5/31 - Phantom Canyon Rail Yard Amber

Liquid lunch!

Incline #32 and #33

First double trip up the Incline this year.  10.4 miles total in just under 2:45.

Missed another day on the beer-a-day challenge.  After getting home from work, taking care of the dog, then running for three hours I just wanted to relax with a PBR before hitting the sack.

Dirty Thirty no-go

Been beating my head against the wall concerning the three person carpool thing for Dirty Thirty, and this morning I decided to bail on that race.  Will be nice not having to get up at 3AM.  Instead, I'll be headed up Pikes Peak, which has been melting very quickly as of late.  Won't be looking to summit but it seems like A-Frame without special snow gear isn't out of the question.

And with no race on Saturday, I have no choice but to absolutely dominate on Sunday:

5/29 - Coney Island Lager

Commute #35.  AM was an easy 5K with the dog in Red Rock Canyon followed by another five to work.  PM was an easy 10K back home.

Beer for today was the Coney Island Lager from Shmaltz Brewing in NY.  Good stuff.  Picked this up at the Steins and Vines on Fillmore and Centennial.  It's amazing how different the selection of single serve beers are from liquor store to liquor store.

Elevation Brewing had nothing to do with the beer, I just wanted to show off my sweet new stainless steel pint.

5/28 - Bristol Beehive

On Monday afternoon Josh and I went up for a loop around the newly opened Rampart Res.  You can really see some of the worst damage from the Waldo Canyon fire from up there.  Nice to have that sweet singletrack open again though.  14.5 miles in 2.5 hours.

Afterwards we hit up the new Ute Pass Brewery in Woodland Park.  They're not serving their own brew yet, that will happen starting in July, but they have lots of other local stuff on tap.  

I missed a day in my beer-a-day challenge.  No new beer on May 27.  I definitely drank beer that day, but due to logistics issues I had nothing new.  Trying for an entire year will be tough and I doubt I'll make it.

Jemez

Super bland recap of the race over here at PikesPeakSports.us.  If they had a hammocking and/or beer drinking category in ultras, I'd be pretty tough to beat.

I actually ran well from Ski Lodge to Ski Lodge, roughly mile 15 to mile 36, but that was it.  Walked most of the final 13 miles.  Probably a good thing, I'm sure the heat would have taken a nice chunk out of me had I been pushing.

Thanks to all those aid station folks who had cold beer for me!

5/26 - Elevation Brewing Black Resonator IPA.

5/24 - Taos Mesa Brewing Superstitous Stout

5/23 - Full Sail Brown Ale

Kinfolk's

Colfax pics

A few of the pics from the Colfax Marathon.  The RD has publicly stated that the half marathon wasn't short, so I'll go ahead and say that I didn't steal these off the interweb. Quit trying to harm this otherwise important civic and community blog.

5/22 - Oskar Blues G'Knight Imperial Red IPA

AM - Nine miles, including a 5K in Red Rock Canyon with $100 and the dog and then commute #35 to work.  Run commuting will go mainstream now that it was featured on iRunFar.

PM - Easy five home from work, then a nice 30 minute hike at the Bear Creek Dog Park.

Been jonesin' for some Oskar's ever since GZ mentioned them on the latest ultrarunnerpodcast.com episode.  Poured a little to the floor for the reigning ass champ, since he won't talk to any of us commoners now that he's gone all Hollywood.

But just to remind everyone that GZ doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, this is by far the best 800 race evah!



Decided tonight to continue the new-beer-a-day up through Hardrock.  Not that I won't drink there, but PBR has always been my go-to brew there and I've already crossed that off the list.  But I heard Wiley might pick margaritas as the 2014 challenge, and I fucking hate tequila, so I might see if I can try a new beer every day of that year.

5/21 - Avery Brewing Joe's Pilsner

AM - One hour at the gym honing the guns.

PM - Easy 7.5 miles on the Garden trails.  Feeling fine after Colfax.

Thinking this would be a much more fun way to get a buckle.

Pikes Peak Sports Blog

Updated my other blog.  Check it out here.

5/20 - Stella

AM - Ran off the hangover with Liz at Cheesman Park.  2.5 miles, 24 munutes.  Finally got to see the world famous Cap Hill mailboxes.

