new guitar day!

Sunday - I'm knocking off the Feast of St. Arnold brewery pub crawl and I rode around to hit up a bunch of east side breweries on the list.  Lost Friend, Cogstone, and Metric over 34 miles.

Mon - 8 x 200m at the Holmes track.

Tues - good morning garage gym session followed by bike commute 37.

Wed - run commute 31.  Five miles to work, four miles back home. 

Thurs - an early morning dog hike followed by a rare zero day.  Might have drank a bit too much on Wed night, and then I justified being lazy all day Thursday by claiming I was trying to heal my bum knee.  Weaksause.  At least by driving to work I could hit Roman Villa and Red Leg on the way home.

Thursday was also a new guitar day!  Picked up a Martin Backpacker.  It's a very small travel guitar, as I wanted something relatively cheap and small that I could bring along in the van.  But even this low end Martin is several levels better quality than the suzuki that was in my basement.

Bolivar

Wed - run commute 30.  Sondermann Park route both ways, 5.5 miles each.  Another 7.3 miles of hiking throughout the day.

Thurs - bike commute 36.  Awesome new route to work through Red Rock Canyon and Bear Creek Park.  Earlier that day the dog and I had been out and she ate something, and I could only get about half of it out of her mouth.  No big deal as this kind of thing happens on a lot of our hikes.  But later that day, $100, who was working a rare 1PM to 9PM shift so she was home, called to say the dog was acting strange.  Similar to the last time she got a hold of some drugs a homeless guy dropped.  We decided to see if things would pass.  When I got home at 5PM and she wasn't there to greet me at the back door, I knew something was up.  I found her in the living room and it was terrible - she couldn't move and she was looking at me with fear in her eyes and I felt like she was also trying to apologize for not coming to the door to greet me.  Immediately called my vet and then took Holly to the dog ER.  I was really worried this might be it.  But the clinic worked their magic, gave the dog an injection of other drugs, and Holly has been recovering fairly well.  The vet did have a chat with me about the possibility of Holly eating one of the poisoned meatballs that some loser has been leaving around the Westside lately, but there's no way to tell if that is what happened.

Fri - the dog didn't sleep at all on Thurs night and I stayed up with her, and I ended up taking the day off to hang with her.  Did sneak out for my 7.4 mile Garden trail loop in the afternoon.  Holly made slow but steady progress in the right direction all day long.  The dog is single-handedly trying to bring the USA out of the current economic hardship - this is her second vet visit during quarantine and the total bill sits at $1000.

Sat - the dog continues to get better and we got out for a 1.5 mile hike before I headed over to Cheyenne Canon.  Ran a good loop there which included some new to me trails and summits of Muscoco and Cutler.  8.8 miles with 2500 feet of gain.  Knee was not happy with the downhills though.  Later on Saturday $100 made it out to the hash, complete with special social distance rules.

For the week:

run - 41 miles
ride - 54 miles
hike - 28 miles

I'm at 99.8 miles in the Virtual Race Across Tennessee.  Near the town of Boliver.

The guitar playing continues.  I'll move to level three on Fender play this week.  The chords are still sloppy but slightly improving. 

Writing this on Sunday morning and the dog seems to be approaching 100%.

run commute 30

Sunday - 14 mile run on my COVID loop.  Followed by a 14 mile ride on the COVID loop.

Monday - currently dealing with a bum left knee.  Think I pulled or tweaked it or something.  It gets better, close to 100% when I hike or run, but hurts when I'm not using it.  Decided to take two days off from running to see if that did anything.  Did do some yoga, and got in my daily Tennessee 5.1 miles over three dog hikes.

Tues - early morning hour of biking in Red Rock Canyon before work.  Bike commute 35.  14 mile ride back home.  Since CityRock is closed, I have been going for an hour hike during lunch at the office.  That, and two dog walks, helped me get to 5.1 miles.

Wed - run commute 30.  5.5 miles through Sondermann in 45 minutes.  So damn happy winter is gone.  5.5 miles back home the same way.  And another 7.3 miles over three hikes, including down to Front Range after work for a burger and to-go beer.  Started the Jordan documentary and it validates my personal opinion that civilization peaked in the mid to late 90s and we are on the downside now.

