still here

Good times up in Boulder over the weekend.  The IPA Fest was every bit as awesome as I hoped.  Also hit three new breweries while in town, and hit the ground about a dozen times trying to bike back to Timko's house.

Training is going.  Basically I run hard on Tuesday and Thursday with the Sunrise Striders, and I've been racing quite a bit on the weekends.  The other days I either don't run, or just goof off with the dog.  Also been spending a lot of time at the rock gym and the YMCA.

I'll be in Denver (City Park) this Saturday running the Pumpkin Pie 5 & 10K.  Races start at 9AM.  Any of yunz Denverites feel free to drop by to say hello.  Or just meet me at Sancho's around noon.

Would like to address the idea of "mainstream" for a bit.  It's a big word nowadays in the ultrarunning world, mostly used in the same sentence as "Leadville" and "Born To Run."  If you assume that every runner who started Leadville had an average of a four person crew, there were 4,000 people around the LT100 this past year.  That's a little higher than your average Tuesday night Colorado Springs Sky Sox game.  The Sky Sox are our minor league baseball team, FYI.  Not exactly mainstream.

During the last Olympics I remember there was a big scandal over badminton.  I wonder if the die-hard badminton players are complaining about how mainstream their sport is nowadays.  And I'd guess there are millions more Americans who have heard of badminton than ultrarunning.  Remember how badly everyone made fun of badminton over that debacle?  That's what everyone would be doing to ultrarunning right now, if anyone outside of the sport had ever heard of it.

Ultrarunning is nowhere near mainstream.  Is it on ESPN every day?  Are weekly rankings published in USA Today?  Maybe the Bolder Boulder here in Colorado could be considered mainstream.  Maybe the Rock and Roll Marathons (including the half, which gets big numbers) could be considered mainstream.  If you think there's a huge national audience since Born to Run sold 130,000 copies, you need to get a friend or two who doesn't care to run hundred milers and come back to the real world.

My thoughts on Leadville: I love the race, even though I don't do it anymore.  But I also love the Rock and Roll Marathons, and Leadville is definitely the RnR of the ultra world.  It is what it is.

My thoughts on Leadville being removed from run100s.com: it's like me saying I don't like people who drink beer.  Dude tried to sue Sir Nick over 80 bucks, now he's crying about Lifetime Fitness trying to make money.

Of course, Wooten threw down a stout time this year, and rumor has it Amanda might be signing up next year.  Maybe there's a little pull for me to get back out there.

Ran really well at the Rattlesnake Ramble at Eldorado Canyon State Park (even though I lost to the guy running backwards):

Did not run so well the next day (post-IPA fest) at the Canya Canon 7K, though I did rock the official Brooks shirt:

This is the last weekend before the Incline Club starts back up.  Think I'm going to finish the Fall Series on Sunday and take the week off.