Rudy's

Looks like they're gonna open a Rudy's less than two blocks from the new house. Supposed to be there in June, but I know that corner well and I can't figure out where it's going.

This is going to fit in perfect with my new all-meat diet, which my personal dietician has approved!

commute #7

Easy run to work this morning. 5.8 miles, 51:37.

Article by Mr. Yasso that estimates marathons cost about a grand. He tends to travel first class and stay in five star hotels, whereas I tend to drive my truck and sleep in the back, so my fees are a bit lower. For the year I've dropped $1793 on the sport, and covered 1046.9 miles. $1.71 per mile. Smut is gonna owe me a beer soon.

Speaking of marathons, thinking of heading down to the Silverton marathon in late August. Looks like a cool course.

City Rock

Signed up for a new gym this afternoon. Back to a climbing gym, which I enjoy much more than a regular gym. Can tell I've been slacking at anything other than running, as my climbing this afternoon wasn't exactly stellar. Hit it for a good 40 minutes though, and then did some push ups and crunches for good measure.

I'll be looking to boulder outside in the Garden and/or Ute Valley park soon...

results

Run for Rachel results are up over here. I was 6th overall in 18:38.

346.1

Already hit my PR for mileage in a month. Still have the PPRR full moon run tonight, an easy run through Red Rock Canyon tomorrow morning, and the CRC happy hour run on Wednesday evening. Done it all with consistency too - longest run was the 26.2 at Salida, but most of the miles came from churning it out every day.

stats

Some pretty cool stats on the marathon can be seen over here. Thanks to Wiley for passing this on.

Median time for a marathon finish in the USA last year? Male was 4:13:36. 4:41:26 for the ladies.

Boston still looks like a fast marathon, with the median finish being 3:44:04 and 69% of the field breaking four hours. I bet those numbers will get weaker once Brandon runs it...

another one

Meadow Muffins now has a running club. Thursday nights. 5K run through Old Colorado City, then $5 cheese pizzas and $2.50 pints of Coors light.

That is in no way even close to Incline happy hour, which has a much better run followed by PBR, gin & tonics, and usually throwing up.

Run for Rachel

18:40. Not what I wanted, but the course was much harder than I thought. The first mile is fast and downhill, the second mile is slightly uphill, and there's a very steep climb at mile 2.25-ish that sucked the life out of me. But I'll take some small bit of comfort that Gerald R wasn't able to finally drop me until the final half mile, which was downhill and really showed the difference between a fast road guy and a slow trail guy. Think I finished in 6th place.

Ended the week with 82.6 miles. Wanted to get 90 in, but due to the race being cancelled and rescheduled for Sunday my weekend running plans were messed up. Oh yeah, and the small issue with the plumbing sucked a few miles out of me.

Should be a big mileage week coming up, with the PPRR full moon run on Tuesday and the CRC happy hour/newsletter stuffing on Wednesday.

319.6 for March, 1006.3 for 2010.

day 2...

front yard...

poop

Had to miss Incline happy hour last night, probably the first time I've missed it due to non-race taper related reasons in two years, because a pipe at $100's house got clogged. Lots of work taking care of that, hopefully by this afternoon it'll all be good. We joke about poop in the Kimchi hash all the time, but somehow it's not quite so funny when you're actually covered in it.

Anywho, no run last night and an easy five miles this morning. Should still hit 90 this week and get to 1000 for 2010 on Sunday. Maybe the rest last night and this morning will bode well for my attempt at a sub 13 5K on Saturday.

Any plumbers out there know if Liquid Plumber can be used for preventative maintenance, instead of only when there's already a clog? Maybe dump a container down the drain every time I leave town for a hundred miler?

quarters

Pretty good workout this morning. 25 minutes from work to the CC track, then 12 x 400m, with 75 seconds RBI. Wanted to take this easy because of the 5K on Saturday, and hit the first one in 88. Would have been happy to keep 'em all under 90, but with the same effort I hit the next one in 86 and the rest 84 or below. Pretty happy to be running the quarters that fast and not pushing too hard.

