dogs and burgers

Not a whole lot accomplished on the fitness front over the weekend.  Kept busy with SAR stuff and dog sitting.

Did get up to Palmer Lake on Saturday, allowing me to drop by O'Malley's.  So damn good!

For the week:

run - 28 miles, 4.5 hours

ride - 33 miles, three hours

hike - 24 miles, 11.5 hours

I have the Rocket City 'thon in mid December, but other than that I'm pretty much in hibernation mode until December 23, at which point the days start getting longer again and I'll hopefully start moving again.

KF0SHF

Got my HAM call sign and have been messing around with my handheld radio.  Good stuff.

Mon - 44th Iron summit on the year with Mookie, then a nice 10k jog in the Garden.

Tues - bike commute 81, ten there and eleven back.  Quick half hour jog in the evening.  CityRock 114 at lunch.

Wed - run commute 64.  Five there, four back.  

Thurs - run commute 65.  Straight there and straight back.

Fri - bike commute 82.  Straight there and straight back.

snow

Odd weekend with the 100k recovery, a ton of snow, lots of SAR stuff, and cramming for my HAM radio license exam.

Got 34 miles of running on the week, and another 23 miles hiking.  Biking is non-existent right now as I get used to shitty weather.  We're pretty much melted out now, though the trails will be in rough shape for a bit.

The Rescue Run is one of SAR's biggest fundraisers of the year, hope to see all the locals there.  10AM start so hangover friendly.  I will not be running but I'll be out on course talking shit to everyone.

life goes on

Mon - sore, but got Mookie out for a four mile ruck in the AM, then an easy half hour run in the evening.

Tues - run commute 61.  Straight there and straight back.  CityRock 112 at lunch.

Wed - run commute 62.  Our first big snowfall and low temps of the year.  Five inches at the house, temp never got above 28F.  Plus it gets dark around 5PM now.  I'm ready for summer.

Thurs - more snow.  Got Mook out in the morning, he likes this weather a lot more than I do.  Did get out for a quick 30 minute jog before heading over to Fossil for snow beers later in the evening.

Fri - more snow.  Run commute 63.  Straight there and straight back.  At some point today or maybe early Saturday it is supposed to stop snowing.

Hopefully we melt out over the weekend.

24 (12) hours of Gnar

Headed up to Fort Collins over the weekend for the Colorado 24 hour run hosted by the Gnar Runners.  Good run for me, sort of.  For about 12 hours anyways.  Hit 50 miles in 9.5 hours but then the wheels came off and I ended up pulling the plug at 63 miles.  I have not been running that kind of distance lately so it was nice to get a good 50 in.  Had hopes of a longer distance though, but I just didn't want to walk the same one mile loop for another twelve hours.  Solid event though, can't rule out returning next year to see if I can get a few more laps in.

the week

Big week on the SAR front.  On Thursday we headed down south to help the sheriff look for a missing 80 year old dementia patient.  Got to do some work with the dogs for a few hours and then helped out with a drone search.  The woman remains missing.

A bit lighter hearted on Saturday as I got to push a SAR coffin at the annual Manitou Coffin Races.  Probably had 20,000 people over in Manitou watching.  Good times.

Not much on the workout front this week.  Was pretty sore from the road 'thon through Wednesday and started back slowly after that.  

halfway to 50

Had a blast on the Detroit trip.  Heard nothing but bad things about the town but I thought the places we visited were awesome and the people were a blast.  Not to mention a ton of solid Michigan IPAs.  

The race went much better than expected considering a brewery crawl and beer festival the day before.  Thought I was in 3:45 shape if everything went perfect.  Was on 3:40 pace through mile 21ish, then things went to shit.  Somehow managed to rally back around mile 24 with the increasing crowds cheering me on and the hash beer check, ended up finishing in 3:43:39.  Highly recommend this race.

Detroit

Excited for the Detroit trip.  Especially because we get to go to the Detroit Fall Beer Festival.

