beers 117, 118, & 119

Way behind.  Damn binge drinking.

117 came on Sunday at the Taste of OCC.  Tivoli Brewing is a newcomer to the Denver scene.  Alex thinks it's some kind of Coors acquisition.

118 was the Citra IPA from Nano 108.  Work had me on the east side so I dropped by the brewery.  Love the place, though I'll never get there due to it's shitty location.

Friend from Austin was in town Tuesday so we hit Front Range for some grub and suds.  Went with the Texas theme, Bishop's Barrel No. 6 from Saint Arnold Brewing, Houston's oldest microbrewery.

beer #116

Bristol Imperial IPA.  Dropped by the brewery after the Cheyenne Mountain 50K.

beer #115

Four Seasons White IPA from Lofty Brewing here in the Springs.  No physical tasting room but they brew and sell their beers to local bars and restaurants.  Not half bad.  Had this at The Wild Goose.  CS Craft Week is destroying my liver.

beer #114

Easy 40 minutes with the dog on Thursday morning.  Then a late day at work.  Did get off just in time to go catch a local showing of Rising From Ashes though.  Pretty good flick.  Nothing like seeing a guy with no legs and no arms who can ride faster than me to pump up the motivation to work harder for Leadman.

Gary H was there in his traffic cone orange Boston coat, the first Beantown schwag I've seen since the masses returned from the marathon.

Kicked off Colorado Springs Craft Week at Bristol last night, including the new release of Maibock.  Good stuff, though I still prefer the Laughing Lab.

Dropped by Alchemy in Old Colorado City on the way home and found this dude.  Nice purse, Brooks!

beer #113

Not sure if I'm late or early.  Merry Christmas.

Nice five miler this morning in Red Rock Canyon.  Then hopped on the Surly to get to work.  CityRock at lunch.  Hour long ride home after work, then an hour hike with the dog back at Red Rock Canyon.

Assuming Rob can finish before they close at 11PM, we'll probably hit Bristol for a few beers after the Cheyenne Mountain 50K this Saturday.  If you're running the race feel free to join us.

Colorado Springs Craft Week starts on Thursday.  I'll be trying some weird beers that are being put together for the festivities.  However, there's been a lot of hoity toity beers lately.  Might have to bring things down a notch soon.  If anyone is in Fort Collins on May 4th and wants to help start the downward trend, get in touch with me.

sign

Best Boston sign I've been able to find so far.  Would definitely motivate me to pick up the pace.

beer #112

Winter Skal from Capital Brewery in Middleton, Wisconsin.  Good brewery, but this ain't their best stuff.

Rest day on Monday, busy with work.  Got out for a half hour run with the dog on Tuesday morning, followed by a ride to work.  Easy two hour ride after work.

Hit the hash last night, my first time in a while.  Good to see everyone.  Ended the night at one of the best bars in the Springs.

beer #111

Meb FTW!

beer #110

Red Head Saison from Red Leg Brewing.  Not a big saison fan, I feel like a huge wus even saying the word, but this wasn't bad.

Decent run today.  Plan was to head up Longs Ranch with the Incline Club.  At the bottom of Barr Trail I saw some friends and they asked if I wanted a brew.  Figured they'd toss me a warm PBR but they pulled out a pounder of Deviant Dales IPA.  Boom.  Pro tip: drinking beer makes you feel better.  I added on Incline #23 onto the day.  4.5 hours out running around the mountain, happy easter to that.

New sign on the Incline.  Wonder if the Friends of the Incline took a break from sending out 6000 e-mails a day asking for money to install this:

Beat down pretty well after the week.  13.5 hours of running and 7.5 hours of biking.  Take a few days to recover and I'll be back at it before the weekend jaunt around Cheyenne Mountain State Park on Saturday.

beer #109

Footburner IPA from Shamrock Brewing in downtown Pueblo.  My last stop in what was an eventful day visiting the armpit of Colorado.