Total was 8 miles, approx 70 minutes.

book #4

Just finished up book #4 for the year. Averaging over 1.33 books per month so far this year, I think that's about what I usually average for an entire year. I'll be sure to thank all the small people when I win the national reader of the year award.

Pretty good read about the Boston marathon course. It's written (wrote? wroted? wrat?) by a native New Englander who bandited the 100th running of the race. Each chapter describes a mile of the course. Good intel to have with less than four weeks 'till race day.

Went on a rant at Trinity on Monday about the erosion of the standards for the race because of the fundraising way in. Think I even pissed some people off when I ripped the current Iraq marathon that allows any finisher to run Boston. Oh well. For those that don't know, I did do six years in the Infantry, including a year in Iraq, and at no time whatsoever did I think that entitled me to run Boston without a real qualifier. I think it's great that all these people are getting off their asses and getting into shape, but go run Chicago or Marine Corps or some other big time marathon, and leave Boston for the people who are willing to work their tails off to run fast!

Next up on the book list: Dick Beardsley's "Staying the Course: A Runner's Toughest Race." Yes, another Boston book. That'll put me halfway towards my goal of ten books for the year. Hope I'm not overworking my brain.

advanced Hardrock training!

Woohoo! Looks like the Silverton Brewery is gonna start sending their stuff to the front range!

Wed AM

Went into yoga at 6PM last night in shorts and a t-shirt. Came out at 8:30PM and there were already three inches of snow on the ground and visibility was about ten feet. Gotta love Colorado weather.

Easy run this morning, 5.3 miles in 53 minutes. Lots of snow and ice on the ground, so it was nice to take it easy. Was hoping to get in another Yasso workout tomorrow, but I'm guessing the Manitou track will be under snow.

Should hit 1,000 miles for 2010 on Saturday. Since December 1st I've been averaging over 340 miles a month. Had 1026.7 miles in Dec, Jan, and Feb. Should be over 350 this month. Far and away the most miles I've ever run. Great base is laid down, looking forward to having that pay off over the summer.

Gaylord has his final Salida recap over here. I think I've finally got all the alcohol from that weekend out of my system.

no-go on Bolder Boulder

Despite repeated requests from the Kenyan national team to run for them, it looks like I may have to bail on Bolder Boulder this year. Wanna go to the Taos Solar Music Festival and I don't have enough vacation time to do both.

Still, I'll be gunning for that A wave qualifier this Saturday...

more Salida pics

$100's Salida pics can be seen here.

more miles

Mon PM - 10.3 miles easy with the Soul Runners, 1:31:35. Lots of beer afterwards.

Tues AM - Awesome fartlek workout with the Sunrise Striders. 4 x 8 minutes hard, 4 minutes RBI. Really pushed it today. Harsha and Rick H were talking lots of smack on the last one, but by the time they finally shut up and noticed I had pulled away there wasn't much they could do. Twelve miles total, 1:42:34.

My 25th anniversary special edition Nike Pegasus that I bought on sale for 60 bones from the CRC last November went over 600 miles last night. Probably won't last much longer, they're literally starting to fall apart, the upper is separating away from the sole. Won't even be able to use 'em as hash shoes. Think they just might have one last long run left in 'em though.

Ended this mornings run in the parking lot where I work, and there was a USA Olympic van there around 7:30AM. And two guys standing outside, with a stopwatch and clipboard. They were there with USA Boxing. A few seconds later, the Olympic boxing team turns the corner and runs by, all wearing baggy sweats with the hoods up and shadow boxing as they ran. Pretty cool.

new gym?

Think I'm gonna cancel my membership at Accolade Fitness and start going to the new climbing gym downtown. Kinda steep at forty bones a month, and I only get that price because I'm a full time student at Pikes Peak Community College (or at least my fake ID says so!). But I'll use it four or five days a week, over lunch, and maybe it'll inspire me to climb outside more often. Plus, hitting the climbing gym worked real well for my Hardrock/Leadville double last year, hopefully it'll do the same for the attempt at the Rocky Mountain Slam this year.

