Took a week off to get fat and lazy. Included a night outside up on Red Mountain and lots of drinking, including Fossil, Murphy's, and Robin Hood on x-mas night. The planned van trip to New Mexico never happened as there were crazy high wind warnings all over the state.
run - 2.5 miles in 27 minutes
ride - 36.5 miles in 3.5 hours
hike - 24 miles in nine hours
On Tuesday after work my buddy Bruce and I jumped on a bus and headed over to Manitou. Dropped by the Royal and Manitou Brewing, and then it was off on a hike up Red Mountain. Beautiful evening, you wouldn't have known it was the first night of winter.
Early Wednesday morning we woke up and headed back down to town, jumping on some PikeRide bikes to head home, then to the office. Another solstice campout in the books.
On Thursday I hit 90 bike commutes on the year, and passed over the 2600 miles goal I set for the year. Almost all of these were either commutes to work or short rides over in Red Rock Canyon. I think I only did one ride of 50 miles the entire year, and not even that many rides over 25 miles.
We are taking the van down south to New Mexico over the x-mas break. Hope everyone has a good long weekend.
Mon - not moving very well on Monday, but eventually I got my ass out for a 30 minute run around the neighborhood. Uneventful except for passing over 1600 miles on the year, which was the arbitrary number I picked for a yearly goal almost 365 days ago.
Tues - bike commute 88 and Cityrock 97. Hope to make it to the climbing gym 100 times, but it's gonna be close as I have a lot of days off between now and January 1. As for the bike, I should hit my '21 goal of 2600 miles on Wednesday or Thursday.
Limping to the very end with these mileage goals, but a finish is a finish.
Tues - bike commute 86. Ten there, eleven back.
Wed - run commute 64. 4.2 there through wind and rain and snow. The wind really picked up soon after I got to the office. Trees breaking, trucks overturning kind of stuff. Just walking across the street to CityRock was difficult. Early afternoon the power kicked out at the office, so I jumped on a bus and headed home. Quite a few of the red lights were out. Lots of trees down. Our power went down around 2PM and didn't come back on until 7PM. Our house was pretty unscathed as we've already paid our falling tree dues, unfortunately the same can't be said for some of our neighbors. We are missing a ten foot section of our gutter, I've walked all around the neighborhood and can't find it. On a sad note, I've seen a bunch of dogs running around, obviously escaped. I hope they all make it back home safely. Hollydog pretty much napped through the whole thing. Around 4PM the wind just abruptly stopped and the weather got nice. Finished up my last HAMS classroom session, the outdoor stuff starts early January.
Thurs - easy hour run in Red Rock Canyon, 5.7 miles. Lots of guitar today.
Incredible weather for mid December so I got out for a good ride on Sunday. 34 miles on the Santa Fe trail in just under three hours. That trail south of Tejon is currently fairly sketchy - lots of meth'd out homeless peeps and off leash mean dogs.
For the week:
run - 31 miles in ten hours
ride - 74 miles in seven hours
hike - 21 miles in eight hours
Good track workout on Monday morning. 8 x 400m with 200m RBI.
Thurs - run commute 63. The quick 3.5 mile route both ways. CityRock 95 at lunch. Good guitar session in the evening before watching the Steelers get crushed.
Fri - bike commute 85. Straight there and back. CityRock 96 at lunch.
Sat - headed down south to Fountain for the annual Jingle Jog 5k. Ran 19:13, which would be fantastic for me but the course was 0.1 miles short. Solid effort in the very chilly conditions, so I'll take it. Would have been nice to get another sub 20 though.
Mon - a bit sore from the half and it was cold AF out, so just an easy four miler on the Garden trails. Later in the evening I headed over to Manitou for a hike up Red Mountain.
Tues - bike commute 84 and CityRock 94.
Wed - bailed on work and got in my seventh consecutive monthly 14er with a hike up Pikes via Crags. That route is usually closed down by this time as they shut down the dirt road to the parking lot once the snow starts falling, but it's still open. It was bitter cold - 18F when I started, and the high for the summit was 20F with sustained 20mph winds. But with no snow or ice to worry about, I feel like I got away with an easy December summit. I bet next month is more difficult. Just over 14 miles on the day.
Might have had one too many brews on Saturday - met up with the Kimchi hash at Murphy's in the afternoon, then watched Pitt win their first ever ACC championship that evening. So I wasn't expecing much at the Rock Canyon half down in Pueblo, and that's exactly what I got.
