from the archives...

Oil Creek - DNF

Really weird DNF this morning. Made it through 93 miles. Plenty of time to finish up before cutoff. But due to having to work on Monday, I had to get a flight out of Pittsburgh, and the latest one was kinda early. So I had to drop at 93 miles in order to make my flight. Weird. Not very happy, but it is what it is. Report will follow soon.

PITTSBURG

JT's pre-race ritual of getting fall down stupid drunk before a race made its way to PA.

Oil Creek

JT and Dan at 4:40 this morning before their 100 mile adventure. It rained all night and is drizzling and chilly so far today, so it's one big mud pitt out there. Due to all the bridges in the county being closed for some reason or another, I wasn't able to go to the 15mile aid station. Heard JT made it in 2.5ish hours. Hoping to see him in another hour or so back at the start. Which he will come to and have to leave three more times...yuck!

Oil Creek 100

Chillin' with my dad and Katie at the Blue Canoe brewery in lovely Titusville, PA. They're going to try to update everything live on the web for the race, check it out here if you're interested. And I've also given Katie access to my blog, so check back here for updates.

Pennsylvania

Psyched to be headed back to Pennsylvania. Last time I was there was back in 2004, fresh off a year of searching for WMD's in Iraq.

Tentative schedule:

Tuesday lunch - hot dogs and Old Style in Chicago
Tuesday afternoon - meeting dad and brother at the Cathedral of Learning. Supper at the O. Then driving back to Sunbury.

Wed morning - run. Maybe the dike. Maybe PP&L.
Wed afternoon - back to Pittsburgh to pick up Katie. Drink in South Oakland with Suzy and Layla.

Thurs morning - leave for Mt. Davis, the state highpoint of PA.
Thurs afternoon - leave for Backbone Mountain, the state highpoint of MD.
Thurs evening - back to Sunbury.

Fri morning - run. 4.7.
Fri afternoon - leave for Oil City.
Fri evening - Oil Creek 100 pre race stuff.

Sat 5AM - Oil Creek 100

Sun 2PM - Pittsburgh airport, return to CO.

fat people suck

Another article asking for higher taxes on unhealthy food. Read it here. Johns Hopkins says 75% of Americans will be overweight by 2015 if we don't do something.

PARAB

Went to the Manitou parks and rec board meeting on Tuesday. Working on the budget, fun stuff. But due to upcoming resignations, I'm soon going to be one of the longest serving person on the board (I've been there all of five months) so I had quite the say for the next year. We have a total budget of $200,000. I did get $20,000 put towards finally finishing the hike and bike path, which was the reason I joined in the first place, so the night wasn't a total waste.

Afterwards I went out and got completely shitfaced at the Tavern, Townhouse, and the Keg. That was much more fun than the meeting.

DD chronicles - Issue II

No shit, there I was, in the parking lot at PT's. And Kelly, who I assumed was a dude, was actually one of the strippers. And she hands me the keys to her Porsche. And she says to me, "it's a long way to my house, but I'll make it a fun ride...."

OK, maybe not. Last Friday I was actually the "chaser," or the guy who drives his vehicle following the drunk's car. So it was kinda lonely and boring.

Lots more trips to Carson. I've been on that post more the times I've DD'd than the entire time I've lived in Colorado. One joe told me that the DD of Colorado Springs business card is now an inspectable item. The kid says, "yeah, if we don't have it in our pocket we hafta do push ups." Made me REAL happy not to have to deal with stupid stuff like that anymore, but hopefully it cuts down on soldiers driving drunk.

Got another call from way down south, damn halfway to Pueblo. We pull up to a house and out walks a drunk soldier, his drunk wife, and their two infant kids. Nice.

Visited Stick's up on Austin Bluffs twice. Always a sketchy place, but this was the last night at the current location, they're moving to a new building, under a new name. So every under 21 person in Colorado Springs was in there chain smoking and boozing. Quite the scene. Nice to have a bar smelling like a bar though.