Probably won't help my marathon time on Sunday but whatever.  State number 26 coming up!

still going

Decent week even if not much on the weekend due to SAR and the Pikes Peak 1000th hash.

run - 41 miles, eight hours

ride - 44 miles, four hours

hike - 26 miles, 10.5 hours

trudging along

Not a whole lot going on since Pikes.  Some of that was SAR, some of that was me being lazy.  Detroit is going to be a slog just to grab another state.  

For the week:

run - 24 miles, 4.5 hours

ride - 54 miles, five hours

hike - 23 miles, 9.5 hours

My beloved Pitt Panthers are 5-0 and are now ranked in the top 25!  Ahead of Michigan, FYI.

Pikes

Meh.

The exciting part of the weekend was Fri/Sat, when I went on a SAR call to help some hikers get off the mountain.  Got to the summit around midnight, had to hike down about half a mile and escort them out, very slowly.  Two of the eight hikers got put on oxygen, the others just went real slow.  Like an hour from the top of the golden stairs slow.  Oof.

No excuses, I signed up for SAR and I knew what I was getting into.  But I had nothing to give on Saturday and luckily ended up just under four hours.  I had guessed I'd run close to that, but I didn't think I'd feel so awful doing so.  At least the kazoo band at the Cirque played Pearl Jam for me.

I got a good nights sleep after the Ascent and woke up thinking I'd do a lot better, and then I got word that the Marathon had been shortened.  I ran a lot better, getting to Barr Camp ten minutes faster and feeling good, but it was all for naught.  Couldn't even go to the Royal after the race as the place closed down a few weeks ago.

My tenth double.  14 Ascents and 12 Marathons (including this ultra half marathon finish).

Time to change things up as I have a bunch of road marathons coming up.  Not expecting much at Detroit in mid October, but I'd like to take a crack at a sub 3:30 in Eugene next April.

Andy Frasco & The U.N.

Took off for Chaffee County this weekend.  Friday night was one of our favorite bands, Andy Frasco & The UN at the Lariat.  While pre-gaming for the show we ran into Andy Frasco himself.  So cool to see him just hanging out in BV.

Incredible show, $100 and I both agreed it was the best show we've seen of his.  Such a good live band.

After a good dog hike on Saturday morning we headed over to Salida.  Hit all the usual places over the day - Elevation, Soul Craft, Salida Distillery, Tres Litros, Benson's.  And it was my first visit back to The Vic, open again after closing it's doors years ago.  Love the new place, so glad it's back.

Another long dog hike on Sunday, then it was back home.  We got a new cadet and we got to meet him Sunday evening.  He is slightly faster than me at the 5k right now so I have some work to do.

For the week:

run - 43 miles, nine hours

ride - 14 miles, 80 minutes

hike - 27 miles, eleven hours

Panthers are 3-0.  Steelers are 2-0.  Good time to be a Pittsburgh football fan!

staying busy

Been super busy with SAR since we got back.  

On Friday we had a mission out on Vigil Peak.  I've lived here 15 years, a lot of team members have been here for much longer, and nobody had ever heard of the peak.  Out off Old Stage Road.  The first truly fucked up person I've seen on SAR as he took quite a fall and was dealing with some serious head injuries.  Luckily the Army came to help out.

On Saturday I helped with the Brain Injury Alliance Pikes Peak Challenge.  They have SAR folks along the course just like the Ascent/Marathon.  I was at A Frame most of the day, then hiked up from there with my pack and a hikers pack.  Oof.  Counting it as my 40th Pikes summit as I went down significantly below A Frame at times.

Tuesday night we got a late call to head to Palmer Lake and find a potentially suicidal girl who was lost in the woods.  Could have been bad but it turned out alright.

All that time is definitely giving weight to my guess that I'll be pretty close to four hours for the Ascent and 6:30 for the Marathon next weekend.  Little slower than I'd like but the training just hasn't been there since Creede.