Stayed under eight minutes per mile for the first eleven miles, and then a bad experiment with some new shoes caught up with me. The pace didn't get to me but my feet were hurting like hell. Not sure why that caused me to slow down, I knew that taking longer out there would only make the problem worse, but that's what the day gave me. Finished in 1:42:16. I think I could definitely still go considerably under 1:40, but I fear my days of sub 90 are long gone.
For the week:
run - 36 miles in 5.5 hours
ride - 57 miles in six hours
hike - 22.6 miles in 8.5 hours
Mon - bike commute 81, both directions of the COVID loop. CityRock 89 at lunch.
Tues - run commute 61. Five miles there in 45 minutes, four back in 40 flat. CityRock 90 at lunch.
Wed - bike commute 82. Through Sondermann on the way there, straight back home late at night after the latest HAMS class. CityRock 91.
Thurs - run commute 62. 5.2 miles in 51 flat through Sondermann, then four miles back home via the Midland Trail. Worked on "Folsom Prison Blues" at my guitar lesson then picked $100 up from Red Leg Brewing.
Fri - bike commute 83. Six miles there and eleven back home. A good bouldering session at lunch.
Sat - Nielsen Challenge. Two miles in 12:51.
November is always one of my laziest months. The holidays, college hoops kicking up, college football winding down, the lack of daylight. But not a total disaster, I got a sub 20 at the Turkey Trot, another Pikes summit, and a ton of dog hikes. And I escaped a potentially disastrous back injury.
run - 19 runs, 103 miles, 22.5 hours
ride - 37 rides, 247 miles, 24.5 hours
hike - 32 hikes, 92 miles, 37 hours
Incline Club started on Sunday, and that's generally when I start ramping things up again.
Fri - up early for a bike ride with my brother in Red Rock Canyon. So early we finished at Fossil at 9AM to enjoy $3 Mammoth IPA. Then hit OCC Brewing and Smiling Toad before returning to the house to prepare for our annual wine & cheese party. Good day.
Sat - obviously hungover but I did get out for a 13 mile ride on the COVID loop. Watched a lot of college football today, including Pitt getting their first ten win regular season in 40 years.
Sun - won the Mr. Colorado award today. Took my rescue dog to the dog park, joined the Incline Club for a ten miler on Barr Trail, drove our Subaru Outback to hot yoga, and rode my rigid singlespeed on the Red Rock Canyon trails, ending at a local craft brewery.
For the week:
run - 21 miles in four hours
ride - 63 miles in seven hours
hike - 18.5 miles in eight hours
Not too terrible a week given the drinksgiving holiday and the time lost recovering from the booster shot.
Mon - my track partner cancelled on me, and I kept it easy. 8 x 200m. Incline in the evening, still enjoying warm weather.
Tues - we are now into the holiday season as my brother and his dog arrived for a visit from Pittsburgh. So as it is every year, the running and riding will be sporadic the next week. Fossil Brewing for a bunch of evening beers.
Wed - got my booster shot on Tuesday morning, and while I was fine on Tuesday I woke up on Wednesday feeling like garbage. Called in sick to work and slept in until noon. Took a few naps, and was back in bed by 9PM. Oof.
Thurs - annual Turkey Trot way over on the east side. I felt good, booster sickness a thing of the past and it may have helped me by keeping me out of the pub until late. Good race for me, the effort was definitely there, and I finished in 19:18. Splits were 6:40, 6:28, and 5:54 (course was out and back, uphill the first half then a screaming downhill back). 41st out of 2329 finishers, which sounds good but over 2100 of those were dressed as turkeys while walking their dogs.
Monday - AM track, 2 x 1 mile with 600 RBI. 6:35, 6:29. Not my best day ever. Monday evening was a bike/hike up the incline from the house.
Tues - bike commute 79. Ten there and eleven back. CityRock 87 at lunch. Pitt hoops got their first win of the season. Probably won't be too many of those this year.
Wed - quick five miler to work in the cold. Middle miles in 7:31, 7:10, and 7:39. Good bouldering session at lunch. Third (out of five) HAMS lecture in the evening.
Thurs - 14F when I got up. The house was cold too, because the heater died sometime over the night. Good times. Luckily that was an easy fix. Thursday evening I headed over to the Black Sheep to see the Red Not Chili Peppers. Lots of fun there.
Took the week off to let the back heal up. It's close to 100% now.
HAMS has started and it's been fun. Looking at a June/July summit attempt of Rainier.
$100 and I signed up for one of the classics - Bay to Breakers. I will be doing the pub crawl version.
Went up to Fort Collins and saw Lotus. Great show. Gig was at Washington's, and I still need to make a trip to the Aggie.
Then caught Ana Popovic at Stargazers on Saturday night. Phenomenal guitar player.
