passed!

I was doing some laundry the other day and Mookie figured the dryer looked like a nice place for a nap.  

Passed my SAR exam on Wednesday night.  All that's left is the mock mission on Saturday and then graduation next Wednesday, May 1.  After that I'll be able to head out on real world missions.

plugging along

SAR took up almost all weekend so not a whole lot of miles.  Did get Mook out for a quick five miler on the Garden trails on Saturday afternoon, and we ended up getting caught in a blizzard.  Weird weather lately.

For the week:

run - 44 miles, 8.5 hours

ride - 46 miles, 4.5 hours

hike - 23 miles, ten hours

SAR school wraps up this week with a bunch of tests I have to pass.  If all goes well I'll officially be on the team beginning May 1.

31

Tues - bike commute 30, then the Iron/Red/Iron out and back with Mookie after work.

Wed - run commute 26.  Six there, four back.  SAR in the evening.

Thurs - run commute 27.  Four there, six back.  Shitty, cold weather made a return.

Fri - bike commute 31.  Four there, ten back home.

Last big SAR weekend coming up.  Search dogs on Saturday, land nav on Sunday.  Wednesday we have our final exam and on Saturday we have the mock mission.  Assuming I pass everything, I still have to take an eight week emergency responder medic course before I can go on real world stuff.

15

Solid week.  50th trip to CityRock and 25th run commute Thursday.  Good long run on Sunday in the heat - Iron/Red/Incline/Red/Iron, 15 miles with just over 5000 feet of climbing.

For the week:

run - 51.5 miles, 11.5 hours

ride - 63 miles, 6.5 hours

hike - 26 miles, 10.5 hours

Hit the track on Monday morning before the Boston Marathon came on.  Not good, I have a lot of work to do.

Big SAR week, I'll get in the miles when I can.

Go Bucs!

Solid week, more miles and some significant climbing.  Three hour long run in Red Rock Canyon/Section 16 on Sunday afternoon.  Hopefully the weather has finally turned a corner and warmer days are here to stay.

run - 54 miles, 10.5 hours

ride - 51 miles, 5.5 hours

hike - 27 miles, 10.5 hours

Believe it or not, but the Pirates currently have the best record in baseball (I give them the tie breaker over the Yankees because fuck the Yankees).

Getting there...

on rappel

Another busy week.  SAR and these dog classes are keeping me busy.  Agility just ended for Mook though, so I now have Sunday free again.  His nose class ends in mid April, and SAR school winds up at the end of the month.

For the week:

run - 39 miles, 8.5 hours.  Snuck in an incline on Sunday, first one in a while.

ride - 32 miles, three hours

hike - 23 miles, nine hours

Sunday was a SAR make up day for rappel practice.  We used an abandoned bridge over near REI.  I've come a long way over the past few years in dealing with my intense dislike of heights.

moe.

The SAR midterm went well.  I get to continue on.  Even made it onto their social media page, that's me in the middle with the long sleeve green shirt.

After some celebratory Red Leg brews, we headed up to Fort Collins to see moe.  Great show!  Still haven't seen them play Moth but we got an excellent Happy Hour Hero to make up for it.

Continue to get in the miles as I can.  SAR takes up a ton of time right now, and Mookie is in two classes, so at times the workouts take a back seat.

run - 36 miles, six hours

ride - 55 miles, five hours

hike - 26 miles, 11.5 hours

update

Pretty light week due to missing two days thanks to snow.  Did get in a solid ten miler on the Garden roads on Sunday.

run - 31.5 miles, 5.5 hours

ride - 14 miles, 86 minutes

hike - 18.5 miles, 7.5 hours

Westfax Brewing is moving along, hopefully they'll be open soon.  Two blocks from my house.

Got to dogsit on Saturday.  Good times.

Pretty excited for this.  Mookie has never been to WP and he is looking forward to his visit.