I'm at 77.1 miles in my virtual race across Tennessee.  Approaching Laconia.  12.2% done.  The official website is a bit of a mess since approximately 18 million have signed up for the race, but the doc has been doing some good work of documenting the course.

I had planned on tagging along on the annual brewfest bike pub crawl this weekend, which had obviously been amended due to the lack of a beer festival.  Even had a campsite reserved in Lyons.  But then the town of Lyons cancelled that, and I decided to bail on the ride.  I think shit needs to start re-opening, but I'm still going to stick to El Paso County for at least two more weekends.  We have a van trip through Nebraska/South & North Dakota/Wyoming planned for Memorial Day and we are planning on breaking our quarantine at that time. 

Williams

Good long run on Saturday.  I haven't been up Williams Canyon since before the Waldo fire a bunch of years ago.  Got back there on Saturday and was reminded of how spectacular that place is.  From my house over to Manitou, up Williams, down Rampart Range Road, and some Garden trails back to my house is a great 15 mile loop.  Took me just under three hours, including a long break to chat with Hessek and Sullivan over in the canyon.

Another week in the books.

run - 41 miles, seven hours
ride - 98 miles, 9.5 hours
hike - 28 miles, 10.25 hours

Christ, another month in the books as well.  The numbers for April:

run - 131.5 miles, 21.5 hours
ride - 346 miles, 34 hours
hike - 120 miles, 44 hours

Been lacking in motivation lately so I signed up for the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee.  The only time I'll attempt a Laz race.  1000k between now and September, which is an average of five miles a day.  Counts hikes, so my dog will be a big part of it.

Speaking of virtual races, I got this in the mail the other day:

Also on Saturday I did my first ever virtual hash.  It is about one millionth of a percent as cool as regular hashing.

run commute 29

Wed - run commute 28.  5.5 miles to the office through Sondermann Park.  Knee was feeling wonky so I took the bus home and jumped on the bike for 15 miles.

Thurs - bike commute 34.  Eleven miles to/from the office.  Watched the Andy Frasco World Saving Shitshow, his weekly show, and it was fantastic.  Will watch it every week from here on out.

Fri - run commute 29.  3.7 miles to work.  2.7 back to Front Range BBQ for a to-go beer.  Then walked over to Routes Outfitter, who had their grand opening today.  Seems like a cool place.

Pikes Peak Brewing

Friday - run commute 27.  3.7 miles to work, 3.2 miles back.  Met $100 and Hollydog at Front Range on the way back so we could enjoy a nice brew on the walk home.  The current menu at FRBBQ includes these items:

Our order:

On Saturday Marc and I met at Red Leg Brewing at 10:30 to ride up to Pikes Peak Brewing.  Red Leg wasn't open yet, so we were just sitting out front drinking a beer when the owner pulled up and invited us in for another brew.  First time during quarantine that I've drank inside a bar.

22+ miles from Red Leg up to Pikes Peak Brewing via the Santa Fe trail.

With a stop at 300 Days of Shine.  They sell hand sanitizer  now.  And delicious drinks in mason jars.

Good times at Pikes Peak where we ran into Kircher and Jeremiah and a few other like minded folks.  Been trying to get up there since this whole COVID thing blew in but we had some really wet weather (Santa Fe is a shitshow for a few days after snowfall) and then the damn vice president caused the trail to shut down.

Good day on Saturday as I got in nearly 50 miles on the bike.

Bit hungover on Sunday so I cruised the COVID loop on the bike, 14 miles, then went for a seven mile run in Red Rock Canyon.  Dropped by the Buff Lodge on the run for a brew.  Nacheaux works there now.

Monday - another COVID loop on the bike before work, then a 6.6 mile run in Red Rock Canyon over lunch. 

Tues - bike commute 33.  Eight miles to work through Sondermann.  Rode the world's greatest commute home, via Bear Creek Park and Red Rock Canyon, 13.5 miles.

bike commute 32

Monday - started my new proj of running every single street in Pleasant Valley.  I'm approximately 33% there.

Tues - bike commute 31.  Eleven miles to work, 14 miles back home. 

Wed - run commute 26.  4.3 miles to work, with the middle two miles at 6:30 pace.  5.4 miles back home through Sondermann.