Monday was a good day. Dog hike with the pack and track in the AM. Good garage gym session over lunch. Incline in the evening. Only one beer at Manitou Brewing and early to bed. Rainier training off to a good start.
Then on Tuesday morning, as I was about to jump on my bike to head to work, I sneezed. And my lower back exploded.
So I'm dealing with that right now. Not too painful, but super stiff. No running, including bailing on the Creepy Crawl 5k this morning. Hopefully by Monday I'll be back to normal.
Nice week of not doing much, topped off by the brewery marathon on Saturday which turned into quite a shitshow. In case that wasn't a reason to drink enough beer, Pitt crushed Clemson on Saturday as well.
Went up to the track today. 4 x 800m, 4 x 200m. 3:16, 3:10, 3:09, 3:06. Untimed on the 200s but I guess they were in the 43 second range. Have a few 5k's and the Rock Canyon half before the year ends, so I'll be halfway training for those.
Easy week as I was pretty beat up from all the slow marathoning. Will start getting back into a routine on Monday.
I was able to get up to watch my cadet nail her first jump on Wednesday.
Big game for Pitt on Saturday. Not often that we have a legit chance to beat Clemson.
Holly is 13 years young today. Eleven of those with us. Her friends are all dropping by to say happy birthday.
Apparently I am unable to run a halfway decent road marathon anymore.
Started off at eight minute mile pace, and then it was the same story as Chicago. Made it to just past halfway before the legs just gave out. I guess I'm old enough now that I can either do well running up a hill, or do well running on a flat road, but not both.
4:13:58 officially. Was at mile 25ish when I passed by new (to me) Reverence Brewing. Big sign out front said they were open early for the marathon. So I went in. And they were playing Widespread Panic, so I ended up having two pints there. So I probably would have broke four without that, but there's really no difference between 3:59 and 4:13 for me.
Bunch of quality bars after the race. Back to Reverence, the Satellite Lounge, Nob Hill, 1UP, Sancho's, and Kinga's. Physically, the race wrecked my back and hamstrings, but at least the booze took away the pain.
Did the 5k on Sunday in City Park with Kircher's dog.
Big two months of racing for me and I'm glad it's over. Have our local 5k race series coming up, but that's nothing I'll be taking seriously. For the near future it will be all about training to get my ass up Rainier.
Good trip if you don't count the second half of the marathon!
Went out at a good pace, 1:38 at the half, and just couldn't hold it. Struggled and slowed significantly after mile 14. Stopped twice for beer and even had some ten minute miles in there. Crossed the line in 3:39. Oof. Hot and humid, everyone outside of Galen Rupp seemed to run slower than planned. Still a piss poor race for me though.
$100 actually ran pretty well, staying on sub five hour pace for 22+ miles before imploding. Still crushed her goal of sub 5:30 though.
The rest of the trip was a blast. Explored Chicago, hiked a bunch of miles on the lakefront and 606 trails, drank a ton of Malort, saw Wrigley Field. Good times.
We leave ass early on Saturday for the windy city and return Tuesday late afternoon. The 'thon is Sunday morning and then it's just Old Style, hot dogs, and pizza for the rest of the weekend.
I haven't done any road marathon training, though the endurance is there and sea level should be a huge boost for me. Gonna head out with the 3:20 group and see what happens.
I'm a big fan of any transportation that doesn't involve a car, so I was petty excited when the dog and I turned a corner on our morning walk and saw a bunch of scooters ready to go.
Still ran to work, but took a scooter home. Topped out at just over 14mph, and had to work real hard up some of the hills, but it was fun. 19 minutes and a cost of $8.41, left the scooter on the curb in front of my house.
Not cost effective to do trips this long, PikeRide will fill that void, but I'm looking forward to some downtown pub crawling with one of these.
Still plodding along.
On Saturday I ran over to do the two mile Nielsen challenge. Ran 13:13, and with the to and from I ended up getting in twelve miles. Later that day $100 and I went to our first Switchbacks game. The plan was not to drink much as I had planned to hit a 14er on Sunday. But we took PikeRide downtown, ended up stopping at Mash Mechanix and Pikes Peak Brewing. Then on the way home it turned into quite a shitshow with visits to Benny's, Front Range, and Nova West. Nova West may have included some Mad Dog.
2023 will mark ten years at my job, and I've recently told my boss I plan to take some time off.
Finally getting back into the swing of things after a month of travel.
My beloved iPhone 7 shit the bed at Telluride, so I lost a lot of pics from the road trip and the festival.
Blues and brews was fantastic as usual. If you've never listened to Larkin Poe, do yourself a favor and check them out.