First up was the Spank Blasing 10K.  Almost bailed on this just to get a longer ride in but I'm glad I went.  Was hoping for a sub 40, but the course was a bit harder than I expcted.  Big hill from mile one to two and again from about 3.7 to 5 slowed my pace enough and I ended up in 40:13.  Gave it everything I could, though, both in the race and in trying to bribe Simon and/or Luke in listing me at 39:59.  Pretty excited about the effort, which was hard from the get go.  Not long ago at the winter series I'd bust out the first mile in 7:30, then decide things were mildly uncomfortable and back way off.  I let myself get pretty out of shape over the winter but it seems things are finally starting to come back around.

Quite a few guys from the front range made the trip down, good to see everyone.  Even got to hang with the most electrifying man in masters running:

After a few beers it was over to Lake Pueblo State Park for some riding.  Love the trails there.  I was beat from the 10K but I hammered the bike pretty hard, averaging over 10 mph for a 32 miler.  It was 86F when I finished the ride around 3PM.  Even with the great weather I didn't see very many folks out there.  If you live and ride on the front range, taking a trip to this state park is definitely worth it.

Worth it even more since you get to hit up Bingo Burger on the way home.

Notice there are actually some vegetables on the burger.  Upping the seriousness of  Leadman training by improving my diet.

Great race, awesome ride, lots of beers.  What more could anyone ask for from a Pueblo trip?  Oh, maybe a mascot pic?  How's about two of them, bitches!

beer #108

My second favorite beer from Moab Brewing.  Johnny's IPA is the first.

beer #107

Manitou Brewing seems to have a new Green Flash beer on tap every time I go, which is fine with me.  Thursday night was the Palate Wrecker IPA.  Not my favorite GF beer, but even the bad beer from those guys is pretty good.

Thurs AM was an easy dog jog through Red Rock Canyon.

Thurs PM was the Incline Club workout, 10 x 1 minute hard with one minute RBI followed by my 21st trip of the year up the Incline.  Solid two hours of work.

Thinking of jumping into the Spank Blasing 10K down in Pueblo before my ride at the state park on Saturday.  Definitely going to earn some Bingo Burger that day.

beer #106

Good stuff from the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company.  $100 and I visited the brewery last time we were in Wisconsin.

Nice hour run this morning with the dog, followed by biking to work.  Got soaked to the bone on the bike home so I spend the rest of the evening drinking beer.

I hope he sends a post card when he gets there!

I gave this guy $1 so he let me take a picture of his sign.

Yes, I'm aware my money will more than likely go towards the "get medicated" part.

beer #105

Finally a decent workout day.  Easy hour in Red Rock Canyon with the dog this morning.  Rode the Salsa to work.  Good half hour at the Y over lunch.  And a 2:30 ride home which included Cheyenne Canon, High Drive, the Chutes, Stratton, Bear Creek, White Acres, Red Rock Canyon, and the Garden.

And then, of course, I drank some beer.  Been heavy on the Dry Dock lately.  I had visited that brewery once in the past four years, then life took me there twice in the past two weeks.  Tonight was a bottle of the Vanilla Porter, dedicated to the South Korean boat that is currently sinking.

I think you get kicked off the internet today if you don't post something Dave Grohl related.  This is definitely far and away his best non-Nirvana work.

beer #104

From Empyrean Brewing Company in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Some mighty fine background music for those times when you're drinking beer made in Nebraska:

Pulitzer

South CRUD dude, former San Juan Solstice champ, and all around nice guy Dave Philipps won a damn Pulitzer prize yesterday.  Sure wish the local military folks wouldn't give him so much to write about but it's great Dave got that kind of recognition.  Read about it here.

Years and years ago I first met Dave at the Miner's Tavern in Silverton before my first Hardrock.  He was following myself and Neil Taylor for the local rag.  See that article here.  Can't believe I used to eat bacon cheeseburgers and drink beer, so much has changed since that article was written.

beer #103

14er Java Stout from Eddyline.  Good stuff, though maybe not quite up there with Coffee Bender or the Java Stout from Santa Fe.

30 minute run this evening.  Hangover and shitty weather didn't help the motivation to get out there.

beer #102

One of my favorite non-Colorado breweries for sure.

