3:21

Horrible race, but lots of fun. Report to follow, I'm off to attempt Mt. Whitney!

over/under

Gonna go with 3:10 on the over/under. Will be trying like hell to go sub three, but I'm not sure I have it all put together right now to do that on a tough course. I'll probably go sub three pace through 20 miles and then fall apart over the last 10k. There is a hash beer check, so that's gonna cost me some time.

Guess right and I'll buy you a brew. Guess wrong and I'll come collecting. I know I owe PG and Nick a beer, if I'm forgetting anyone over past bets please remind me.

Thurs

4.5 miles with the dog this morning. Gave her a bath last night, so of course she had to visit every dead animal and mud puddle we saw.

Still working on a number for the San Fran over/under.

Listening to Larry & His Flask on spotify. Feels weird hearing them sober.

Alex Hoag

Results are finally up, see 'em here. 38:38.4.

western slope boozing

Can't say enough good things about Bonfire Brewing in Eagle, CO. Awesome beer and I stumbled in when a cool crowd was hanging out. Small world, turns out the brewer and I were both born at Sunbury Community Hospital.

Also visited the Palisade Brewing Company (finally got to taste the Dirty Hippie!), the Peach Street Distillery (my liver is still recovering from all the Jackelope Gin), and seven wineries (one of which, the Meadery of the Rockies, is on the brewery map that guides my life).

Should be dried out just in time to start the San Fran binge!

still here

Been slacking on the running front lately. No real goal races coming up so I've been pretty unmotivated the past month. When that happens I often find life getting in the way of all the miles. The good news about that is the PF is pretty much healed now.

Plan on getting focused after we return from San Fran. Hope to qualify for the 2012 NYC marathon at Wisconsin Dells.

4.5 miles with the dog this morning, Red Rock Canyon.

elite

Got this message over the weekend from the San Francisco marathon:

"Hello Elites,

We hope that you're training is going well and can't wait to see you in a week! I'm working on finalizing your race weekend instructions and hope to get it out to you all by tomorrow evening. Thank you for your patience.

I am also working on updating bios for our press contacts. Can you please take a few minutes to send me the following information by Monday morning? I know it's short notice, but it would help us out a lot."

Notice that they called me elite! Of course, a few minutes later I got an e-mail apologizing, explaining that the e-mail wasn't supposed to go to me. But here's the info they were asking for anyways:

Name (First, "Nickname", Last): J "Mr. Elite" T

Date of Birth: 8/6/81

PR's from the last 2 years: 2:53 at NOLA while legally drunk

Birth City & Country: Nairobi, Kenya

Current City & Country: Old Colorado City, CO

Phone Number: don't have a phone, it interrupts training

Accomplishments/Notes about your athletic history that you'd like to share (Olympic Trials, All-American, other sports accomplishments, etc.): Recently ran sub 18:30 5k in Leadville, which is faster than either Galen Rupp or Chris Solinsky ran this weekend. Have taken down Brandon, GZ, Footfeathers, Stinky, Mike H, and Gerald this season. Who is gonna be next?

Any interesting facts/hobbies/notes that you'd like to share?: I enjoy drinking beer.

phone

Phone finally died over the weekend. So if you were worried that you didn't receive a text every ten minutes letting you know where/what I was drinking, that's why.

Debating what to do for a replacement. Still under contract with T-Mobile until November, but I can get out of that for $100, which is almost what I pay a month (my bill is usually around $87).

I like T-Mobile, but I'm intrigued at the possibility of not having such a huge phone bill every month. So I'm thinking of going with one of the cheap-o cricket plans. Would cut my monthly phone bill in half, and I wouldn't be locked into a long term contract.

With the saved loot, I could upgrade my iPod to the new iPod touch. Been using spotify and would like to be able to start running with all that music.

Or should I just bite the bullet and finally get an iPhone?

Free Grrrrreta!

Mike!

Mike!

weekend

Pretty excited about the upcoming weekend.