Lunch - Super easy hike with the dog in Stratton Open Space.  3 miles, 60 minutes.

PM - Bike.  Red Rock Canyon, Intemann, aid station at The Keg, then back home on the hike and bike.  12 miles, 1:38.  Grabbed a Stella at The Keg to keep the streak alive.

5/19 - Colorado Kolsch Ale

Mile 25 of the Colfax Marathon.  Kircher was waiting for me at the Denver Bicycle Cafe with a can of Colorado Kolsch from Steamworks Brewing in Durango.

My three slowest miles at Colfax?  Mile 16 in 17:10 (having a beer with PG), mile 19 in 17:42 (dropped by The Viking with Kircher, Liz, and Brooks), and mile 25 in a blazing 29:59, along which this pic was taken.  You can see my splits here.  Good workout for the first 15 miles, then lots of fun the rest of the way.

The post race pub crawl was a blast.  You know you're drunk when you get cut off at the PS Lounge.  Bars visited: Nob Hill, Prohibition, Sancho's, Lion's Lair, Satire, PS Lounge, and back to Sancho's.

5/18 - Prost Brewing Dunkel Bier

5/17 - Boulder Beer Hoopla Pale Ale

Fri AM - Commute #34.  Quick five miles to work.  Bit of a hangover thanks to the Primus show.

Fri PM - Had the bike at work and took her home via Cheyenne Canon.  First time making it all the way up High Drive.  16 miles in just under two hours.

Sat AM - Easy 4.2 in Red Rock Canyon with the dog.  Volunteering at the local Womens' Distance Festival today.  I love fast chicks.

Fridge leftover last night.  $100 likes this beer because of the hula hoop theme.  I like it because it tastes good and it gets bonus points since Kyle Hollingsworth helped brew it.

Les!

5/16 - Mission Brewery IPA

Out of San Diego. Not too shabby for California stuff.

Curbside Cuisine

Read about this place in the Gazette the other day.  God bless the folks who are always trying to make downtown CS a little less of a cesspool.  They try so hard, but nothing down there ever changes.

Anywho, I thought I'd check the place out.  Quick bike ride from the office on a beautiful day.  But so far only one shack is open, though several more should be open soon.  I ended up having my very first crepe, which must be french for ham sandwich.  Pretty good, even for six bones.

commuting

Wednesday was commute #32 on the year.  Morning 5K in Red Rock Canyon with $100 and the pooch, then a quick five miles to work.  Easy six on the way home.

Schedule is all screwy due to the Primus show tonight.  Up early for a tempo run in the Garden, one mile easy-four miles hard-1.5 mile cool down.  Then I hopped on the bike to work.  After work I'll walk down to the Triple Nickel to warm up the liver, then take a cab home.  Tomorrow will be a run to work and a bike home.

Passed two fully spandex-clad roadies on my ride to work on the Klein.  I know they were jealous of my 100% cotton 1992 Lithuania bronze medal basketball tie-dye shirt, which I scored for eight bucks at the Goodwill in Haight-Ashbury.  

Speaking of well dressed non-car commuters, I read this article today, and while the story is great, I was more psyched that this guy dresses even better than I do:

You think this guy picked up the latest Scott Jurek ultralight space age backpack hydration system?  Fuck no, dude rolls with an Igloo!

5/15 - Mojo IPA

5/14 - Dale's Pale Ale

AM - half hour throwing the weights around in the home gym.

Lunch - two mile easy hike around Prospect Lake.

PM - Incline #31 from Memorial Park.  Got in and out of Manitou without spending a dime, I'm sure they're going to have to change some rules to prevent this from happening again.

Colfax Pub Crawl

The post Colfax Marathon pub crawl will start at 11AM at the historic Nob Hill Inn at 420 E. Colfax.

I know I mentioned to some folks that the crawl would start at the Satellite Bar, but that doesn't open until 4PM.  Nob Hill opens at 8AM if anyone wants to get a head start.

No time schedule.  We will slowly make our way east, away from the yuppie west side of Colfax.  I'm sure we'll spend a lot of time at Sancho's if anyone wants to try to meet us there.