Thurs - bike commute 32.  Eleven miles to and fro'.  On my way to work, near the library about half a mile from the office, I had a random homeless guy spit on me.  Ran up to me in the middle of the street and launched a full on loogie.  I've been around homeless people a lot since I moved to Colorado, and I've never had anything like this happen to me.  Super weird. 

Got some new signs for the front yard.

AF graduation

The annual iconic shot taken by my friend Christian Murdock.  This one looks a little different than usual.

beer to go!

Tues - more shitty weather so another easy day.  Four mile run on the Garden trails after work.

Wed - bike commute 29.  Eleven miles to work, 13 back home.  Dropped by Red Leg on the way home as my Hazy supplies were getting a bit low.  My normal route to/from work goes right by the location of the new Red Leg brewery, and work continues and is coming along nicely.

Thurs - morning garage WOD followed by run commute 25.  3.6 miles both ways, easy.

Fri - bike commute 30.  Four miles to work, eleven back home.  $100 and I ordered supper from Front Range BBQ and not only was it delicious, but I also got a sixer of the Ska Hazy and they have beer to go!  Pictured below is the hazy from Goat Patch Brewing.  So damn perfect for the walk from FRBBQ to the house.

Fridays have become a quality night at the house as we watch Ben Morrison (lead singer of the Brothers Comatose) from his living room, then $100 has her weekly chick chat zoom thing and I retreat to the basement to practice guitar and watch the weekly Brendan Bayliss (lead singer of Umphrey's) Wine Not set.  I am up to four chords now.  But it still takes me a while to switch from one to another, and my fat fingers continue to mess things up.  But last night I was going through a song, and I may have been pretty drunk to hear this, but I swear what I was playing almost sounded a little bit like the song.

zero

On Monday I did something I can't ever remember doing before - a complete zero day.  No biking, no running, no taking the dog out, no weights.  I was terribly hungover, it was below 20F all day, it was snowing hard, and the office was closed.  And this made for a perfect storm where I sat on the couch all day.  Practiced some guitar and watched The Mandalorian in it's entirety.  Took a nap.  Ate two bags of chips and a gallon of chocolate milk.  Oof.

The one productive thing I did paid off big though - they had toilet paper at the local King Soopers!

tortoise & hare 5k

Actually did two virtual things on Saturday.  The first was a virtual 5k dog walk to benefit the Ark Valley Humane Society in Salida.  Signed up for this a while ago thinking we'd make a van weekend out of it.  We went through the Garden over to the Buffalo Bike Lodge, where they had an adult lemonade stand, then made our way over to Trails End for some mason jars of various IPAs.

Before the drinking could commence I headed up to Holmes middle school for the virtual Tortoise & Hare 5k.  The goal was to break 20 and I accomplished that, running 19:19.  Mile splits were 6:14, 6:13, and 6:09.  Pretty happy with the result.  I had thought I was in shape to run sub 90 at Platte River, and I think this shows I at least had a shot at that.

The race had 418 finishers including runners from Arizona, California, Texas, Hawaii, Washington, Great Britain, (including this guy), Ireland, New Zeland, and Slovakia.

Ran the 5k shirtless.  70F and sunny.  Woke up today with several inches of snow on the ground.

muscoco overnight

I've had some good times on Muscoco over the years.  Looks like my first time was back in 2006 sporting a pair of Montrail Hardrocks.  Our first non-neighborhood dog hike was in the area.  My first overnight was with Kircher less than a year ago.

Decided to break all the rules on Friday as Marc and I got out of the house for another overnighter to Muscoco.  First stop, of course:

The expansion of Fossil is almost finished and it looks fantastic.  Maybe someday we'll be able to sit around the new bar.

9.5 miles up High Drive and back down the Canon to the trailhead.  Then another two plus miles of hiking to get to the summit.  So over two hours once we leave Fossil until we are cracking our first crowlers.

Didn't see another person until we were on our way down on Saturday morning.  Lots (and lots and lots) of cars on both High Drive and Gold Camp Road all night though.

incline 17

Pre-work Friday incline.  That monstrosity of a closure sign at the bottom step wasn't there today, so maybe this thing is officially open?  I mean, how am I supposed to know without a sign telling me what to do?  There were two interesting signs on Manitou Ave on the drive in though - ordering Manitoids not to flush anything except toilet paper down the shitters. 

