Thursday, February 28, 2013

books



Since my days of winning awards for running are long gone, I turned my attention to another pursuit:
reading. Last night I picked up a sweet coffee mug for completing the Pikes Peak Library District Winter
Reading Challenge. That’s right, illiterate bitches, I’ve already plowed through EIGHT books in 2013!


Those books were all OK. I just don’t get the boner for reading that others do. I’d much rather drink a
beer, or run on a trail, or not be one of those losers who reads all the time, than read a book.

Here’s the goods. I’m going to mail this (she only gets the mug, I'm keeping the fries) to a friend of mine who is the Head Librarian (I love saying that!) at a library in Pittsburgh. As I was picking up my mug last night, I actually told that to the librarian in Old Colorado City, adding “Did you know they had libraries in Pittsburgh too?” He gave me quite the odd look and I’m pretty sure I ended up as the FB status on the library page.


Wednesday, February 27, 2013

big money run

Tues AM - took the dog out for an easy four miles in the Garden, and then ran over to the garage to pick up the subaru.  $650 due to some douche smashing the window and scraping the paint.  Most expensive run I've ever had.  Somewhere, Mary Whittenberg is super jealous.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Mitchell

Garmin stuff over here.  Had to play it conservative due to some back issues I've been having.  Great race, and a great trip overall.  Hopefully I'll get a write up posted tomorrow.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Barr Camp

Nice run from the house up to Barr Camp and back today.  21 mile round trip, just under 2.5 hours up, 4:15 total time.  Looks like Neil and Teresa are preparing to give up their job as caretakers over the next year or so.

Barr Trail was a mess.  Lots of ice from the TH up to No Name Creek.  Lots of snow from No Name to Barr Camp (though the higher part of the trail was much easier to run on).  The messy conditions on the lower part of the trail made for slow going coming back down, as each of the millions of Incliners had to inch their way down to keep from falling.

As much as I hate to give credit to Mike H, I believe he is right.  We all know Coors uses Wilson Peak on the logo, but I think Telluride Brewing does as well.  I owe Mike a Coors Light next time I see him for proving me wrong.


And we'll keep rolling with the "beer makes you smarter" theme.  Did you know the largest salamander in North America is the Hellbender?  Gotta admit, seeing one of these on a run would freak me out a bit.


How do I know this?  Because during my intensive research for the upcoming Mt. Mitchell Challenge (looking for local bars/breweries to visit) I came across an invite for the Hellbender Release Party from Pisgah Brewing in Black Mountain, NC.  You know you've made it in the salamander world when you get your own beer named after you.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Garden Tempo/Commute #15

The rare Saturday at the office.  Blech.

One mile warm up, four miles hard, 1.2 miles cool down.  OK on the tempo portion, but my mind wandered at times so it wasn't my best workout ever.  My final mile was sub eight and included jumping into the bushes to take a crap, I think that's a PR for me.

Right after the run I hopped on the bike to work.  I could use some work on my transition: I changed clothes, fed the dogs, checked facebook, sent a few e-mails, and drank two cups of coffee in between the run and the bike.

New brewery coming to Woodland Park.  Ute Pass Brewing.  Will make WP a town of 7500 with three breweries.  And Pikes Peak is now featured on the logos of two breweries.  I believe no other mountain in the world has this distinction*!


*I did absolutely no research whatsoever to verify that claim.

Friday, February 15, 2013

still here

Have an extra dog and a car theft to deal with this week (car was broken into, not stolen).  Blech.  Running has unfortunately taken a backseat.  I understand that crime happens, but the thing that pisses me off the most is that after breaking the back window and grabbing whatever crap he could, he then scratched the car in some random places, just to be a dick.  I say "he," but the car was parked next to Beth O'B's house, and I think that makes her the prime suspect.



Sure is helping the commute challenge having just one vehicle though, today was commute #14 of the year.  I've also inched up to Incline #15.  Well on pace to hit 100 times for each of those categories.

Brandon S did a blog post about a marathon on the elliptical machine.  Sounds, uh, like a really great way to spend a Friday night.  But the treadmill video at the end rocks.  First time in history somebody actually had fun on the 'mill.  I'm putting together a team to head to the local gym to replicate this.

OK Go - Here It Goes Again from OK Go on Vimeo.

Friday, February 08, 2013

Incline #13/Commute #12

Keeping it all close as I also had burger #12 at The Keg last night.  Timko looked burnt out on the red meat diet on Saturday, I'll catch him soon.

Thurs PM - Very easy Incline from the house.  When I got to Kinfolk's they were having a birthday party for a three year old and I didn't want any of that, so I hit the Keg.  Kinfolk's will reedeem itself by having Grant Sabin play this Saturday.



Fri AM - quick run to work.  4.8 miles, 42 minutes.

I am soooooooooo looking forward to drinking a shitton of beer this weekend!  Feels like I haven't had a drink in forever.  Even though it's only been about 14 hours.

Was thinking of the everlasting one-hit-wonders again and the iPhone randomly brought this one up:

Thursday, February 07, 2013

Thurs

Wed PM - easy Incline (#12) with $100 and the dog.

Thurs AM - 2.4 miles with the dog.  She started freaking out over in Red Rock Canyon and I finally gave up.  As we were leaving the park I heard a bunch of coyotes hooting and howling.