CRUD

From the Saturday CRUD run. Just noticed that Harsha has a blog, check it out here.

To CP or not to CP...

...that is the question.

Still debating on whether to do Collegiate Peaks or not. It's only eleven days after Boston. Not sure if that'll be enough time to recover or not. I recover from ultras in much less time than that, but road marathons tend to hurt me real bad. But I'll be in great shape, and my current 50 mile PR is on the CP course. Plus, my Grand Canyon R2R2R is the week after CP. And oh yeah, Eddyline Brewing is now open very close to the finish line.

We'll see...

I am now going to go kick my own ass for having a Shakespeare reference on my blog.

Mon AM

Easy run from the house through Rockledge Ranch, past the Navigators, and a little down the road past the Loaf-n-Jug. Someone told me the guards at the Navigators are now armed, should make trips to the punch bowls that much more interesting. 7.8 miles, 1:15:15.

long run

Awesome long run this afternoon. 21.1 miles, three hours flat. Ran around town on a course that was downhill the first third, flat the middle third, and the hills of the Garden ending the run. Had planned on going 22 or 23 miles, but my legs were pretty shot after three hours so I called it a day.

This run takes me to 91.7 miles for the week. Very well could be my highest non-race week ever.

CRUD

Had planned on getting my long run out of the way today, but I woke up to temps in the mid teens and fresh snow. WTF, did someone forget to tell Mom Nature that today was the first day of spring? I also noticed that tomorrow's high will approach 60. So I bailed on the long run and jogged over to Red Rock Canyon to meet up with the CRUD guys.

Beautiful run! Red Rock Canyon to the Intemann Trail to Section 16 and back. About eight inches of snow on Sec 16. Great workout, minimal pounding thanks to all the fresh powder. 13.1 miles, 2:30.

Think the next CRUD eating contest is going to be pancakes. Stay tuned...

It's 10AM, time to start drinking to get ready for the hash!

the rematch!

Looks like Mr. Parr will be going to Boston. He leaned at the tape at Salida and got me by a scant 45 minutes. He also got lucky and somehow snuck by me at Leadville a little over seven hours. I will have my revenge! Anyone think I can stay within half an hour of him at Beantown?

For those looking to see if I'd finally break 13 for the 5K distance tomorrow, you'll hafta wait. The Run for Rachel isn't until next week. I called Brooks to set up another challenge and he told me the correct date. Sure glad I talked to him or I woulda shown up tomorrow. Of course, this will throw off my taper and could cause me to lose a good six minutes from my goal pace.

t minus one month...

One more month 'till Boston. For my hordes of fans out there, you can track me on race day via text message:

Simply send the word RUNNER to 31901 using your US mobile phone*. Your fans will then receive an SMS text response with instructions on how to submit a runner's bib number. (*Message and data rates may apply. 8-10 messages. Send STOP to quit. Available on participating carriers AT&T, Alltel, Boost, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon, and Virgin.)

Or e-mail:

Your fans can register for the AT&T Athlete Alert Program through the registration page on the race website.

You'll get updates when I cross the following places:

Starting-line
10k
Half-Marathon
30k
Finish

Incline

Good times at Incline happy hour last night! From the new house in Old Colorado City, it's now an 8.7 mile loop, takes two hours.

Also knocked out 10.7 miles this morning, 93 minutes. We were supposed to get eight inches of snow, but unlike the women of my life I wasn't disappointed when it came up way short...

quote of the day

"I have higher expectations for us than most people. I'll be disappointed if we lose in the championship game."

-Jamie Dixon, head basketball coach at Pitt

holy friggin' crap!

How did this escape my radar? Might hafta make a trip down to Taos...

RIP

It looks like Sam's, the downtown Springs closet that bills itself at the world's smallest bar, has closed down. They're building some shitty piano bar in it's place.

pacers

Just locked up two of 'em!

Shad is gonna make a return trip to Hardrock with me and tag along from Ouray to Maggie Gulch! It'll be his last big long run before Leadville.