Got up Pikes this weekend to keep the 14er streak alive. Tried to do it from Devil's Playground onSaturday with Millie as we were dogsitting. But she struggled with the scrambling near the summit so we had to turn around. I went back out on Sunday and did the route from the Crags parking lot.
The theme on Pikes this weekend was washed up has beens. Besides me, I also ran into Nick Clark and BStap on the hill. Hadn't seen either of those two in a long time but I can confirm they are alive and well.
Hit the track this morning for a 5k solo time trial. 19:19, splitting 6:15, 6:08, and 6:09. That last mile hurt a bit.
Another excellent van trip in the books.
Rut weekend, all three races, went really well and I got my 23rd state marathon under my belt. All are really difficult races. The 50k took me a few seconds under nine hours to finish.
After that it was lots of hiking and breweries. Not a whole lot of looking at mountains thanks to all the smoke. So yeah I went to the Grand Tetons and Wind River range and couldn't even see 'em.
I'll try to get pics and a better report of the race up. Right now I'm preparing for a long weekend down at Telluride Blues and Brews. Liver is going to need some rehab after September.
The van is packed and we're off to Montana. Don't even have the full route picked out yet, but we'll figure something out. I might get a few pics up here but for the most part this blog will go dark for a few weeks.
First, as always, my other ride is your mom!
I had been lusting over one of these bikes for years from following various bikepacking blogs and websites. But the somewhat affordable ones had been sold out forever. But while on our way to the Flyathlon, I got an e-mail, conveniently right before we hit Soulcraft Brewing, that the bikes were back in stock. Ordered an x-ray IPA and then ordered a new bike.
Two weeks later this arrived:
Can't go on vacation without mentioning how awesome it was seeing Gov't Mule and Trombone Shorty at the Dillon Amphitheater. Both bands were outstanding and I really liked the venue.
Pikes left me a bit more beat up than normal. Had trouble walking until Tuesday, and was still a bit sore on Thursday. So it was a lot of riding this week and not a lot of running.
Saw Chris Duarte last night at Stargazers. Tonight and Saturday it's the Trombone Shorty/Gov't Mule show at the Dillon Amphitheater, my first show there. Might visit a brewery or two as well.
Wanna feel old? Pearl Jam's Ten was released 30 years ago today.
3:32:11 for the Ascent on Saturday.
5:49:32 for the round trip on Sunday, with a 3:38:34 up.
About what I expected. Pushed hard, happy with the effort, would have liked a sub 3:30 on either day but it just wasn't to be. With a bit better weather on Saturday it might have happened, but we'll never know.
I think of myself as a climber, but on Sunday I had the 150th best ascent, and I ran pretty hard. My downhill, which I purposely didn't go all out, was the 57th fastest (2:10:58).
Got a rare win over Gerald. He was a good sport about it.
Really great seeing so many awesome people out there. Let's do it again next year!
Success!
Took the van down Friday evening to the lower lot of the South Colony Lakes trail. Got to watch a pretty impressive storm roll by.
I am very much a creature of habit and routine, and that has been thrown aside this week as we've been watching Moose and Millie. Love those pups, but my week has been mostly dog walking and drinking and eating like shit. Maybe a good thing, as I was physically crushed after BTMR and the down week may have kept me from hurting myself.
The Red Leg Forge Road location had it's final last call on Wednesday. A lot of good times at that place, but they are moving into a much larger facility that's two miles closer to my house.
The Colorado Mountain Club opened rego for High Altitude Mountaineering School and I think I was the first to sign up. Super psyched and it looks like I'll be making an attempt at Rainier in '22.
We are off to the San Luis Valley this weekend so $100 can run the Flyathlon. Should be a blast. I'm looking at riding the Monarch Crest on Sunday if the weather is good.
I've been chatting with a friend about the 5k lately. Her PR is just over 20 minutes, and she's still in a position to go under that number. And while acting like I'm Mr. Sub-20, I realized it's been a few years since I broke that barrier.
So on Friday I jogged up to the Holmes track to see what I could do. And I did it. Mile one was 6:18, mile two was 6:14. and I closed in 6:11. Ended up with 3.1 miles in 19:34. Had to push a bit harder than I would have liked for that time, but at least I'm still a sub 20 guy.
On Sunday was the Barr Trail Mountain Race. Good day for me, even though my descent wasn't the best. Up to Barr Camp in under 90 minutes, then back down to finish the 12.4 mile course in 2:21:49.
$100 ran well too. We had a few Red Leg brews at the finish line, then went down to Manitou Brewing for more beer and grub.
Finally got my cadet up Pikes. Her first time, my 28th (at least). Not a whole lot of time, so we drove up the highway and started at Devil's Playground.