Brian Sell

Awesome interview with Olympic marathoner Brian Sell over here. He mentions PBR and Hines Ward! FYI, my two mile PR in high school was faster than his...

53.2

Sporadic week, getting in 53.2 miles. Think I've screwed up my taper, I really feel like shit right now. Very tight hamstrings and a general feeling of fatigue. Hashing on my rest day probably didn't help. Tried hitting corepower to recover, but 5:15 of hot yoga over four days hasn't done much. But I'm not worried, as there is no problem in the world that an order of O fries can't solve!

happy ending

No, I'm not talking about the $10 special massage from Nacheaux. The llama lost on Pikes Peak has been rescued! See the story here, or follow the much better coverage at the Out There blog.

fall series

Uninspiring effort at yesterday's Fall Series race. 3.5 miles, 27:26. Been having some tight hamstring issues lately, so I didn't wanna push it here and ruin my chances for Oil Creek. 50th overall, 349 finishers. Congrats to Happy Sock, who, in her third race ever, finally didn't finish in last place. And kudos to Laura as well, I believe this was her first race ever!

The hardest effort of my day came from pacing the 1.5 mile middle school race. I had to run a little over a mile in the front so the kiddos wouldn't get lost. Sounds easy, but some of those kids can run! The winner ran 11:51 over hills and trails, and I had to keep in front of him.

Also did an easy four miles through the Garden at the PPRR full moon run.

Great way to spend a Sunday!

PJ at ACL

On a big Pearl Jam kick lately, thought I'd share this pic one of my friends posted on facebook today. It's from last night's Austin City Limits music festival.

morning run

Hungover as hell, but still managed an easy five miles, 52:22. Garden trails.

Off to sweat out the gin at corepower...

da bears

Does a bear shit in the woods?

Who knows. But one took a nice, healthy dump on my front steps this morning. Probably right after he tore through the garbage can. Took me half an hour to clean the mess up.

September

Not too shabby a month. Finished with 261.3 miles, 45:48:11. Included two runs of 25 or more miles. Feel like I'm on the verge of really breaking down, which is a great feeling to have entering a taper. Bring on Oil Creek!

For 2009, I'm sitting at 2415.9. Need to average 6.4 miles per day over the rest of the year, shouldn't be a problem. It's a given that I'm going to win a 12 pack from Wiley, but I might hafta step it up to catch this guy.

quote of the day

A comment on the Out There blog about Manitou's newest celebrity, the Pikes Peak llama:

"During a recent Rebel patrol mission, I was planting life-form sensors along the Summit House perimeter and got caught in a snowstorm. In order to save my hypothermic friend, I had to kill that llama, disembowel it, and shove my friend in it’s abdominal cavity to save his life. But then I realized I could just smash the window to the summit house. So we went in there instead and had a few donuts. My bad…"

The latest on this epic story can be seen here. I'm busy (drinking) this weekend or I'd go up there and capture it. I could keep it at the Royal Tavern, in the fenced in smoker area.

new shoes!

Went with the Nike Pegasus 25. Partly because the last pair of Pegasus I got, which I will still wear, currently have 737.2 miles on 'em and are one of only two pairs of shoes that I have worn to the cost of $.10 per mile (my first pair of La Sportiva Imogene are the other). And, of course, partly because the kind folks at the Colorado Running Company marked the shoes down from $100 to $75 to $60. Not only that, but the CRC then provided PBR for the PPRR newsletter stuffing! Woohoo!

morning intervals

Nice workout at the CC track this morning, despite the chilly weather and annoying wind. 6 x 1000 meters, 200 meters of rest in between. Sucked on the first one, hitting 3:54, but than rattled off 3:40, 3:44, 3:44, 3:43, and 3:40. Please note that this is significantly faster than Mike Safari ran. Warm up and cool down gave me a total of 6.5 miles.