SAR midterm is Wednesday.  We'll see if I get to continue.

snow

We just finished up a late season wallop of snow.  Started Wednesday around midnight and went on and off until Friday late morning.  Thursday was a wet and heavy snow, rare for this area, and Friday turned back to the light and fluffy stuff we're used to.  Fossil survived, in case anyone was worried.

I was out shoveling the sidewalk early Friday and a car slid off 31st street and got stuck.  The driver, a younger kid, got out and started trying to dig out using an ice scraper.  A neighbor and I dug him out, and he said he was going to continue on to Breckenridge.  Hope he made it.

The snow seems to have passed, but it's going to take a while to melt out.  Not a whole lot of running/biking over the next few days.

more snow

Mon - easy 6.5 mile run on the Garden roads, then 18 miles on the bike to/from SAR school.

Tues - bike commute 19.  7.5 there, ten back.  

Wed - run commute 16.  5.8 there, 4.1 back.  

Thurs - run commute 17.  Five there, 6.4 back.  Frigging snowed on the run home.  Spring will never get here.

Fri - Mook and I got up Iron Mountain for the 20th time this year in the cold and dark and snow.  He said the conditions were perfect and I needed to quit whining.

And my 20th bike commute on the year.  Straight to/from as I'm over this weather.  Also renewed my CityRock membership for another year at a cost of $680.  Most painful gym day of the year.  35th trip to the climbing gym on the year.

Due to SAR and a dog nose class I will be missing this year's Run Through Time, I believe only the third time I won't cross the finish.  Probably a good thing for all the volunteers as I'd be close to 6.5 hours on that course right now.  Still heading down to my favorite mountain town this weekend, hope to be at Tres Litros around 8:30PM on Saturday.

Spring Runoff

Mon - easy 7.5 miles on the Garden trails in the AM, bike commute to SAR in the evening.

Tues - bike commute 17.  Six there, six back.  

Wed - run commute 14.  Five there, 3.6 back.  CityRock 30 at lunch.

Thurs - had to drop $100 at the airport so she could ditch me for the Extra Innings festival in Tempe, AZ.  Mook tagged along and we hit the dog park on the way home.  Quick 3.5 mile run to work, then took the bus back home later so I could get Mook out for a five mile run on the Garden trails.  

Fri - Iron Mountain summit 19 on the year with Mook and Moose and Millie, then bike commute 18.

Sat - nada.  Spent the morning up on Mount Herman for SAR class, then not much time before having to take the Mook to his nosework class.  Hit Fossil in the evening, they have a solid new hazy IPA on tap.

Sun - finally a good race!  Love the Pueblo Spring Runoff ten miler, one of the last remaining old school races left in the area.  I was just shooting for a sub 80, a pace that has for some reason eluded me lately.  Hit the five mile mark in 39 minutes and then went 7:37, 7:35, 7:31, 7:13, and seven flat.  1:16:34 at the finish.  Biked my COVID loop in the evening, saw my first robin of the year.  Spring is coming.

For the week:

run - 41 miles, seven hours

ride - 57 miles, 5.5 hours

hike - 21 miles, 8.5 hours

Think good thoughts for Pitt hoops, they're the most bubbly of the bubble teams out there.

Lil Smokies

Busy for the next few weeks but we were able to sneak out to see The Lil Smokies.  They were supposed to play Lulu's, but that place shut down and is in the process of moving to downtown COS, so they played the Black Sheep instead.  Been a while since I've been there, missed that place.  Great show!

Working on mechanical systems and hauling stuff at SAR.  Struggled with this on the Rainier training but something must have stuck as it seems a little easier now.

Good 2.5 hour long run over in Red Rock Canyon on Sunday.  As with most of COS, the shaded stuff is still icy and/or muddy.  The non-shaded stuff is dry and we have fires burning on the Air Force Academy and Fort Carson.

Still getting the miles in.  For the week:

run - 51 miles, 12.5 hours

ride - 45 miles, 4.5 hours

hike - 25 miles, ten hours

Sad week in my drinking family as we found out that one of our favorite bartenders at the Skybox passed away, and just heard that a long time hasher friend lost a battle with cancer.  