I was at the beginning of the climb (maybe 1.25 miles from Memorial Park) just before 5AM, and I saw two other dudes coming down, so who knows when they started.  They must be waking up at 3:30AM to beat me over there.

bike commute 27

Monday - my new work from home day.  Still got up early to hike the dog and run 7.3 miles on the Garden trails.

Tues - bike commute 26.  On the ride home I broke quarantine and dropped by to say hello to my dog Moose.

Wed - run commute 24.  4.2 miles to work and 5.4 home through Sondermann Park. 

Thurs - bike commute 27.  Back through Sondermann Park.

Still doing the daily garage workouts and they are starting to pay off. 

I realize I have a lot of RWPD type problems associated with this COVID thing - bars and breweries closing, the climbing gym shut down, the no-refund policies of a few races I missed.  But tonight I was supposed to be seeing Pearl Jam in Denver and I'm mildly bummed.  But somehow I will survive.

Sucks about people getting sick and croaking for sure, but if one can turn away from CNN for a few minutes you will notice there has been a lot of good going on out there.  Decreased air pollution.  Lots more folks enjoying the outdoors.  Musicians doing live shows from their living rooms.  Folks taking up new hobbies.

Including a ton of people either starting, or upping their game, on the guitar.  So no shit a few days ago I dug up an old guitar that had been sitting in our basement.  And I played it.  Saturday, literally, was the first time I had ever played a guitar.  And I have played every day since.  And if I told you I was going to play the first few seconds of Come As You Are, and I played it, you might be able to actually recognize the song.  So we'll see where that all goes.

Tortoise & Hare virtual 5k

On Saturday there is another Pikes Peak Road Runners virtual race.  The annual Tortoise and Hare 5k.  It gives you a handicap based of sex, height, age, and weight, and is often won overall by an elderly female.  I've volunteered at the T&H for quite a while, but no such work to be done on Saturday.  If anyone wants to take part you can sign up here.  Already have one runner from Alaska and three from Ireland taking part.

week in review

Pretty good week.  Despite getting five inches of snow on Thursday the weather is definitely trending towards spring.

Run - 33 miles/6:18
Bike - 74 miles/oddly also 6:18
Hike - 25 miles/9:10

Also continuing on with the garage gym sessions.  Definitely moving the fitness needle in a good direction during this shitshow we're all going through right now.

Slowly adapting to the new normal and accepting the fact that I might not do any real races this year.  Agree 100% with Kieran's post but I'm hoping things somehow play out differently.  We have a big road trip planned around The Rut but if that gets cancelled we'll probably switch to a trip based around a gas station and the loneliest road.  And once things start opening up again we will be headed up to bag the state highpoint of North Dakota.  Struggling with not using the van right now as it's very easy to rationalize a road trip, but for the time being we've decided to sit tight.  Still might make a drive to Fremont County though, one of my favorite breweries released a Tiger King themed IPA.

There is legit reason to believe that my beloved University of Pittsburgh may have a cure for this thing.  My friends are now weighing whether they want this disease to crush humanity or have to listen to me bragging about this for the next few decades.  One of the best online comments I've ever read was when someone mentioned that "Pitt will defeat COVID this week and lose to gingivitis next week."

tp

Like everyone else my schedule is a bit wacked for the moment, but it allowed me to get up to the track on Monday before work.  Another 7 x 200m, but this one went much better than the last one.  Actually felt my legs turning over today.  Maybe I'll start timing these workouts.

This virus debacle will pass, but long after that I will be referring to my usual loop of the Midland, Santa Fe, Sinton, and Front Range trails as my COVID loop.  All our parks have been swamped, which I can get around due to my early starts, but if I want a workout during normal hours I hit that loop.  It's wide enough to safely avoid other people.  So I've been on those paved and packed dirt trails a lot lately, including Monday afternoon and Tuesday's bike commute to work.

On Saturday the Pikes Peak Road Runners will be doing their monthly Nielsen Challenge two miler.  But it's virtual.  And it don't cost 'nuthin.  Just go run two miles and put your time down on a spread sheet.  I'll be running at Holmes Middle School.  If anyone wants to throw down feel free, info can be found here.

This thing must be starting to wind down, look what I found at Safeway after my Sunday Manitou run:

incline 16

The great leaders of Manitou decided to shut down the incline a bunch of days ago.  Fuck those clowns.  Just the latest in a long list of bullshit the elected officials there have done to make me not want to spend any money there.  Got there pretty early to begin my climb.