Sean O is gonna hammer the Ascent and then come out to accompany me from Treeline to Tabor boat ramp.

Awesome to get that out of the way so far in advance!

Still looking for Bighorn and Bear though...

Pikes Peak Ascent/Marathon

Rego for those races opens up today. I first ran the Ascent back on it's 50th anniversary, and ended up moving to Colorado not long after. So it made quite the impression. Of course, do to other pursuits, I've only been able to be in town that weekend twice since I've been here.

Anywho, since it seems that every single race in Colorado is on that weekend, if you're "only" doing the Ascent you will be expected to pace at Leadville.

group grope

The hashers before taking on the Salida marathon. From left to right: Fagatron, Nacheaux, Who Wants A Fuck, BLOS, $100, Usain Bolt, and Gordo.

Pete vs. the New Mexican Stomper!

fittest cities

Colorado dominated yet another "fittest cities" list, taking three of the top five and four of the top ten. See the article here.

#10 - Denver/Aurora (probably lost a few slots after GZ injured his calf)
#4 - Colorado Springs
#2 - Boulder
#1 - Fort Collins/Loveland

I really have a hard time believing the obesity rate of the Springs is 17.2% though. Seems like there a lot more fat people than that around here.

Boston H3

T-shirt design for the Boston H3 marathon weekend. I'm sure hangin' with these guys for a few days prior to the race will boost my performance.

miles

Sun PM - Easy four miles in the crappy weather. I get the feeling winter is now fighting a losing battle though.

Mon PM - 10 miles on the Garden trails with Pete, 1:45.

Tues AM - Decided I needed to catch up on sleep so I bailed on the Sunrise Striders. Headed to Section 16 tonight at 6PM if anyone wants to join me.

my name is mud

Nice shot of the trail conditions over the final eight miles of Salida. Good times!

3484

I'll be sporting bib number 3484 at Boston. And finishing ahead of numbers 3301 and 7116.

results

Results from Salida are over here. They have me at 3:53:32, but I was actually 3:55:xx. They're over half an hour off on Katie's time.

BLOS's report is over here.

Not trying to stir up anything here, but using standard XC scoring CRUD crushed an all star Fort Collins/Broomfield/Boulder squad 45-72.

more pics

Nacheaux's pics can be seen here. You can tell from the photos that I may have had a beer or two this past weekend.

pics

First of many pics from the weekend. I'm going to have to check into detox after the Trinity run tonight.

Salida

What a great weekend! Lots of bars, lots of pizza, and even a little race. I had an uninspiring, lackadasical run, and the conditions were pretty shitty, and I really eased off the final eight miles, but despite that I was only three minutes off last year's time, when I had a really good race. So it does give me some confidence about my current fitness. Crossed the line in 3:55:xx. First time I've ever beat Harry. First time I've ever beat Tom S. Neither of those guys had good races, but I'll take what I can get.

Brooks ran really well, as I was only able to finish two beers while waiting on him to come down from the mountains. I believe he will be footing the bill at the Trinity run tomorrow.

Lost the bet to Nick, as he crushed me by almost 40 minutes. Ouch. Think he only got to drink one of his beers after passing out brews to all the runners at the hostel.

Pics to follow. Great seeing everyone out there!

quote of the day

"If I don't beat jt today, I'm changing sports!"

Brooks

Moonlight!

mom

I know I'm opening myself up for mom jokes here, but my mother was recently in the The Daily Item, one of the greatest newspapers in the central Susquehanna valley. See the article here. Kinda sorta the same line of work my sister and I went into. I'm pretty disappointed with her t-shirt collection though, between hashing and running I bet I have at least twice her collection.

watch your back...

MARIA ST.LOUIS-SANCHEZ

THE GAZETTE

A jogger was attacked and stabbed twice in his torso Tuesday night during an attempted robbery in west Colorado Springs.

According to Colorado Springs police, the man was jogging on a trail behind King Soopers at 815 Cheyenne Meadows Road about 9 p.m. Tuesday when he was approached by two men who asked him for money. When he didn’t give them any, they attacked him and stabbed him twice. He was taken to the hospital and admitted. His wounds are not life threatening, according to police.