Missoula and Wrigley!

The Pearl Jam ticket lottery went well!  This August we'll be taking a van trip up to Missoula to see PJ at Grizzly stadium, then driving back before flying to Chicago for two nights at Wrigley Field.  Pit tickets for all shows.

That pretty much wraps up the schedule for the rest of the year.  Add in SAR stuff and dog classes and I should be pretty busy.

May 30 - Mt Hood

June 22 - San Juan Solstice

July 27 - Creede 100

Aug 3 - Foo Fighters @ Mile High

Aug 21 - Borah Peak

Aug 22 - Pearl Jam @ Missoula

Aug 29 & 31 - Pearl Jam @ Wrigley

Sept 21 & 22 - Pikes

Oct 20 - Detroit Marathon

dark matter

Mon - easy 5k jog before SAR class.

Tues - bike commute 13, ten there and eleven back.  Four miles on the Garden trails with Mook after work, trails around here are in horrible shape and I'll be sticking to roads for a bit.

Wed - run commute ten.  Five there, three back.  SAR class in the evening, it's going well.

Thurs - run commute eleven.  5.8 there, 6.2 back.  Good efforts.  CityRock 25 at lunch.

Fri -  bike commute 14.  The return of winter weather.  Ugh.

Pearl Jam released the first song off their new album and it's a banger.  I put in for tix in Missoula and Chicago, we'll see how the ticket lottery falls next week.

Busy next two months.  SAR class on Monday and Wednesday evenings and all Saturday morning, then Mook has class on both weekend days.  Oof.

super half

Was feeling pretty good on Sunday morning and thought I'd easily get sub 1:45 at the Super Half.  But after nearly killing myself on ice 20 times in the first four miles I gave up and jogged it in.  At least I represented next years super bowl champions.  Think I was around 1:52.

After the run at Benny's word started leaking out that Kelvin Kiptum had been killed in a car accident.  Terrible news.  

run - 47 miles, 8.5 hours

ride - 37.5 miles, four hours

hike - 23 miles, ten hours

The weather has definitely affected my training lately, hopefully that starts improving soon.

breach

Mon - easy 6.5 miles on the Garden roads.  My first SAR class in the evening, went over all kinds of equipment and gear.

Tues - bike commute eleven.  Ten there, eleven back.  When I got to work and looked at my phone I noticed I had 56 gmail messages, so I knew something was up as that's a month of email for me.  Someone got my info, spam bombed my account (got well over 5000 spam messages over a 24 hour period), and bought a $980 Dell laptop with my debt card.  Caught that quickly and the spam slowed down after I cancelled the card, though some is still seeping through.  Whoever did this has tried to buy two more Dell computers with the now-defunct card.  Fun.  To unwind I took Mook up Iron Mountain twice after work.

Wed - early Ute Valley hike with the dog, first hike of the year without a ruck.  Forgot how nice it was to just walk sometimes.  Run commute eight after that.  SAR class in the evening where we worked on knots for two hours.

Thurs - run commute nine.  Four miles there, 6.2 back home through Sondermann.

Fri - bike commute twelve.  Started snowing this morning, supposed to continue through Saturday afternoon.

Not much on tap for the weekend.  SAR class on Saturday morning.  Was supposed to spend Saturday afternoon in Manitou but they moved Mardi Gras to early March due to weather.  Super Half on Sunday, hopefully I can average around eight minute pace.  Then, instead of watching the big game with two teams I could care less about, I'll be hanging with Mookie as he starts the next round of agility training.

the week

Decent week.  Caught Bert Kreischer on Saturday and he was fantastic.

run - 30 miles, seven hours

ride - 49 miles, 5.5 hours

hike - 24 miles, 10.5 hours

Not a great climbing week due to taking Saturday off to watch the trials.  4412 feet of vert for running, 2636 for biking, and 3126 for hiking.  Just over 10K on the week.  

Got quite a bit of snow on Saturday.  Gonna take a while to melt out.