Nice sunrise from the summit.  Pro tip: the sun will do the same thing tomorrow.

Down Barr and then I decided to climb Red Mountain.  It had been a long time since I've been up there.

Week in review:

run - 33 miles
ride - 103 miles
hike - 22 miles

A bit of quality in there too, as well as some good garage workouts.  My best week in a while.

track

Wed - bike commute 20.  Eleven miles both ways.  Another good morning session in the garage gym.  Watched "Warrior" in the evening, super cool as it was shot in Pittsburgh and I recognized a bunch of places.

Thurs - 7 x 200m at Holmes.  I was trying to push these, but I just can't turn my legs over quick enough anymore.  Got back to the house at 6AM as the shelter-in-place order took effect.  Not really any change than what we've been doing the last week or so.  Good garage gym session after the run before biking straight to work, commute 21.

The dog seems to be recovering well.  Back up to half hour walks.  The leg is still a bit wonky but she is figuring things out. 

run commute 22

Sunday - 7.3 miles on the Garden trails, followed by a 25 mile ride out to FH Beerworks and back.  Grabbed a growler of Good Day IPA and a sixer of Paperwork Tropical Ale.  Later that day we had one of them social distance happy hour, where a bunch of us sat in the alley, comfortably separated, and drank some beers.  Then it was off to the couch to watch "Never Miss A Sunday Show," the new weekly Panic webcast.

Monday - bike commute 19.  6.4 miles to work, eleven miles home.  CityRock is closed so there is no more lunch climbing, so I've been going out for an hour walk instead.

Tues - run commute 22.  CityRock is closed so there is no more post-run/pre-work shower.  But I deal with few humans in person right now, and the few I see I have to stay six feet away from, so it's no big deal.  The gold folks at Mountain Tactical came out with a new COVID inspired limited equipment training plan, and I started that in the garage today.  Trying to fight back against the laziness and unhealthiness that has set in recently.  Tuesday was at least a tiny step in the right direction.  Didn't even drink that much during the Tues evening Phish webcast.

Platte River virtual half

My first ever virtual race.  My annual trip up to run the Platte River half marathon was replaced with a MAF run on my Midland/Santa Fe/Sinton trail loop.  13.1 miles in 1:56:49.  Was hoping to break 90 on race day, but we'll never know.  And I might not have very many realistic chances to break 90 anymore.

Also did a nice four mile hike over in the Garden, all of which I spent missing having my dog with me.  Dropped by Trails End and for the first time ever bought a beer to go in a mason jar.  $100 is excited to get a margarita to go tomorrow.

Both my weekly incline and track session resolutions died this week.  Pretty lame on my part and my only excuse is that it's been a weird week.  The incline is technically closed, but as usual there are ways around that and I'll jump back on that horse this week.  Not sure what will happen with the track goal as I'm not really training for anything now.

Seems like every event that gets postponed is rescheduled for October.  I will miss my first Salida marathon as it's the same weekend as Chicago, which we have already sunk a ton of money into.  I was signed up for the Royal Gorge 12 hour in May, but that was moved to the same day as the Lake City Alpine 50.  So I switched that rego to the Ruidoso 40 miler.  But that's the week after Chicago, so we'll see if I end up there.

Did get the garage gym set up today, hope to start hitting that next week.

senior dog

On Wednesday morning I got up for the daily dog hike.  Dog was happy at first, but almost immediately I could tell something was wrong.  One of her rear legs just wasn't working.  Called the vet, monitored her for 24 hours, and on Thursday I dropped her off at the vet office.  Terrible situation, she was scared shitless and I wasn't allowed into the office thanks to coronavirus issues, so I had to muzzle her and hand her over to a stranger.  I had a bad feeling about everything but it turned out to be not as bad as I thought.  Pup was diagnosed with arthritis, given some drugs, and put on bed rest for a couple of days.  Also had a good talk with the vet and the dog's hiking mileage might have to be cut down for good.  Officially a senior dog. 

The draw to be lazy is strong right now.  Still trying to get out though.  On Tuesday I biked to work, including stopping at Red Leg for a six pack to go.  Wednesday was a 10k road run in the Garden, ending at Fossil Brewing for a crowler of Mammoth IPA.  Thursday was a half hour run through the neighborhood.  This morning was a nice 10k in Red Rock Canyon.  The plan is to get the garage gym up and running this weekend.

