IBM in the news

I think more people read this blog than the Gazette, but they did do an article about the Incline Beer Mile a few months ago.  I love how it's "not recommended!"

Incline

Easy effort on a beautiful night for the Incline.  No flashlight needed.  Normally the loop is one mile up, three miles down.  I think my dog somehow throws in three miles up, and comes down in one.  We call her Killian with all the switchback cutting she does on Barr.

Amanda sent me this:

Tough talk from someone who is going to get her ass kicked tomorrow.  I haven't done much since the NYC no-go weekend but I still think I can crack 90 in Pueblo.

canon/cover boy

Cheyenne Canon this morning.  46 minutes to the top.  Today was warm out at 4:50AM when I started and would have been a good day to go for a sub 40, but I just wasn't feeling it.

I finally made the cover of the Long Run.  Contact my agent for autographed copies.

commute #48

Easy five to work this morning, 46 minutes.  Think I forgot to mention that I did get a run to work in last week despite a three day week.

Figured out how to get the info from my fancy GPS watch over to my Strava account.  Boom!  So if you ever see me driving around the streets at 12mph, it's not that I'm a slow driver, but I'm just killing some douche's KOM.

Tues night Garden

Taking a break from the track.  It's just too depressing in the cold and dark, plus I swear the deer were planning to gang up and kick my ass.

So for now Tuesday nights will be a Garden fartlek.  Last night I warmed up for 1.5 miles, then ran four minutes hard, three minutes easy.  Tough workout, and I think this will help me at Mt. Mitchell more than the track will.

Saw Muzzy on the way there, his foot is in a cast due to some PF issues.  And O'Day's vagina still has sand in it from Leadville.  Tough times for the Pleasant Valley gang.  Really lousy when you have to look towards me as the beacon of dedication and consistency.

NY

Quick recap of New York over on Pikes Peak Sports.

Still waiting to hear if I get to go back in 2013 (and more importantly, how much a return trip is going to cost).

No Name/Red Mountain

Five day break from work, maybe I won't be hungover by the time Rock Canyon rolls around.

AM - Took the dog up to No Name Creek.  Easy run, but I was able to run the whole thing so that's good.

PM - Red Mountain with the usual gang.  Spent all day drinking coffee and eating junk food, so this run wasn't the best.  Just over 28 minutes up.

3500 feet of climbing for the dog and I on the day, not too shabby for a Monday.

hottie adventure athletes

Adventure Journal has a poll on the hottest adventure athletes.  I only knew who two of the women were - Sasha DiGiulian (pictured below and my tied for my #1 hot female athlete vote with Kara Goucher), and Lindsay Vonn (whom I thought was an Olympic skiier and thus in my book not really an adventure athlete, though after googling pics of her I may forgive her for that offense).

Anywho, no runners on the list.  Maybe Shelton should be there?  Or are runners just ugly?  Or maybe anyone who isn't a runner looks at the sport as boring.

Incline Club

Run #1 of the season with the Incline Club.  Ute, Longs, Bobs, Barr, Intemann, home.  16 miles, 3:15, lots of climbing.  Here's a pic of me at the beginning when I didn't yet look like a piece of shit:

Nobody could keep up with Carpenter after 100 meters.  Dude is in pretty good shape.

Red Mountain

Have a nice group showing up on Monday nights for the Red Mountain Throwdown.  $100, Amy, Brad P, Dan V, Andrew, Marc P, Amanda, BLOS, Nick P, Lauren J, and of course Holly and George representing the dogs.  And this crew was without Andy W, Brandon S, and Peter M since they were already traveling for the holiday.

Red is a nice run, from Memorial Park in Manitou straight up.  Gains about 1200 feet in a little less than two miles.  My Garmin beta is over here.  Some of yunz may have ran this trail for the fat ass last year.  We hammer up, goof off on the summit for a bit, and then head down for beers at The Keg.  Good times.  Believe I PR'd last night, Amanda was talking all kinds of shit so I blew her doors off with a 23:30.

Turkey Trot Predict

Beautiful Saturday morning over at Memorial Park for the annual Turkey Trot Predict.  You guess your time for the 5K and then run the race without using a watch.  It's a staggered start, with folks predicting the slowest times starting first and working all the way down to the guys who pick the fastest times.  Always great to see the final results, as the ones who win usually aren't the type to finish near the top.  Especially great to see this year's results, since I was in the top six and won a turkey.  Looks like Katie and I will get to eat this Thanksgiving!

Nice article from the Gazette over here.  I predicted 18:59 and ran 18:51, good for fourth place.  Love the pic below as it really looks like I'm out-kicking Simon G.  Simon is in the white shirt behind me, and Don K, the guy in the blue shirt next to him, was the winner of the race (both less than three seconds off their predicted time).  If you look closely you can see 3rd place finisher John C, Leadville finisher and the dude I paced at Western States, in the pic as well.