January numbers

Miserable weather month, and the only break from Colorado was going to Wisconsin where the weather was even worse.  Still, some positive movement in the fitness realm from November and December.

Did pull off 75+ daily push-ups and at least 45 minutes (most days were over 90 minutes) of rucking per day, which Mookie loved.  Started with a 40 pound ruck, then towards mid-month I realized I was whining to myself about the weight so I upped it to 45 pounds as punishment.

For the month:

run - 31 runs, 154 miles, 39.5 hours, 27795 feet climbed, seven run commutes

ride - 18 rides, 127 miles, 15 hours, 6839 feet climbed, eight bike commutes

hike - 45 hikes, 137 miles, 58.5 hours, 17021 feet climbed

51,654 total feet of vert.  Last January I had 39,186 so some improvement there.

Seven inclines.  Eleven trips up Iron Mountain.

17 trips to CityRock.  Yearly renewal is coming up so I gotta pad those numbers so the wife lets me pay for another year.

I got into the San Juan Solstice and will be going for my ninth finish there.  Guess I should probably start increasing the long runs.  Want to get ten finishes there before I get too old for this shit.

Andy Frasco & The UN

Mon - easy four mile run on the Garden trails with the Mook

Tues - bike commute six.  Ten there, eleven back.  Took Mook over to Iron Mountain in the evening for two summits.

Wed - incline four.

Thurs - bike commute seven.  Then incline five in the evening.

Fri - we got a ton of snow overnight, five or six inches at the house.  And it was a wet snow, so no quick sweep of the sidewalks.  But by 3PM or so everything had cleared up enough to head up to Denver for the Frasco show.  Met Kircher over at Cerebral Brewing and then tried out Don's Mixed Drinks before the concert.  Another incredible Frasco show at the Ogden.  Forgot to take many pics but here's one of him crowd surfing.

Sat - hungover, but still got in an hour ruck along Colfax Ave.  Then a 15 mile bike ride back in the Springs that evening.

Sun - Barr Camp.  It was warm out but sheesh there's a lot of snow above No Name Creek.  Incline number six on the way up.  

For the week:

run - 33 miles, 11.5 hours

ride - 53 miles, six hours

hike - 28 miles, 12.5 hours

5:43.01

Survived the polar vortex.

Caught the Hairball show on Friday night.  80s hair metal is always a good time.  Seven's Gate, then the show, then Benny's to finish the night.

So I might have been a bit hungover for the annual Raptor Resolution Run.  Still got in a decent effort though, running 38:22 for the flat, dirt five miler along the Arkansas River.  I really enjoy this race, I've done six of the twelve editions, and I hope this isn't the last one.  Of course I saw my boy Lurch, who turned 40 this year (they can live to 55 in captivity).

You know who wasn't hungover on Saturday?  My beloved Pitt hoops team, taking it to Duke down in Cameron!

Another track meet up at USAFA in the books.  I was hoping for a sub 5:40 but it just wasn't in the cards.  I was with a guy the first half mile, hit in 2:46, but then he dropped out and I found myself running alone in no man's land and I struggled the rest of the way.  

I only have one more meet left here in COS.  The USATF mid-America region masters indoor championships over at UCCS.  Sounds impressive but anyone can sign up.  After that I'm planning on two meets up in Niwot - a track 5k on April 28 and the mile at the Frank Shorter Classic on May 12.

Decent week given the terrible weather and a travel day back from Milwaukee.

run - 31 miles, 6.5 hours, 3490 feet of climbing

ride - 8.5 miles, one hour, 297 feet of climbing

hike - 28.5 miles, 11.5 hours, 2889 feet of climbing

Put up my Wolski's sticker at Fossil.  Mission accomplished.

I CLOSED WOLSKI'S

Sometimes dreams do come true.

Despite a shitshow of a travel day due to weather issues at various airports, $100 and I arrived in Milwaukee in time to close Wolski's on Saturday.  Such a great place!  And yes I made it until the bouncer asked us to leave at 2:30AM.  Earned that damn sticker!

