ultra bum

I was an ultra bum for the Red Rock Canyon halloween run last night.  Won a beer mug for my efforts!  Not pictured are the 14 people on my crew, the 12 cars they needed to drive around the course, and the camera crew for the documentary film.

Canya Canon

The race is still on!  Rick H (the RD, so be sure to complain a lot) and I went out and ran the new course today.  Not quite as bad ass as the original course, but still a lot of fun.  Approx 4.8 miles with two good climbs.  Strava data is here, Garmin data is over here.  Starts and ends near the Starsmore Discovery Center at the base of Cheyenne Canon.  Come out and support one of the Springs' favorite playgrounds!

Post-race party is just down the street at Bristol Brewing.  Who knows, if you show up you might know someone who can get you some extra beer tickets.

Barr

Still getting out.  Hit the Incline/Rocky Mountain loop on Saturday before the Coffin Races.  Still my favorite view of Pikes:

Big change on Barr Trail, as the spur is now gated off.  Not sure what is going on with this or when it will be open.  Could really hurt my chances of going 1:59 in the Ascent this year if it stays.

Saw Neal and Teresa on Barr Trail.  Neal and I are both retired from Hardrock, but we entered the lottery just in case.

New store opening up down on Ruxton.

The rest of Saturday and Sunday and Monday were a wash due to the Coffin Races and a bunch of Texans having a very long layover that lead to a trip to Colfax Ave.

Gravel

Kept trying to do a decent write up of the Greenland Gravel Grinder, but Mike H beat me to it.  Read about the ride over here.  Had a blast and I'll be adding more of this kind of stuff to the future schedule.  Pretty sure I'm the second worst bike rider in the world.  Luckily Shad lives close enough to come down and hang out so I don't finish in last place.

Boston Billy

Been a bit under the weather lately.  Definitely messed up the Tuesday Sunrise Strider workout.  4 x 1000m with 200m RBI.  Started off with a 4:20 and worked down to a 4:02.  Significantly slower than a week before when I ran the same workout.  Ugh.

Felt decent tonight though.  8.5 miles on the Garden roads, 78 minutes.  Hot damn it's getting dark early nowadays.

Picked up the latest Running Times while I was taking a pre-run dump tonight and read the excerpt from the Bill Rodgers book.  Rodgers was one of my original running heroes.  On his diet: "I ate like a horse, consuming 4,000 calories a day.  I stepped up my ritual of raiding the refrigerator in the middle of the night, drinking bottles of honey, devouring boxes of Oreo cookies, scooping gobs of peanut butter or mayonaise from the jar and, for the grand finale, submerging them in a bottle of bacon bits."  He was running up to 180 miles a week to get ready for his first New York City marathon.  And he had a full time job while this was going on.

Can you imagine how this training regimen would go over today?  There have been so many "advances" in exercise science and nutrition but what is there to show from it all?  Hall and Ritz have some faster times but would anyone ever argue they are really better marathoners than Rodgers (or Shorter or Salazar or any of the top guys from that era).  Hall and Ritz have the ability and both have had blank checks, the leading experts in the field, and all the time in the world to train,  but they've never been anything but mediocre on the world stage.

I'll stop the rant, just something I was thinking about on my run tonight.  I'll go consult my coach now, the letsrun.com message boards, who have discovered the secrets to running faster: grow some balls and run more miles.

View from Coronado High cafeteria

I'm here to make sure none of the old farts try to take the bike lanes out of Pleasant Valley.

Fall Series II

Decent race over at Bear Creek Park this afternoon.  Ran smart, not overdoing it on the early steep hills, and was able to push pretty hard over the final two miles of the 4.5 mile race.  Took a bee sting around mile 3.5 in an incident that will go down in Fall Series history - seems one of the front runners kicked a beehive, forcing the rest of us slackers to run through a cloud of angry bees.  Good times!

Thanks to Tim at Pikes Peak Sports for the pics of the rope climb:

21:29

Peace Officer Memorial 5K at America the Beautiful Park.  Course was a bit long (3.4 miles) but even with that the time wasn't very impressive.  A few too many beers on Friday night I suppose.  Official excuse: I was saving the legs for the Fall Series race today.  