About to head out to Palisade. $100's parents are in town, so we're doing a winery tour on bikes. So I'll be doing some long runs on the Kokopelli trail, chowing down at the Hot Tomato, and getting wasted while pretending to be winning the Tour de France (I am a much better biker than $100 and her family, so I'll be throwing lots of surges in so I can get first shot at the alcohol). Definitely check out some new Western Slope breweries as well. Riding the singlespeed in Frutia, even the bike snobs will be making fun of me.

Bib #206 for the San Fran marathon. That puts me in the sub-elite wave, i.e., the not-quite-this-guy yet wave. But I'm moving up. I think you'll be able to track me online if you don't have a life. I'll do the over/under next week, not sure what it'll be...

word of the day

Been laughing for about 24 hours straight after Sir Nick used the word "knob-cheese" in an e-mail yesterday. I thought it was something he made up, but lo and behold:

Knob-Cheese	22 up, 7 down
	Offensive Chiefly British Slang The implication that the subject of the insult is indeed so insignificant as to suggest that they are equal only to the small particles of sweat, semen and urine to be found twix the folds of the foreskin and/or other parts of the penis. BAZZA: "Aww Chazza you fuckin' knob-cheese!" CHAZZA: "Dahn fuckin' call me a knob-cheese, y' piece o' shit!"

deal of the day

Pretty good deal from the folks at the Gazette today. $7 for $15 worth of beer at the new Pikes Peak Brewery up in Monument. Grab it here. Real good beer up there, definitely worth the trip.

Just to fill you in on how hard it's been on my quest to visit every Colorado brewery, Pikes Peak is not only not Colorado's newest brewery, as the ad says, but it's not even the newest brewery within 15 miles of my house. Tough job, but I'm willing to make that sacrifice.

51:43

Believe that's my PR to No Name Creek from the Ascent start line. Solid effort, but not balls out. Finally a good workout on the mountain.

Thurs

Totally wussed out on the track today. Easy 50 minutes instead, 5.5 miles. Really fighting with a lack of motivation lately. Hope to end that with a solid run up to No Name Creek tonight.

Ran on the Garden trails last night. Came up on another runner on the trail (he was going the opposite way, I wasn't going fast enough to catch anyone) who stopped me. Not three feet in front of me were two rattlesnakes. Had I not been warned I woulda stepped right on 'em.

Later on during that same run I startled four coyotes. A quarter mile later they had surrounded me and were running with me, licking their chops. Really glad I didn't have the dog. I've dealt with coyotes before over in the Garden. They act pretty tough, but a nice strike with a big rock usually sends them cowering.

Interesting day on the Hardrock e-mail list. All started by a 39+ hour, back of the pack finisher who seemed to think he was an olympic gold medalist. I happen to think the Hardrock lottery is fair and I hope they don't change it at all. Lots of varying opinions though. I'm afraid Hardrock will eventually go the way of Leadville and become more of a reality show than a run.

brick

Easy run this morning with Yeti and the dog through Red Rock Canyon. 40 minutes, 4.2 miles. Time to shave the legs, throw on some spandex, and bike to work.

Got this off my sister for your viewing pleasure:

Sesame Street breaks it down from Wonderful Creative on Vimeo.

quarters

Another shitty day at the Holmes middle school track. The oval sits on top of a mesa and it's always super windy. Not sure if it's better to run slower while suffering through shitty conditions, or go to the friendly confines of the Manitou track and run significantly faster.

1.5 mile warm up. 10 x 400m with 200m RBI. 85, 85, 85, 81, 82, 81, 79, 79, 78, 77. 1.5 mile cool down.

La Plata

14,336' La Plate Peak. Colorado 14er #30 for me, #4 for the dog.

Next 14er will be Mount Whitney!

38.1

Real low week, life and booze kinda got in the way. Still, had four quality workouts and two rest days, so it wasn't a total disaster.

Talked to the guys at Runner's Roost. Seems they put me down with the 5k walkers, hence the reason I'm not listed in the 10k results. 38:38 is the time they have for me.

Been doing the 21 workout twice a week for three straight weeks now. Can definitely feel a difference.

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.