5/13 - Deviant Dale's IPA

Nice eleven miler this morning on the Garden trails.  The Garden is spectacular right now thanks to all the rain/snow we've been getting.  Also got in a decent hike in Bear Creek Canyon with the dog.

As you can see below, the dog is super happy about shelter dogs being named as the official state pet.  And how awesome is it that Gov. Hick brought along his shelter dog to sign the bill!  I took our pooch to the vet today for some shot boosters.  The vet tech was snobbishly rude to me, talking down to me because I've never taken a three credit class at Pikes Peak Community College, so my dog ended up shitting and pissing all over her!  Boom!  Dog got some extra treats tonight!

jeep

I need to find this on a shirt when I pace BF at Leadville again.  Although rumor has it he's retired from the sport...

5/12 - Maui Brewing Coconut Porter

Meh.

5/11 - Pateros Creek 51st Mile

Good times and good beer post Quad Rock!

Growler #78

A growler of Donkey Punch!

5/10 - New Belgium Rolle Bolle Ale

Dog friendly brewery!

view from the front window...

Hard to tell from this crappy pic, but there's a ton of snow on Pikes right now.

5/9 - KB Brewing House Porter

Commute #31/We're #2!

Nice 5K in Red Rock Canyon with $100 and the dog this morning, then grabbed the pack and ran to work. Eight miles.

Perhaps due to my recent commitment to the bike, Colorado has moved up to #2 in the bicycle friendly state rankings!



Shooting for 11-ish hours at Quad Rock.  Meredith has bailed on the race, so no need to run fast.  Slow Aaron and I still have our bet, but I'm thinking anywhere around eleven (or maybe even 12 or 13...) will get the job done.  I've had a bunch of solid four to six hour runs so far this year, just wanting to make that next jump in time to have me ready for mid-July.  Went 11:30ish here last year while hiking a ton, so a half hour quicker isn't much of a stretch.

Just as importantly for this weekend, I need to get my ass to Funkwerks.  The only FoCo brewery I haven't been to.  Seems a bit yuppie for me, so it will be a quick visit and I'll spend any spare time at my Fort favorites - New Belgium, Road 34, and the Town Pump.

5/7 - Yuengling

Nice ten miler in the Garden after work this evening, including a tempo effort on our Strava Garden challenge 5.8 mile loop.  Dropped my PR on that loop from 63 flat to 46:10.

Anyone for a vertical beer mile this Sunday in the Fort?  Nick will be the heavy favorite since he'll be the only one not running Quad Rock, but it's fair to say the king of exercise and drinking in the Fort is this guy.

My supplier came through!

free shoes!

Somehow got involved in a shoe testing group and I got my first free pair of kicks today.

I'm actually letting the folks in charge know about the fancy lacing system thingies, not the shoes themselves.  Still, nice to have something for free than I can beat up, and have the shoes I pay the big bucks for last longer.

Speaking of free, Peter was out celebrating his recent Greenland win last night:

hammock/Towers

Picked up a hammock yesterday.  Dog is lukewarm about it, but I'm pretty psyched.  I think another overnight trip to Rocky Mountain will be in order soon!

Anyone up for an easy jog (hike) up Towers Road in the Fort on Sunday morning?  Never been all the way to the top.

5/6 - Budweiser

House beer of the Red Rock Lounge.

Sheep

Easy weekend of running.  No miles on Saturday, though I did spend all day at the south aid station of the Greenland 50K.  Lots of fun watching everyone on the two or four lap course.  The eight mile (one lap) folks were no fun as they absolutely overwhelmed our tiny four person aid station.

Was pretty hungover on Sunday after the Duarte show so I only made it up to the Top of the W's.  Ugh.

Took the dog for an easy six in the Garden today and ran into these guys.  I'm no wildlife photographer like Chris B, but sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.  I see these sheep quite often over in the Garden and it never gets old.

5/5 - Dos Equis

Free sombrero day at Tony's!

bonus 5/04 -PBR!

5/4 - The Nhilist Imperial Brown

Paradox Brewing in Woodland Park.

