Cracker came through town last night and put on one helluva show. Had the fiddle player along so we heard quite a bit of the old Camper Van Beethoven stuff as well.
Low week on the exercise front, been busy with SAR stuff, mostly helping out with Rescue Run stuff. Over 1000 runners signed up so far.
Busy SAR weekend. Saturday afternoon the pager started buzzing with reports of an injured hiker high on Pikes. Around 5PM the team got the call out. Drove up to the summit and started heading down to find a deaf climber and his dog. The Barr Camp caretaker was also dispatched to help search, and he ended up finding the guy above A Frame and pretty far off Barr Trail. We met up with them near A Frame and began the slog down the hill. Luckily the climber was not seriously injured and he was able to hike on his own, but he was exhausted so it was slow going. 4.5 hours from the summit to Barr Camp. Then another 80 minutes to get down to Bob's Road, where we had a vehicle waiting. My pack weighed about 60 pounds and needless to say when I finally got home just after 5AM I was worked. The climber and his dog are both OK.
My buddy Josh took this pic, I'm the guy in front.
Not long after I got home we got a request to help Teller County SAR with an injured snowboarder on Little Italy, sort of close to Glen Cove on the Pikes Peak Highway. I was in no shape to respond to that but luckily we got a good number of folks to help out. Seems the snowboarder fucked himself up pretty good, quite a few broken bones.
Later on Sunday the call went out for a lost hiker up on the Academy. Again, I was in no shape to pull a second all nighter, so I had to pass. The team located the hiker, but it was awful terrain and they were unable to reach the guy in the dark. We had contact via phone with the hiker, and he settled in until first light. Getting myself a good night of sleep, I was on the team that went in to get the guy early Monday morning. He is fine and he promised he would work on his navigation skills.
This was the first weekend of winter. The weather was quite mild, especially up high on Pikes. Had it been colder, things could have been much worse for both rescues I was involved in.
On top of all that I passed my General class HAM exam, got in a 7.5 miler on the Garden trails just before I started hearing about the Pikes mission, and we are dogsitting an 18 month old lab. Good times.
Low mileage week, though that was due more to recovery from Rocket City than the SAR excuses.
run - 20 miles, 4.5 hours
ride - 19 miles, two hours
hike - 27 miles, 15 hours
I was hurting the last five or so miles at Huntsville and worked hard to hold it all together, and I can tell. Can still feel some soreness as I type this on Friday. Couple of dog hikes, couple of dog jogs, and a few bike commutes this week.
Couple 'o pics from the 'thon:
Decent trip down to Huntsville, AL, to get in my 28th state marathon. Rainy weekend, including the entire time I was running the marathon on Sunday.
Jogged the 10k and 5k on Saturday, then the 'thon on Sunday. Not sure why I was expecting a bigger event, but the whole thing was pretty low key. Good race for me, I finished in 3:37:45. Solid second half too, at 13.1 I was running slightly behind the 3:40 pace group and was in 325th place. Ended up in 224th place about two minutes ahead of that pace group. 1462 finishers. Fastest miles of the race were all after mile 21. Completely different than my run in Detroit. Hoping for a sub 3:30 at Eugene and I'm definitely trending in that direction.
Drank some mediocre beers while trying to stay dry the rest of the trip.
Busy SAR week with a lot of training and the Parade of Lights on Saturday.
I put in for Pittsburgh. I'll find out this week if we're going.
For the week:
run - 41 miles, 7.5 hours
ride - 29 miles, three hours
hike - 24.6 miles, 10.5 hours
Decent week despite a bit too much alcohol over the holiday. On Sunday I made it over to the first Incline Club run of the season for a good ten miler which included the incline.
run - 41 miles, just shy of nine hours
hike - 25 miles, eleven hours
bike - zilch; any riding is basically non-existent at the moment
Another year, another turkey trot. Keep getting slower and slower. Finished in 21:39. I present the following list of excuses:
-it was very cold, which made breathing difficult
-it's a terrible course that makes correct pacing difficult
-I was wearing an incorrect version of the latest supershoes
In reality I am getting older and I never race 5k's anymore, so this is about what I should expect. If I want to reach my goal of a sub 20 after I turn 50 I have some work to do. Which I probably won't do as most of my goals for the upcoming year involve longer distances.