-------------

No truth to the rumors that I stabbed Muzzy to take him out of the Salida marathon, or that I was just practicing to make sure Brandon can't make it to Boston. But if I were Nick, I'd watch my back...

The Vic

Might hafta get me one of these shirts this weekend. If you're going on the MOPP pub crawl Saturday, you just might get to visit The Vic.

commute #6

First day running to work from the new house. And to the new office. It's 4.5 miles straight down Colorado/Pikes Peak to work, but I got some bonus points by meeting up with the PPRR Sunrise Striders for their morning track workout. 8 x 400m, 1 minute RBI. Took it pretty easy on these, keeping around three hour marathon pace. That pace seems so slow when you're only running a quarter mile at a time. Ended up getting 11.1 miles in, 1:45. Over 800 miles for the year.

she's back...

Marion Jones has signed with the Tulsa Shock of the WNBA. Read about it here.

Big day for the fine city of Tulsa, as their Olympic dreams are still alive. Note to the people of Oklahoma: if you want to get the US Olympic Committee to do anything to help you, it's going to cost A LOT of money.

Syn

Syn nightclub (formerly 13 Pure, formerly Club Eden), which I've blogged about before, just had their liquor license suspended for a whopping 15 days. The final straw came over the weekend when there was a big melee that required 20 police cars to break up.

Not sure what this place will have to do to actually lose their license. Multiple deaths? Trinity got shut down for two days for selling someone else's beer in a growler. I'd love to hear the logic of the liquor control board on this issue.

FYI, the place is for sale on craig's list. For a "FANTASTIC BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY," click here .

mountain lions

This pic was taken in Golden Gate State Park, where I'll be camping and running a 50K in June. I'll be in such good shape by then they won't be able to catch me.

still here

Thought everything would go back to normal after the move, but things continue to be hectic. Unpacking sucks almost as much as packing.

One of my new neighbors, Rich M stopped by last night with a "welcome to the neighborhood" present of a twelve pack of PBR. Very nice, but I'm still not going to show him any mercy at Salida. But he's much more friendly than my other neighbor, who hasn't brought any booze over yet.

Keith and I now have a twelve pack bet at Leadville. He wanted four hours. I asked him when he lost his manhood, since that much time would mean he's not going for the big buckle. So he came down to 30 minutes. He then proceeded to knock out a bunch of NoCRUD push ups (aka, girl push ups) on his knees.

Monday AM - 6.5 miles (1 hour), PM 5.5 miles (42 minutes).
Tuesday AM - 10 miles (1:25:25), PM 3.9 miles (34:26).

64.9

Moving into a new office and a new house wrecked havoc on my routine, so I decided to take an easy week. Still had some quality workouts on Tues and Thurs, just no long run and no two-a-days to get the extra mileage.

Incline last night before hitting Chucky's Air Force retirement happy hour, then an easy 6.5 miles this morning. Currently sitting at 758.1 miles for the year.

HAIL TO PITT

Pitt ended the regular season by crushing Rutgers. Finished 24-7, 13-5 in the Big East. We'll be the second seed at the Big East tournament. Not too shabby for a team picked to finish 9th at the beginning of the season.

Bring on March Madness!

message boards

Lots of nice words about Tony over on letsrun.com.


My favorite so far:

"Anton is a douche bag. He posts the weird bands on his blogs so people will talk about how cultured and unique he is or how hardcore he is. He runs ultras for the same reason. He wants people to go "man that Anton guy is nuts, he did an 100 mile run at 36 minute mile pace" he has a blog so that we will do exactly this. Anton is a pathetic runner who needs dragged in an ally and shot. He thinks he knows everything about everything. i'll beat him in any race, spelling bee, weight lifting competition, hygene, picking up girls and just life in general. what a douche rocket"

I am going to use the term "douche rocket" as much as I can from now on!