Ran the PPRR Tortoise and Hare 5K this morning.  How messed up is it that Simon G, who GZ doesn't think belongs in the hall of fame, got a six second head start on me?  Needless to say, I didn't catch him.  But I had a goal of going sub 20, and I ran 19:05, so not too bad a race for me.  Thanks to Tim at Pikes Peak Sports for the pic:

After the run I headed over to Cheyenne Mountain State Park on the bike.  A bit technical for me, but it gets me out of my comfort zone so I'm sure I'll go back.  20 miles, three hours.  Here's my bike by the infamous "Paper Beats Rock" tree:

As I was out crushin' me some KOM's, I turned a corner and almost hit a turkey.  That could have been ugly.  A bit later I saw some deer in the trail.  I yelled, "strava, STRAVA, STRAAAAAAAVA!!!" but they just looked at me like, "Dude, we don't use the internet, we don't even know what strava is."  Damn wildlife, always getting in the way of KOMs.

beers 99, 100, & 101

Still here.  Nothing on the workout front this week due to work and booze.  Probably a good thing, I was pretty wrecked after last weekend.  Hope to get back at it this weekend with a long ride on Saturday and a long run on Sunday.

Signed up for the Cheyenne Mountain 50K.  Also on the waitlist for the Oil Creek 100K.  Even debating on jumping into RnR Denver since you can get in this Sunday for $86.

99.  Raging Bitch IPA from Flying Dog.  Had this at Green Man with Fast Eddy, who was in town for his movie showing.

100.  Up in Denver for the Hops For Heroes fundraiser.  Loves me some Hop Abomination from Dry Dock.  Let's just say Friday wasn't my the most productive day at work for me.

101.  Small Batch 471 from Breckenridge.

beers 97 & 98

97.  Was way out near Kansas for work so I dropped by Nano 108 for their Hop Elixir Double IPA.  Sure wish those guys weren't so far out east.

Legs are a hot mess from the weekend activities.  Christ I'm getting old.  Nothing on Monday.  30 minute run/hike with the dog on Tuesday morning, followed by a quick bike to work.  After work I met Josh at Bristol and we headed out for a two hour ride in Cheyenne Canon and Stratton Open Space.  Arrived a bit early at Bristol and had a Compass IPA.

beer #96

On Sunday after the Platte River Half we dropped by the Old Mill Brewery in Littleton.  It blows my mind how some of these places can stay in business, as this beer was pretty awful.

Platte River Half was a good test for me and I think it went pretty well.  1:29:06 officially.  Tried to remember the last time I ran a sub seven minute mile, and I think it was back in late December at the Pueblo Bird five miler when I threw down a 34 flat.  The good news is that if I use the calculator that GZ uses to predict fitness, I could drop a 3:44 mile and a 2:05 marathon.  Watch your back, Bekele!

beer #95

Incline #20 with the dog on Saturday morning, then it was up to Pikes Peak Brewing for the AntiEpic Gravel Grinder.  Got there early enough to enjoy a Switchback Coffee Porter, yum yum.

Had a fantastic ride.  52 miles in just under five hours.  As usual, I was nothing but business out there on the ride:

As an added bonus I got to drop by the South Forty Saloon in the megapolis of Elbert.  So awesome to find a bar in the middle of nowhere.

I am getting better on the bike, as evidenced by the lack of any Mike H picture of me pushing my bike up a hill!

beer #94

It's a liquid poem to the glory of the hop!  Says so right on the bottle!

Incline #19 with the dog.

beer #93

MBC IPA from Manitou Brewing.  Now that the weather is getting better, I see a lot of this brew in my future post-Incline.

Incline #18 with the Incline Club Thursday workout.  My first victory over Amanda in about ten years.

beer #92

Another active day.  Five mile run this morning, half hour at the Y over lunch, 30 minutes total on the bike to and from work, and four miles in Red Rock Canyon with the dog after work.

beer #91

I'm more and more impressed with Bull & Bush with every beer of theirs I drink.  Due to the level of schwag they had at Telluride a few years ago I just assumed they were a chain brewery, a la BJ's or Rock Bottom.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Nice first day of April.  Good hour run on the Garden roads this morning followed by the ride to work.  After work I met up with Andy for 90 minutes through Bear Creek Park and Red Rock Canyon.  Here's a video I shot of our descent into Red Rock Canyon.