Opal Lake

On the way out of Pagosa we decided to take a nice hike out to Opal Lake.  Roughly three miles out-and-back, we definitely showed we're much more HFC than Justin and family.  Took about 90 minutes, which included a lot of goofing off and a beer or three.  Definitely worth the time and effort to do this if you're ever in the area.  The dog seems to LOVE lake hikes so we've been trying to knock a few out before winter gets here.

Tuesday

Starting to get back to some semblance of training again.  September was a nice rest and I only ran 90 miles the entire month.  Also biked 182 miles, most ever for me by far.

Running about 40 miles a week since the beginning of the month.  No more two-a-days.  And every run is either all out, like a race or Sunrise Strider workout, or a super easy jog/hike with the dog.  Really enjoying the change.  Going to try to hang out around 200 miles per month running and 250 per month biking for a few months, until I can figure out what's going to happen in 2014.

Also hitting the rock gym quite a bit, we'll see if that leads anywhere.

In completely unrelated news, Hines Ward, former WR for the Steelers, ran Kona Ironman in 13:08.

8.4 miles this morning with the Striders, including 4 x 8 minutes hard with 2 minutes RBI.

Tiger Classic

19:20 at the Tiger Classic 5K this morning.  Was hoping for something under 19 but it just didn't happen.  Ran as hard as I could and suffered pretty good over the last half of the race, so I guess I can't complain about the slow time.  Six flat, 6:13, 6:21 were the mile splits.

Lots of work to do before that Boulder XC race in February as I hope to go through 10K under 38 and then hold on.  Although I'm still thinking of fudging my age just to throw down against GZ in the short race.

Awesome shirts, you just don't get old school stuff like this anymore.  100% cotton and a logo drawn by a third grader, reminds me of the late 80s/early 90s when I got into this sport.

Also got a $25 gift card to Old Chicago's and two tickets to a CC hockey game.  Not too shabby for thirty bones.

hashtag

Big news out of the Valley yesterday was the hashtag #campcreek.  Carson pointed out that we have some competition.  Not sure where the Ubar is but I'd love to visit.  Or just go visit the ho's at the #redrocklounge.

Bike Pikes?

Going to try to pedal up the Peak highway this Sunday.  Looks like the weather might be decent.  Let me know if anyone is interested in joining in.  Official start will be at the bottom of the highway at 7:30.

Easy 6.4 miles on the Garden roads this morning.  63 minutes.

Found this pic of the two best dressed dudes at the mountain bike race last Saturday.

Hump Day

Got the dog over to Red Rock Canyon after work.  She loves it there, especially now that she can get water.  4.5 miles in 52 minutes.  Also rode the Surly around the Garden for half an hour.

Thinking of jumping into the Cripple Creek Mine-to-Mine challenge this Saturday.

PSA: Never leave anything valuable in your car when you park at RRC.  Dude next to me had his back window smashed in.  This happens quite often here.  If you have to park there, it's best to assume your car will be broken into so make sure there's nothing valuable to steal.

STRAVA!

New strava challenge starts October 17.  Red Rock Canyon loop.  Very scenic.  Starts October 17 and runs through the rest of 2012.

A group of us ran it yesterday.  Good times!  I'm currently in second place but once the PEDs kick in I should start crushing everyone else.

Epic Mountain Challenge

Despite getting my ass handed to me down in Pagosa over the weekend, I ended up having a blast.  Finished second to last place after the four races.  Was hoping to find a solid MOP crowd who were more interested in having fun than competing for money, but I'm pretty sure I was the only guy in town who didn't care about the 60 grand on the line.  Are mountain bikers always this serious, or should I not judge from this race?

Half Marathon - Ran 2:11.  As hard as I could go.  Probably equal to a 1:45 or so on a flat road course.  Died a bit over the last four or so miles, but even on a perfect day I couldn't have gone much under two hours given my current fitness.