Decent week, got my ass outside quite a bit.
Mon - wanted to hit the track but conditions sucked. AM five miler in the Garden, PM four miler in the Garden.
Tues - bike commute 83. Straight there and straight back. Iron 45 with Mookie in the evening.
Wed - run commute 66. Six there, four back. CityRock 116 for lunch.
Thurs - run commute 67. Five there, four back.
Fri - Iron 46 with Mook and $100, then bike commute 84.
Sat - hung out with the SAR dogs in the morning, then picked up our Cadet and introduced him to the Incline. He crushed me. This has been a slow year for me on the incline, this was my 15th time. Need to get over there more even though it's generally not dog friendly.
Sun - big SAR day. Training block in the AM, then just before I was about to head to Fossil we got a call for a broken ankle on Barr Trail. Luckily she was pretty far down the mountain, the carry out didn't last too long and I was able to get to Fossil afterwards.
For the week:
run - 43 miles, nine hours
ride - 22 miles, 2.5 hours
hike - 22 miles, nine hours
A friend shared this oldie with me. Two of these pups are gone (but not forgotten!), two are still going strong.
Not a whole lot accomplished on the fitness front over the weekend. Kept busy with SAR stuff and dog sitting.
Did get up to Palmer Lake on Saturday, allowing me to drop by O'Malley's. So damn good!
For the week:
run - 28 miles, 4.5 hours
ride - 33 miles, three hours
hike - 24 miles, 11.5 hours
I have the Rocket City 'thon in mid December, but other than that I'm pretty much in hibernation mode until December 23, at which point the days start getting longer again and I'll hopefully start moving again.
Got my HAM call sign and have been messing around with my handheld radio. Good stuff.
Mon - 44th Iron summit on the year with Mookie, then a nice 10k jog in the Garden.
Tues - bike commute 81, ten there and eleven back. Quick half hour jog in the evening. CityRock 114 at lunch.
Wed - run commute 64. Five there, four back.
Thurs - run commute 65. Straight there and straight back.
Fri - bike commute 82. Straight there and straight back.
Odd weekend with the 100k recovery, a ton of snow, lots of SAR stuff, and cramming for my HAM radio license exam.
Got 34 miles of running on the week, and another 23 miles hiking. Biking is non-existent right now as I get used to shitty weather. We're pretty much melted out now, though the trails will be in rough shape for a bit.
The Rescue Run is one of SAR's biggest fundraisers of the year, hope to see all the locals there. 10AM start so hangover friendly. I will not be running but I'll be out on course talking shit to everyone.
Mon - sore, but got Mookie out for a four mile ruck in the AM, then an easy half hour run in the evening.
Tues - run commute 61. Straight there and straight back. CityRock 112 at lunch.
Wed - run commute 62. Our first big snowfall and low temps of the year. Five inches at the house, temp never got above 28F. Plus it gets dark around 5PM now. I'm ready for summer.
Thurs - more snow. Got Mook out in the morning, he likes this weather a lot more than I do. Did get out for a quick 30 minute jog before heading over to Fossil for snow beers later in the evening.
Fri - more snow. Run commute 63. Straight there and straight back. At some point today or maybe early Saturday it is supposed to stop snowing.
Hopefully we melt out over the weekend.
Headed up to Fort Collins over the weekend for the Colorado 24 hour run hosted by the Gnar Runners. Good run for me, sort of. For about 12 hours anyways. Hit 50 miles in 9.5 hours but then the wheels came off and I ended up pulling the plug at 63 miles. I have not been running that kind of distance lately so it was nice to get a good 50 in. Had hopes of a longer distance though, but I just didn't want to walk the same one mile loop for another twelve hours. Solid event though, can't rule out returning next year to see if I can get a few more laps in.
Big week on the SAR front. On Thursday we headed down south to help the sheriff look for a missing 80 year old dementia patient. Got to do some work with the dogs for a few hours and then helped out with a drone search. The woman remains missing.