5/3 - Ska Vernal Minthe Stout; Commute #30

Bike to work day.  Straight to work, and through Cheyenne Canon on the way home.  Getting stronger on that climb, but it's a long way to go until I can say I don't suck.

Decent beer today, last six pack they had over at Red Rock Liquor.  I'm not a huge fan of the peppermint thing and certainly couldn't do it everyday, but it's a great change of pace beer.

Headed up to Greenland tomorrow to work an aid station, then off to Crystola to see Chris Duarte.  Good luck to everyone running - Greenland, Collegiate Peaks, Nielsen, the Colorado Marathon, and my old PR course, the Pittsburgh Marathon!

5/2 - New Glarus Spotted Cow

Pretty hard to get here in Colorado.

Rocky Mountain Campout

I have been following this bloke for quite some time now. As a former National Geographic adventurer of the year, the dude has had some huge undertakings - I think he biked around the globe and hiked some ungodly long river in India and some other crazy trips that folks with a normal job couldn't accomplish.

But one day he switched his way of thinking and started doing what he called "microadventures." Stuff you could do from your front door, or in his words, "an adventure that is close to home, cheap, simple, short, and yet very effective." Another quote of his that stuck with me: "everyone worries about the 9 to 5, what about the 5 to 9?"

So I had been planning something on this level for some time, waiting for the weather to clear. I knew Marc P would be down, as he's all about doing stupid shit. At the last minute we also recruited recent 2:56 Boston marathoner and former 2nd place Wisconsin Dells Marathon finisher Josh J as well.

I packed as light as I could. My backpack and "stuff" weighed in at just over eleven pounds before adding four cans of beer, two cigars, and a lighter. No tent, just a sleeping pad and a sleeping bag rated down to 35F. 

Had planned to step off from the house at 6PM on Tuesday. Got a bit of a late start, so we had $100 give us a ride over to Hell's Kitchen. We ate our fill of pizza there so we would not have to lug food up the mountain. After supper, we hiked about 2.5 miles and 3,000 vert up the Incline to the summit of Rocky Mountain.

Quickly set up camp in the dark and then got around to serious business - drinking, smoking, and discussing how Marc and Josh were going to dominate Leadville this year by not training for it. Careful if you go up to Rocky anytime soon, we left a lot of bullshit on that peak.

Not a cloud in the sky when we retired for the night. I slept well. Until about 3AM, when the latest snow storm moved in. A combination drop in the temp and rain/snow mix woke me up, and in no time I was off the mountain and back at the house, enjoying a cup of coffee with the wife and the dog before getting to work.

All-in-all a great time and I'm sure I'll be doing more of this kind of stuff in the future. I do feel like I cheated a bit by mooching a ride, so next time I'll definitely either hike/bike/run or take the bus over to Manitou. Or maybe hitchhike, which is still done on the far west side of our village.

While I'm certainly not going to become anti-travel and stick to local races only, this was a pretty sweet way to spend a Tuesday night.

April

Another decent month in the books.

311 miles running.  59:24:18 and 58,365 feet of vert.  Horsetooth Marathon and Cheyenne Mtn 50k were both good efforts and I think I'm headed in the right direction to be ready this July.

32 miles of hiking, mostly with the dog.  8:50:36 and another 3,500 feet of up.  We do a lot of our hiking in Bear Creek Canyon which is in danger of being shut down by the forest service.  I think the 2014 fat ass is going to be a six hour timed event around the Holmes middle school track.

Getting back to the gym somewhat regularly, mostly due to the scare from shoveling snow a while back.

And, drumroll please, a whopping 72+ miles on the bike!  Mostly to and from work.  And that doesn't count the 6 miles I rode from the Town Pump in FoCo back to my buddy's house to pass out.

5/1 - Alaskan Brewing Smoked Porter

Now available at world famous Red Rock Liquor!

4/30 - Telluride Brewing Bridal Veil Rye Pale Ale

Drank one of these on top of Rocky Mountain late last night.  Good stuff.

Supposidly Zagbag is going to attempt the world famous Silverton Brewery to Telluride Brewing (via the Hardrock course) FKT this July.  Unfortunately, the Silverton Brewery won't be open when he gets there, so he's just going to chug a can of Lone Star in front of the old building.