Fri AM

Been really busy lately. Moving offices, moving from my apartment to $100's apartment, and now to $100's house. It certainly hasn't affected my drinking, but it provided a good excuse for me sleep in this morning. All the way until 5:30AM. 4.6 miles, 45 minutes.

I was very lonely at Incline Happy Hour last night. Seems like the nice weather down here has caused all my buddies to sprout their spring vaginas.


Biking to the hash on Saturday. Meet at $100's house at 1PM if you wanna tag along.

Kudos to Nick for throwin' down against just about everyone short of Haile Gebrselassie over here. I bet he won't be talking so tough after Salida...

Thurs AM

Nice effort with the PPRR Sunrise Striders. 6 x 4 minutes hard, with one minute RBI. One of the more upscale "camping" spots on the Santa Fe trail now has a port-o-shitter.

Unofficially moved into the new crib last night. Great place. Look for details of the housewarming party to be announced soon...

the three food groups...

Nacheaux and I spent some time before the show at one of the few downtown bars I'll drink heavily at, Oscar's. No, we didn't see the local DA. Nor did we see the big statue of Elvis, they got rid of it!

Los Lonely Boys

Unplugged, and at the Pikes Peak Center (the absolute worst place in the world to see live music), didn't leave me expecting much. But the boys rocked! Great show!

Wed

Hungover from the Los Lonely Boys show, so slept in and only got 4.1 miles in this morning. Notworthy for two reasons though:

1. I didn't wear gloves. First time since October.

2. I found a $20 bill! Thinking some PBR and cheap gin for the new liquor cabinet...

Pikes blog

I've started updating my Pikes Peak blog each morning I go into work. It's the view from my office. The pic on the actual blog is kinda crappy, it's from my phone, but if you click on the picture it's a little better.

FYI, it's much better than this lousy photo blog.

Mon/Tues

Mon PM - 10.2 miles with the Trinity Soul Runners. 1:35:04. Legs were dead.

Tues AM - 2 mile warm up, 14 x 400m cruise intervals, 200m RBI. I usually ignore the "cruise" part of these and hammer each one, but for some reason my legs were still feeling like crap. So I averaged low 90s for these. Felt much better afterwards.

Wiley has started aqua jogging. Please try not to laugh. Maybe next he'll take up bingo as cross-training.

good times ahead!

From the Salida peeps:

Course conditions. The half marathon course is 90% dry as of today 3/1 a.m. There are a couple snowpacked sections of road starting at mile 4 that we expect to melt out and just be wet (if that) by race day for the half.

Marathoners will very likely encounter sections of mud and snow and perhaps ice between miles 8-24. Miles 0-17 have been plowed, but there are sections of hardpack snow on these that will not disappear before race day. Marathoners can likely expect to probably encounter significant sections of mud and deeper snow between miles 17-24. As of March 1, some of this snow is 10” deep and likely not to disappear completely before race day.

Incline happy hour

From last Thursday. Incline happy hour had been getting pretty slim - we had only two people show up each of the last three weeks. Of course, now that the weather is slowly getting better everyone is coming back out and looking for sympathy with their lame excuses. They sure don't get any from me! Especially Josh, who has yet to forward me his Mt. Lemmon entry proof like he promised.

I had given up yaktrax for the year a few weeks ago, and as of Black Forest I've given up long pants until next winter. Bring on the warm weather!

looking ahead

Went to check the results of the NOLA marathon, and saw rego was open for 2011. So I signed up. A marathon during Mardi Gras, I'm not exactly expecting a top performance. But even though I haven't seen who has signed up, I would think that right now I would have to be listed as one of the favorites to win!

February

Easy 5.1 miles (41:44) through the Garden at the PPRR full moon run last night. Brought me to 342.9 for the month. With this mornings easy six through Red Rock Canyon, I'm at 692.7 miles on the year, and will go over 700 tonight at Trinity.

I've done yoga 17 times for 20 hours. Right on pace to hit my goal of 100 times for '10.

Pretty much entered all the races for the year, and I've spent $1,673. Comes to $2.42 per mile. That should be significantly lower come April. Should easily get that under a buck a mile once the year ends.