We finished watching Hunters on Amazon.  Pretty awesome series.  Watch it for the first five minutes and it will suck you in.  Taking recommendations on other shit to watch, though with all the musicians putting stuff online right now that might become my go to.

life during wartime

Title stolen from the Endless British Pub Crawl, just because it's so fitting.  I spent a year in a war, and it was not as surreal as what's going on now.

Salida was cancelled.  But we still went down there.  Had some good runs and dog hikes on the local trails, and some good times at the various pubs like Soulcraft, Elevation, Moonlight, Benson's, and the Vic.  Was crowded on Saturday, then the ski resorts shut down and it was not so crowded on Sunday.  Possibly the last time I'll drink inside a pub for a while. 

Just about everything is cancelled through June.  The next event I have that is still on is the Garden Ten Miler in mid June.  This has all got to blow over by then, right?

Bars and breweries and restaurants are all closed here.  Some are able to offer grub to go.  Some breweries are still doing cans and crowlers.  Liquor stores are still open but I think at this time if I'm gonna spend loot on booze it will be from a local brewery. 

Boogie at the Broadmoor is cancelled.  No Pearl Jam.  Red Rocks has cancelled all shows up through mid May.  We have tix for two shows in early June. 

$100 and I are lucky in that we could weather a storm for a while.  But I know a lot of folks who aren't so lucky, and this could get ugly to watch. 

bike commute 17

Mon - bike commute 16.  Ten miles to work and 14 back home. 

Tues - run commute 20.  Five miles to work, seven back home.  Stopped by Holmes on the way back for 6 x 200m.  Technically I'm in a race on Sat, but I'm not really in shape to be racing a trail marathon right now.  So I hit the track just in case.  CityRock 29 at lunch. 

Wed - bike commute 17.  Ten miles to work.  Been taking advantage of the warmer weather to ride a bit more.  CityRock 30 at lunch.

incline 15

Thurs - incline 14, CityRock 28.

Fri - bike commute 15.  Dropped by Smiling Toad on the way home, great to have those guys back open.

Sat - solid long run.  18 miles in 2:50, outside enjoying the spring weather.  Not in great shape for Salida but hopefully it isn't a total disaster out there.

Sun - incline 15.  But hungover from a bike pub crawl on Sat eve.  Headed out later for two hours on the bike, 25 miles.

A few pics from the Atlanta 5k.  Yes, I got a medal for running a 5k.

Atlanta

Fantastic time on the trip to the ATL.  Loved the vibe of the city during the trials and watching the race was so much fun. 

We had a spot at the Black Sheep where we were able to watch the racers go by three times.  First loop was a huge pack.  Second loop was a smaller pack.  I'll never forget the third lap - we saw the motorcycles come by, then we saw Rupp, and then it was a long time before we saw anyone else (a pack of three, followed by a charging Jake Riley).  Rupp had clearly made a decisive move.

Then we spent the rest of the weekend pub crawling.  I did run the 5k on Sunday, a super mediocre 21:30ish.

Some pics from the weekend:

Visited Sister Louisa's Church of the Living Room and Ping Pong Emporium and it was awesome.

Finally got to visit the world famous Clermont Lounge.  It did not disappoint.

I'll always be a huge Ritz fan but I'm not sure he has it anymore.

My buddy SVG ran a great race.

Walmsley with a 2:15, not bad for a course that was considered slow.

Jordan shit the bed.  Still cool seeing her run by though.

Rented a scooter to go to Elmyr to drink The Grizz.  Lots of other pubs but the memory is a bit hazy.

Scofflaw Brewing on the way out of town.  Love their Basement IPA.

G Love & Special Sauce

Seems like forever ago but last Thursday $100 and I caught Philly boys G Love & Special Sauce at the Black Sheep.  We were able to attend a pre-show "pop up party" where we got up close to G Love and he played a few songs and answered a few questions.  I asked him "Pat's or Geno's" and he answered, "Jim's."  Good shit.  Both the solo show and the later full band show were awesome.

still here...

I'll try to get this thing updated soon.  Had a blast drinking my way around Atlanta watching other people run.