My backyard made iRunFar today.  Other than mentioning the mate factor (which is run by a super weird, child abusing religious cult) and not mentioning Manitou Mardi Gras it's a pretty good write up.  My dog gives it two paws down though and immediately switched the website to letsrun.com.  They also mentioned the spring water, but forgot the only decent use of the stuff:



The guy just won't go away.  Lance is tearing it up on Strava.  I hope every workout he posts gets flagged.

Incline Happy Hour tonight.  Technically the first legal one ever.  Though it happens after dusk, which is illegal.

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Garden/Commute #12

Tues PM - easy loop on the Garden roads.  8.6 miles, 77 minutes.

Wed AM - 15 minute warm up, 60 minutes tempo, 15 minute cool down.  The Garden is a rough place for a tempo run, there's a hill in every mile that messes up with your pace.  I race the Garden ten miler pretty hard, so the fact that I'm getting about 40 seconds away from race pace is good enough for me.

After the tempo run I hopped on the bike and pedaled to work.

Been listening to a lot of Cracker lately.  Hoping they play the Front Range soon.  They have a lot of stuff as good or better than this song, but has there ever been a "one hit wonder" to stand the test of time like this one?

Tuesday, February 05, 2013

January


Fairly decent month.  251.23 miles running on 40 runs (49:42:54), with 42341 feet of climbing.  30.5 miles hiking on 13 hikes (10:02:15), 7638 feet of vert.

I’ve never tracked climbing before, but my watch does it automatically.  Combined running/hiking gave me 49979 feet.  Guess I should have walked up and down the front steps a few times to get to fifty thou.

Separating the running and hiking, hoping this helps me concentrate on improving the hiking part of my Hardrock attempt.  Back in my Infantry days the standard was a 12 mile hike with a 50 pound pack in three hours.  Hard to keep that pace nowadays even without the weight as the terrain I hike on is quite different than the paved roads back in Texas we would march on.  Really have no method of separating a run from a hike – some Incline days have me logging the workout as a hike (usually when I come straight back down the Incline) and other days have me putting it in as a run (when I run down Barr Trail).  And some running days are more hiking than running.  The dog is a big winner for the logged hikes, as she loves the slower pace.  Gets to chase more squirrels and sniff more stuff.

Eleven non-truck commutes to work (Ryan is at ZERO!) and eleven trips up the Incline.  Well on the way to 100 in both those categories.

Haven’t done the long runs to prepare me for Mt. Mitchell, but that won’t stop me.  Actually felt quite good for my two six hour efforts, at the FoCo and PP fat asses.  Judging from the conditions of the course, it’s not going to be much of a run anyways.




Monday, February 04, 2013

Super Sunday

First up was the second annual Super Half.  Tim has done a real good job making this into a fun way to kick off Super Sunday.  My goal was to keep every mile just under seven minutes.  And I did, save for mile 11 where I stopped to drink a beer.  1:30:23, nothing blazing but I was happy to run that with minimal effort.  Had I been paying attention I could have easily snuck in under 90.  Here's the post run group shot:


Big scandal was whether or not I beat a 13 year old girl.  Do you go by who crosses the line first, or by chip timing?  Normally I'm an old school guy and you go by whoever finishes first.  But for yesterday, I'm all about technology.  See the pic here.

I didn't watch one second of the big game, or any of the commercials.  But I did meet up with the annual anti-super bowl runners.  I've done three of the four of these, missing the year the Steelers were playing, and I've kept up my streak of DNF's.  As usual, I only made it to No Name Creek.  But I'm in all the pictures and FB posts, so luckily most people think I made it.


Sunday, February 03, 2013

Saturday

Solid long-ish run yesterday, 17 miles in 2:15.  Included a stop at the two mile Nielsen Challenge where I ran 12:41.

After that, $100 and I headed north to meet Ryan K and hit up the American Mountaineering Museum in Golden.  Pretty cool place, definitely worth checking out if you're in the area.  If I lived closer I'd join the American Alpine Club just to use the library there.

While in Golden we also hit a new burger joint, Bob's Atomic Burgers (I'll be back!), revisited one of my favorite breweries, Golden City, and hit up the newest brewery in town - Cannonball Creek.  Golden is slated to open four new breweries in 2013!  Cannonball Creek sits near the 7-11 that everyone stops at on their way to Golden Gate Canyon, so I'll definitely be stopping there on my way home from the Dirty Thirty this year.



Then it was off to Denver to celebrate stout month at another new brewery for me - the Vine Street Pub.  Timko had been facebook stalking me all day and finally caught up here.

Of course, no trip to Denver is complete without dropping by the best bar in the world, Sancho's Broken Arrow.  Cheap booze and the most fantastic jukebox of all time.


All this, and it was 60F.  In February.  Great way to blow a Saturday here on the front range.

Friday, February 01, 2013

Commute #11

Nice morning for a bike ride.  Even warmer for the ride home.  Bike commuters are the happiest.  But I had my happy moment somewhat ruined by noticing those Portland peeps didn't include run commuters in their study.




Incline #'s 10 & 11

Thurs PM - One last time up the Incline while it's still technically illegal.  Good turnout, here's the group pic back at Kinfolk's courtesy of Amy P:


Back at it this morning at 4:30.  Technically it was still illegal since it was before dawn and I took the dog, but whatever.  I ain't gonna let the man hold me down!  When I got back to the bottom Mountain Man Steve was setting up for the grand opening at 7AM and there were news crews there.