including Fossil, Murphy's, and Robin Hood on x-mas night. The planned van trip to New Mexico never happened as there were crazy high wind warnings all over the state.
run - 2.5 miles in 27 minutes
ride - 36.5 miles in 3.5 hours
hike - 24 miles in nine hours
On Tuesday after work my buddy Bruce and I jumped on a bus and headed over to Manitou. Dropped by the Royal and Manitou Brewing, and then it was off on a hike up Red Mountain. Beautiful evening, you wouldn't have known it was the first night of winter.
Early Wednesday morning we woke up and headed back down to town, jumping on some PikeRide bikes to head home, then to the office. Another solstice campout in the books.
On Thursday I hit 90 bike commutes on the year, and passed over the 2600 miles goal I set for the year. Almost all of these were either commutes to work or short rides over in Red Rock Canyon. I think I only did one ride of 50 miles the entire year, and not even that many rides over 25 miles.
We are taking the van down south to New Mexico over the x-mas break. Hope everyone has a good long weekend.
Mon - not moving very well on Monday, but eventually I got my ass out for a 30 minute run around the neighborhood. Uneventful except for passing over 1600 miles on the year, which was the arbitrary number I picked for a yearly goal almost 365 days ago.
Tues - bike commute 88 and Cityrock 97. Hope to make it to the climbing gym 100 times, but it's gonna be close as I have a lot of days off between now and January 1. As for the bike, I should hit my '21 goal of 2600 miles on Wednesday or Thursday.
Limping to the very end with these mileage goals, but a finish is a finish.
Tues - bike commute 86. Ten there, eleven back.
Wed - run commute 64. 4.2 there through wind and rain and snow. The wind really picked up soon after I got to the office. Trees breaking, trucks overturning kind of stuff. Just walking across the street to CityRock was difficult. Early afternoon the power kicked out at the office, so I jumped on a bus and headed home. Quite a few of the red lights were out. Lots of trees down. Our power went down around 2PM and didn't come back on until 7PM. Our house was pretty unscathed as we've already paid our falling tree dues, unfortunately the same can't be said for some of our neighbors. We are missing a ten foot section of our gutter, I've walked all around the neighborhood and can't find it. On a sad note, I've seen a bunch of dogs running around, obviously escaped. I hope they all make it back home safely. Hollydog pretty much napped through the whole thing. Around 4PM the wind just abruptly stopped and the weather got nice. Finished up my last HAMS classroom session, the outdoor stuff starts early January.
Thurs - easy hour run in Red Rock Canyon, 5.7 miles. Lots of guitar today.
Incredible weather for mid December so I got out for a good ride on Sunday. 34 miles on the Santa Fe trail in just under three hours. That trail south of Tejon is currently fairly sketchy - lots of meth'd out homeless peeps and off leash mean dogs.
For the week:
run - 31 miles in ten hours
ride - 74 miles in seven hours
hike - 21 miles in eight hours
Good track workout on Monday morning. 8 x 400m with 200m RBI.
Thurs - run commute 63. The quick 3.5 mile route both ways. CityRock 95 at lunch. Good guitar session in the evening before watching the Steelers get crushed.
Fri - bike commute 85. Straight there and back. CityRock 96 at lunch.
Sat - headed down south to Fountain for the annual Jingle Jog 5k. Ran 19:13, which would be fantastic for me but the course was 0.1 miles short. Solid effort in the very chilly conditions, so I'll take it. Would have been nice to get another sub 20 though.
Mon - a bit sore from the half and it was cold AF out, so just an easy four miler on the Garden trails. Later in the evening I headed over to Manitou for a hike up Red Mountain.
Tues - bike commute 84 and CityRock 94.
Wed - bailed on work and got in my seventh consecutive monthly 14er with a hike up Pikes via Crags. That route is usually closed down by this time as they shut down the dirt road to the parking lot once the snow starts falling, but it's still open. It was bitter cold - 18F when I started, and the high for the summit was 20F with sustained 20mph winds. But with no snow or ice to worry about, I feel like I got away with an easy December summit. I bet next month is more difficult. Just over 14 miles on the day.
Might have had one too many brews on Saturday - met up with the Kimchi hash at Murphy's in the afternoon, then watched Pitt win their first ever ACC championship that evening. So I wasn't expecing much at the Rock Canyon half down in Pueblo, and that's exactly what I got.
Stayed under eight minutes per mile for the first eleven miles, and then a bad experiment with some new shoes caught up with me. The pace didn't get to me but my feet were hurting like hell. Not sure why that caused me to slow down, I knew that taking longer out there would only make the problem worse, but that's what the day gave me. Finished in 1:42:16. I think I could definitely still go considerably under 1:40, but I fear my days of sub 90 are long gone.
For the week:
run - 36 miles in 5.5 hours
ride - 57 miles in six hours
hike - 22.6 miles in 8.5 hours
Mon - bike commute 81, both directions of the COVID loop. CityRock 89 at lunch.
Tues - run commute 61. Five miles there in 45 minutes, four back in 40 flat. CityRock 90 at lunch.
Wed - bike commute 82. Through Sondermann on the way there, straight back home late at night after the latest HAMS class. CityRock 91.
Thurs - run commute 62. 5.2 miles in 51 flat through Sondermann, then four miles back home via the Midland Trail. Worked on "Folsom Prison Blues" at my guitar lesson then picked $100 up from Red Leg Brewing.
Fri - bike commute 83. Six miles there and eleven back home. A good bouldering session at lunch.
Sat - Nielsen Challenge. Two miles in 12:51.
November is always one of my laziest months. The holidays, college hoops kicking up, college football winding down, the lack of daylight. But not a total disaster, I got a sub 20 at the Turkey Trot, another Pikes summit, and a ton of dog hikes. And I escaped a potentially disastrous back injury.
run - 19 runs, 103 miles, 22.5 hours
ride - 37 rides, 247 miles, 24.5 hours
hike - 32 hikes, 92 miles, 37 hours
Incline Club started on Sunday, and that's generally when I start ramping things up again.