On Sunday we did some quality day drinking, including a tour of Lakefront Brewing, before heading over to catch the G Love & Special Sauce show.  More good times.  30th anniversary of their self-titled debut album.  Sure made me feel old but I still tried my best to party like a 21 year old.

After the show?  Back to Wolski's, where I closed things down for a second straight day.

I don't think temps got above 5F the entire time we were there, and things were significantly colder at night.  Plus we were nestled in between a huge lake and a river.  Plus it was windy.  Oof.

polar vortex

Mon - we started a cold spell today and things will be rough.  Mook and I got out for a three mile hike in Ute Valley in the AM, and I headed up the Incline in the evening.

Tues - bike commute three.  Straight there and straight back.  

Wed - run commute three.  Sondermann both ways for 12 miles on the day.

Thurs - run commute four.  Another 12 miles.  Had a get together happy hour with the new group of SAR recruits over at Voodoo Brewing in the evening.  Good group of people.

Fri - bike commute four.  We are entering into the Polar Vortex and biking today sucked.

My boy Mook, behaving as usual.

I can't complain too much about the weather here in COS, as we're off to Milwaukee this weekend where it is going to be significantly colder.  Wolski's or bust!

5:48

Thurs - Run commute 2.  Still exploring Sonderman, seeing where I can do any climbing.  5.76 there, 6.2 back home.  

Fri - good snow overnight, got up early to shovel walks.  Bike commute two, straight there and straight back.  Cold all day.  After work Mook and I got over for two summits of Iron Mountain.

Sat - hung out with the SAR dogs all morning, then hit the Incline.  When I started vs when I got to the top:

Sun - had dogsitting duty so I took two of the mutts up Iron Mountain twice.  Fourth and fifth summits of that mountain for me and Mook this year.

After that I headed up to the Air Force Academy to run an indoor mile.  I wasn't ready for this due to all the rucking and climbing I've been doing this year, but I gave it the 'ol college try.  Ran 5:48 off a 2:51 half, so not horrible.  That track is six laps to the mile, I was in last place for the first five plus laps but ended up getting a guy over that last lap.

For the week:

run - nine runs, 41 miles, 9.5 hours, 5829 feet of climbing

ride - four rides, 23 miles, three hours, 1476 feet of climbing

hike - 14 hikes, 45 miles, 19.5 hours, 6046 feet of climbing

Totaled 11518 feet of climbing on the week.

Lots of winter weather lately, leaving cold temps and ice covered trails.  Yuk. 

'23 final numbers

Another year down the tubes.  Solid year for me, aside from the abysmal failure of the Divide attempt.  Got in another state 'thon and a few more high points though.

run - 1699 miles, 338 hours.  Yes, had I checked this on the 31st I would have gone out and ran another mile.

ride - 3660 miles, 376 hours.

hike - 1315 miles, 536 hours.

50 run commutes.  103 bike commutes.  98 trips to CityRock.

Finally got around to figuring out how to track elevation gain on garmin.  Never been into that but it's something I'll follow going forward.  I gained 522,660 feet last year between running (189,052 feet), biking (184,673 feet) and hiking (148,936 feet).

I've been tossing around a few ideas besides Mt. Hood for '24 but I haven't nailed anything down yet.  Kind of in a holding pattern until I figure out what kind of change the schedule for search and rescue will bring.

Started the year off right at the Rescue Run 10k.  Despite quite a few beers on Sunday evening I ran pretty well, pushing hard to the end and finishing in just under 45 minutes.  Good day for me on that course.  Followed that up with lunch at King's Chef.  Later on Mookie and I hiked up High Drive, a five mile dirt road round trip with 1200 feet gain.  I've committed to a GoRuck challenge of having a 40+ pound pack on for my dog hikes this month.

Tuesday - bike commute 1.  They are doing construction on a small section of my normal ten mile route to work, and it is going to severely affect my bike commuting for the time being.  

Wednesday - run commute 1.  Through Sondermann both ways.