Mountain Bike - My first bike race.  They shortened it to 20 miles, so at least I didn't get lapped.  Took me 2:15 to finish.  My bike training pretty much consists of riding to a bar, getting wasted, and riding home, so this high intensity racing stuff really caught me off guard.

10K - Super solid race.  43:45, each mile faster than the one before.  Passed quite a few folks over the final 5K.  Sounds like a slow time but it was a pretty slow course.  And I beat Abby Pomegranite's time.  This was the first time all weekend I wasn't the last place dude.

Time Trial - I knew these weren't my people when I was looked upon with disdain for having the audacity to carry a PBR on my bike for this 1.8 miles up a hill.  Took me 13:02.  Slow, but I was riding for the win.  And by win, I mean not finishing in last place.  Mission accomplished!

They could really get a good thing going with this event.  I hope to go back, but I'll be trying to talk some slower folks into going.  I just couldn't believe there were no other racers in the local brewery on Saturday night.  Like I was in the twilight zone or something.

Next bike event for me is the Greenland Gravel Grinder.  The thing ends at a brewery, so hopefully there will be some cyclists there who aren't afraid to have a beer after the ride.

dog

MTB

Finished my first mountain bike race!

Pagosa Brewing

Need to get drunk so I have the courage to do this mountain bike race.

HOPgoblin American IPA

Riff Raff Brewing Company, Pagosa. Good stuff!

Hump Day

Watched this a few times yesterday.  Great stuff.



Inspired by the video, today I did a little bit of everything.  Nice 45 minute hike with the dog this morning, followed by a quick bike ride to work.  Lunch was a pretty intense half hour of bouldering at CityRock.  70 minute hard ride home through Bear Creek Park, immediately followed by a great 45 minute run in Red Rock Canyon with $100 and the dog.

But it's not all health and fitness.  Right now I'm enjoying a growler I got on Sunday after some slave labor at the Bear Chase races.  Our Mutual Friend has some pretty solid brews.  OMF is actually the name of the brewery, not some inside joke on the guy we go to see to buy our PED's.  Try the Fresh Hop IPA, it's tasty.  I'd offer some of my growler to try but it's unfortunately empty now.

Also went to Epic Brewing.  HQ is in Salt Lake City, but they have a tap room in Denver now.  Meh.  Brings my total number of Colorado breweries visited up to 88 though.  Will get to 89 sometime this weekend in Pagosa.

Hope to hit a bunch of the Boulder breweries the weekend of November 9th.  I'll be in town for the Boulder IPA fest (believe it or not, I've never been to Avery) and I hope to hit a few other joints while I'm there.

I mentioned the Green Man Taproom & Beer Garden that will be coming to the Springs.  Here's the logo:

I sure hope they're in cahoots with the Green Man Brewery in Asheville, NC.  Mostly because I LOVED the beer there when $100 and I visited, but also because if they're not, they're probably going to get sued for copying the name and logo.

Word on the streets says this new pub is the work of Scott Simmons of the American Distance Project.

Fat Ass News

Looks like another Fat Ass course is off limits.  Read about it here.  Might have to just have a six hour run around the Manitou track.  Which would suck except that we could all watch Nick Pedophilia suffer and fail.  We need to gather all essential South CRUD personnel to drink some beers and figure out what to do next.

Here's a shot from the parking lot at Gold Camp and High Drive, near Bear Creek Park:

The dog is super bummed about this, as Bear Creek Canyon is one of our go-to hikes in the summer due to the water crossings.  About three quarters of a mile up the dirt road from this sign is where the Section 16 loop drops off.  If you've run the Fat Ass you've been on this road.

And here's the scene on Gold Camp, heading towards Cap't Jacks:

Cheyenne Canon is effectively cut off now.  Sad day here since we went there several times a week for either biking, hiking, or running.  They keep shutting down trails here and I'm gonna have to talk to $100 about moving back to Pittsburgh.

Two good workouts today.  Nine mile run with the Sunrise Striders this morning, 10 mile bike after work.  Need to get back to work since I've been talking mad shit about the upcoming Fall Series.  I'm out of town for the first race of the series but I should be in decent shape by the time race #2 rolls around.