Not much on the workout front this week. Was pretty sore from the road 'thon through Wednesday and started back slowly after that.
Had a blast on the Detroit trip. Heard nothing but bad things about the town but I thought the places we visited were awesome and the people were a blast. Not to mention a ton of solid Michigan IPAs.
The race went much better than expected considering a brewery crawl and beer festival the day before. Thought I was in 3:45 shape if everything went perfect. Was on 3:40 pace through mile 21ish, then things went to shit. Somehow managed to rally back around mile 24 with the increasing crowds cheering me on and the hash beer check, ended up finishing in 3:43:39. Highly recommend this race.
Excited for the Detroit trip. Especially because we get to go to the Detroit Fall Beer Festival.
Probably won't help my marathon time on Sunday but whatever. State number 26 coming up!
Decent week even if not much on the weekend due to SAR and the Pikes Peak 1000th hash.
run - 41 miles, eight hours
ride - 44 miles, four hours
hike - 26 miles, 10.5 hours
Not a whole lot going on since Pikes. Some of that was SAR, some of that was me being lazy. Detroit is going to be a slog just to grab another state.
For the week:
run - 24 miles, 4.5 hours
ride - 54 miles, five hours
hike - 23 miles, 9.5 hours
My beloved Pitt Panthers are 5-0 and are now ranked in the top 25! Ahead of Michigan, FYI.
Meh.
The exciting part of the weekend was Fri/Sat, when I went on a SAR call to help some hikers get off the mountain. Got to the summit around midnight, had to hike down about half a mile and escort them out, very slowly. Two of the eight hikers got put on oxygen, the others just went real slow. Like an hour from the top of the golden stairs slow. Oof.
No excuses, I signed up for SAR and I knew what I was getting into. But I had nothing to give on Saturday and luckily ended up just under four hours. I had guessed I'd run close to that, but I didn't think I'd feel so awful doing so. At least the kazoo band at the Cirque played Pearl Jam for me.
I got a good nights sleep after the Ascent and woke up thinking I'd do a lot better, and then I got word that the Marathon had been shortened. I ran a lot better, getting to Barr Camp ten minutes faster and feeling good, but it was all for naught. Couldn't even go to the Royal after the race as the place closed down a few weeks ago.
My tenth double. 14 Ascents and 12 Marathons (including this ultra half marathon finish).
Took off for Chaffee County this weekend. Friday night was one of our favorite bands, Andy Frasco & The UN at the Lariat. While pre-gaming for the show we ran into Andy Frasco himself. So cool to see him just hanging out in BV.
After a good dog hike on Saturday morning we headed over to Salida. Hit all the usual places over the day - Elevation, Soul Craft, Salida Distillery, Tres Litros, Benson's. And it was my first visit back to The Vic, open again after closing it's doors years ago. Love the new place, so glad it's back.
Another long dog hike on Sunday, then it was back home. We got a new cadet and we got to meet him Sunday evening. He is slightly faster than me at the 5k right now so I have some work to do.
Back from the road trip only to catch a flight to Chicago for two more nights of Pearl Jam at Wrigley Field! It was my first time to Wrigley and I didn't even have to watch the shitty Cubs.
Explored Wrigleyville, did some running and rucking on the lakefront, drank too much Malort, and checked out a few breweries. Great trip. The liver is begging for mercy and now it's time to return to a much more healthy PJ habit - listening to their shows during long runs.
Awesome trip. Lander, Jackson, Alpine, Borah, Missoula, Three Forks, Ten Sleep, COS.
Wasn't quite all drinking. Had a solid push up Borah Peak in Idaho. Great, though steep, hike with lots of scrambling. Took me almost six hours, only taking a break to chug a Red Leg Hazy IPA on top. Borah was my 27th state highpoint. I thought Idaho only had potatoes but they have some good looking mountains too.
Then it was off to Missoula. They have a fantastic dog park with a river running through it, and that was our first stop.
And then it was time for the greatest and best band in the world. An incredible show in an incredible place, so glad we were able to pull this one off.
