38:41

Not a great race, but I'll take the time. And I'll definitely take the beatdown I gave to Gerald.

Very fast start. 5:40 first mile, which was downhill. Didn't know that mile 1 to mile 2.5 was a long hill, so I suffered for a while. Hit mile 3 in 19 flat. Mile 5 in just over 31 minutes. Several times I wanted to give up and phone it in, but I kept plugging away. Threw in a good kick once we hit the warning track at Security Service Field and caught third place with about 20 feet to go, but he held me off.

4th place overall. The 38:41 is a Colorado PR for me.

The 5k was crazy. 15:04 won it for the men. Tera Moody went sub 16 to win for the chicks. Taking Runner's Roost forever to get results up (they were not available after the race, and no awards were given out) but I'll post a link when it happens.

Here's a good shot of me crushing some little girl with my punishing kick:

4 x 800

1.5 mile warm up. 4 x 800m with 400m RBI. 1.5 mile cool down. 3:09, 3:03, 2:57, 2:57. Obviously not my best effort. Those extra quarters I've been doing, as well as returning to the gym, have me pretty beat up right now.

Running the Alex Hoag 10K this Saturday. Shooting for a sub 39. Unlikely, though definitely not out of the question.

Dirty Dozen Brass Band tonight!

CRUD socks

If anyone not on the CRUD list is interested in ordering some fancy socks, let me know. Should run about $5-6 a pair. A little expensive for socks as far as I'm concerned, but they hold up pretty well.

Somehow when I was trying to find a pic of CRUD socks, this came up:

Maybe google thought I was looking for South CRUD groupies.

bike to work!

quarters

Didn't get my fill at the track this morning, so after work it was back to the oval.

1.5 mile warm up, 10 x 400m with 200m RBI. First one was 86, then the rest were all between 82 and 84. Not quite the epic workout I had last week in Manitou, but this week I was on the Holmes middle school dirt track and running through the wind and rain.

miles

Forgot I had to be at work early today. 15 minute warm up, 2 x 1600m with 400m RBI, 15 minute cool down. 5:54, 5:48.

Yes, somewhat less exciting than all the Hardrock race reports floating around on the blogosphere...

new blog

My sister changes blog addresses about the same amount she changes hair color. Her new one is over here now. It's still not as cool as mine though.

Footfeathers has his Hardrock report up over here.

quote of the day

"I come back from a very long effort in out-of-norm mountains. The mountains of Colorado are a little like the Alps in stature, times two. Impressive."

-Julien Chorier, 2011 Hardrock champ

Early lottery for 2012. Hope I can get in, wanna go 33:54, a ten hour improvement on my first Hardrock.

Hardrock

Congrats to the Hardrock class of 2011!

Got to spend A LOT of quality time with Footfeathers out on the trail. I'll let him post his report before I do mine. As always, loads of fun down in the San Juans!

weekend

Fantastic weekend ahead.

About to head down to Telluride and then take the rough way over to Silverton. Pacing a buddy for the final 30 miles of Hardrock. All instances of Footfeathers acting like a pussy will be documented and on the web within ten minutes of him finishing.

Pacing duties will be done around 2PM on Saturday. Not sure what to do after that. Return to the Springs? Visit Ouray? Hang in Silverton? Of course I'm gonna visit a bunch of breweries. Also thinking of heading down to the river at Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Who knows. I'll be in a very cool part of the world with a lot of time to kill, we'll see what kind of trouble I can get into.

Anyone who has my phone number and happens to be following FF on the Hardrock site, please keep me posted via text.

cyclists = terrorists

I've always warned of the dangers of spandex clad bikers, now the Air Force is finally catching on. No more riding on the Academy for you, silly cyclists.

They love runners, proven by the fact that they have never questioned Team CRUD as we jumped over several fences marked "no trespassing" to get to our secret entrance.

hump day

Run commute. Five miles (48 minutes) to work. 6.4 miles (60 minutes) home in the pouring rain. Not sure where that blazing sub ten mpm speed came from today.

Just got O.A.R. tix for their Red Rocks show. Great way to taper for San Fran.

score!

Just won two free tix to see Buckwheat Zydeco and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band in the Springs! Beta on the show is over here. Wanted to hit the concert, but the $45 price tag was pretty steep. Free is much better.

KEPC forever! Not hard to be the first caller when you're the only one listening!

Fort Collins Hike?

$100 is looking for a three to ten mile hike to do in Fort Collins this Sunday. Any suggestions? For the life of me, I can't remember the name of the park we ran around during the Fat Ass, that's where I told her to go, but maybe some of yunz know something better?

10 x 400

Manitou track. One mile warm up, 10 x 400m with 200m RBI, one mile cool down. First one was the slowest in 77, then I slowly whittled that down and ended up running the final three quarters in 73. Much, much, much faster than I thought I could do that workout.

weekend

Another awesome weekend in the books.

Good batch of 5K's. Sub 18:40 on both of 'em. The Leadville one is my Colorado PR, but I won't count it since the course may be a bit short. Still, the effort there was pretty impressive, I was really hurtin' the second half. Been getting the urge to go sub 18 for the 3.1 distance. Looks like I have a long way to go, but I think if I actually warmed up for the short distance race I'd be right there. Christ, half an hour before the Leadville 5k I was in the bar finishing up my drink. Lots of fun, but not exactly setting the stage for a fast time.

Very sad to learn Bobbi's Place in Leadville has closed. Had quite a few late nights there, will definitely miss the place whenever I visit Pb.

Took $100 and the dog up Mt. Antero on Sunday. The dog's first 14er. Other than puking on the summit, she did awesome. 13ish miles, it's also the longest she's hiked. My 29th CO 14er, hope to get a few more in this summer.

The annual Blues Traveler show was awesome, as usual. Special bonus that they played the entire "Travelers and Thieves" album, my favorite from those guys.

Pirates are three games over .500. Clear your calendar, the world series celebration at my place is gonna be epic!

18:27

3rd OA, 1st AG.  Yeah, it's a bobblehead wrestling trophy.  Don't be too jealous.

Vet Home Run 5K

18:38 at the Veterans Home Run 5K. 8th overall. Very flat effort, kind of disappointed as I expected to be about 30 seconds faster. At the same time, I'm happy that I'm now bummed with 18:38. I rarely have two poor 5K's in a row, so hopefully the Leadville Firecracker isn't another massacre of Brandon.

$100 ran her PR despite slacking over the final mile.

google

Is there any way to prevent this blog from popping up when folks search my regular name?

run to work

Switched to nine nines at work (every other Monday off). Gotta be here at 7:30AM now. The most efficient use of my time in the morning is to run to work, so I'll probably be doing that a lot more now.

5.5 miles to the office this morning. Ran through a stream while exploring the new hike and bike (not quite finished yet). People already thought I was weird running to work, and now I'm showing up with wet shoes.

Vet Home Run 5K this Saturday. Mt. Antero this Sunday (my 29th 14er). Leadville 5K on Sunday followed by Blues Traveler at Red Rocks. Should be a good weekend!

1565 miles on the year as of June 30th. Right on for my goal of 3000.