Thanks to Pikes Peak Sports for the pics.

brick

Very easy 30 minutes with the dog, then I hopped on the bike to get to work.  Riding in the cold is not fun at all.

Might be heading down to NOLA for the 106th annual Jackson Day 9K.  OK, ok, I'm going to NOLA to party and drink and visit friends and listen to some killer music, but there happens to be that 9K race the same weekend and I might as well run it.

Cheyenne Canon

Another 5AM jaunt up Cheyenne Canon.  44:40 to the top.  Almost a minute faster than last week, though that was probably due to bringing a flashlight and being able to see in the dark this time.  Second week in a row Grimes was out there, I could be witnessing the beginning of the comeback of the year.

commute #46

5 miles to work, 49 minutes.  About to run home in the dark.

NYC still hasn't put out anything of substance since the race was cancelled 12 days ago.  I'd be OK if NYRR was an all-volunteer organization, but the top six guys on the food chain make over 1.5 million.  Seems like quite the cluster up there.  Hell, I gave Nick shit for waiting so long to announce the Chubby date, so you can imagine my opinion on Mary Whittenberg.

Fat Ass

In case you missed it buried in Nick's blog, the FoCo Fat Ass is on December 8th this year.  Believe they're running the same course as all the other years.

The Springs Ponderous Posterior will feature a brand new course due to the Waldo fire closing most of our old course down.  We're running on January 19th.  Crash space available.

bike

I changed the tube on my front tire last night, and rode all the way to work today without breaking anything.

I think I'm ready for the Tour de France.

Cheyenne Canyon

The Men of CRUD (I think we had two chicks as well) started their Thursday morning workout today.  I ran 45:33 to the top, 1:21 on the round trip.  As if this climb doesn't suck enough, I have to start the damn thing at 5AM in order to complete it and get to work on time.  Ugh.  Still, I'd like to get that below 40 before snow and ice have anything to do with things.

Believe it or not, I saw Grimes out there.  Could there be a comeback in the making?????

the poncho that never was

Saw this pic on CNN.  These NYCers stole my finisher poncho!  Bastards!

Kept the streak alive yesterday, commute #45.  Ten mile round trip.

NYC

So, as you may have heard, the NYC marathon was cancelled this past weekend.

We had a pretty big group of friends head out there, some running and some not.  None of us missed a beat once the announcement was official.  Disappointed?  A little, though given the circumstances I was fairly happy that a cancelled marathon was the biggest disappointment I'd have all day.

We ended up cramming about ten days of sightseeing and drinking into a long weekend.  We stayed in the Chelsea district of Manhattan.  Hard hit earlier in the week, but fine by the time we got there on Friday.  Our hotel, the Jane, did suffer some severe damage and we wouldn't have heat, lights, or hot water for our entire visit.  Cool bit of history - the Jane was where the survivors of the Titanic were housed.

$100 and I took a nice tour on a boat along the Hudson and East rivers.  We rented bikes and hit the road for a five hour ride, exploring Battery Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, and Central Park.  We made a failed attempt to visit the 9/11 Memorial (closed due to storm damage) and rebounded by hitting McSorley's and the Double Down.  Empire State Building, Times Square, the High Line.

Of course we boozed a ton as well, and there's not a single night I actually remember returning to the hotel.  New York City is one hell of a town to party in.

We did not head to Staten Island, so I didn't see very much of Sandy's aftermath.  Figuring out how to get to the Island with limited public transportation and my generally negative view of runners and their charity work persuaded me to stay closer to the hotel.  I still think they should have had the race, pretty much agreeing with this guy.  I like how he points out that 46,000 NYCers are homeless every day, and nobody does much of anything for them.  Bad shit is always going to happen.  Call me a cynic, but I'll try to improve the lives of those in my little circle and if you're not in there, well, please solve your own problems.  I heard that, on average, 150,000 people die every single day.  I can't live my life worrying about that.  On the issue of diverting police and firefighters away, NYC has 335,000 of those types.  That's roughly the population of Colorado Springs.  I can honestly say that there was no single five minute period during the time I was outside of my hotel that I didn't see either a cop or a firefighter.  They were very friendly, and they seemed to know what they were doing.  They absolutely could have pulled off the race as well as whatever was required for the storm.  I also understand that there are different views on the situation and won't be too butthurt if you think I'm an asshole for not personally handing my fleece lined finishers poncho over to some single mom who just had her two children drown, as if my quickly updated FB status about how charitable I am would have helped her get over the tragedy.

Anywho, I hear I get another shot at NYC next year.  I'll be the first person to sign up when rego opens.  I loved the town and the people and I can't wait to get back.  I think I would have ran right around 2:57 this year, and with an entire year to prepare there is no reason for me not to take a shot at 2:49.

home again

Back in Colorado after what feels like an eternity.  Hell, last time I was here it was still illegal to smoke pot.  Lots of stories from NYC and I'll try to get to them soon.

FYI, our flight from Chicago to the Springs was delayed due to the landings of Air Force One and Two.

Fleishman's Gin!

New York!