cold

Shitty week as the latter part brought some super cold temps that made going outside pretty awful.  Got in a good 20 miler on Monday but the mileage tapered off after that.  Did spend a lot of that time at Planet Fitness, so not a total waste.

For the week:

run - 43 miles, 7.5 hours

hike - 22 miles, 9.5 hours

Dry January came to an end for me on Friday the 23rd.  We had a bunch of people over to the house to watch the Alex Honnold climb, and he ended up postponing that to Saturday.  I had a bunch of Yuenglings anyways.

dry January

Mon - incline number three on the year.  Trying for 52 of those in 2026.

Tues - run commute five.  Five miles there, five back.  Ran the middle three miles of the AM commute pretty hard.  CityRock four at lunch.

Wed - run commute six.  Five there, five back.  

Thurs - work from home in the AM, so after a Red Rock Canyon dog hike I got up to Sondermann Park for a few miles.

Fri - run commute seven.  Five there, 3.6 back.  Watched the High Lonesome lottery in the evening.  For the third year in a row, not only was I not selected to run, I didn't even make it on to the 125 person wait list.  Working on a back up plan now.

Sat - super cold temps, it was 12F when I got the dogs over to the dog park.  Not very motivated to run, managed 3.4 miles in half an hour before heading over to Planet Fitness.

Sun - nada.  Did a 12 hour shift with the Security Fire Department, riding along in the ambulance.  Finished my EMT class, now all that's left is passing the national exam and I'll be an EMT.

I have once again made an attempt at dry January and am still going strong, my longest effort yet.  I should be able to make it at least until the 21st, three full weeks, before giving in.  My biggest break from alcohol since 2003 when Iraq made it slightly more difficult to get beer.  I wish I could report back on great health benefits or feelings of euphoria, but I feel the same as when I'm having a few beers a week.  Only now I'm more bored on weekends.

For the week:

run - 47 miles, 9.5 hours

hike - 33 miles, 13.5 hours

7457 feet of climbing.

snow

Mon - easy four miler on the Garden trails in the AM, second incline of the year in the evening.

Tues - run commute two.  Five there, six back.

Wed - run commute three.  Five there, 3.5 back.

Thurs - Five miles on the Garden trails in the AM.  Looks like winter might finally be making an appearance this evening.

Fri - no AM dog hike as I had to dig out our house.  8.5 inches of snow, which is a lot here in the city.  Run commute four, four miles there and 3.5 back.  CityRock at lunch.  Caught Adam Carolla at our local comedy club in the evening, he's a little more right wing than I remembered but he was funny as hell nonetheless.

Sat - up early to volunteer with SAR at the Winter Series.  The wife has been sick lately so instead of heading out for a run afterwards I took the dogs (we're also watching Millie right now) over to the dog park to run some energy out of them.  

Sun - Dog park in the early morning, SAR training in Red Rock Canyon, then 14 miles on the road through the Garden and Manitou.  

For the week:

run - 51 miles, 9.5 hours

hike - 25 miles, 11.5 hours

9187 feet of climbing on the week.

2025

I got older and slower.  Yay.

The numbers for 2025:

run - 2150 miles, 467 hours, 221,450 feet of elevation gain

hike - 1468 miles, 698 hours, 204,907 feet of elevation gain

bike - 835 miles, 78 hours, 37,499 feet of elevation gain

102 run commutes.  39 bike commutes.  87 trips to CityRock.

Just over 600 hours for SAR.  About half of those hours are missions, which can happen at anytime and make regular training difficult nowadays.  

But I got another hundo in, and another San Juan Solstice, and a few more state marathons.  And a big honkin' mountain.  I ain't quite dead yet.

In '26 I'm signed up for the Little Rock, Salida, and St. Louis marathons.  Possibly Des Moines later this year.  Pondering some new to me races this summer, though I'm sure I'll end up at Pikes again.  And we just had a Planet Fitness open across the street, so I'll probably spend some time there fighting this old age thing.

For the first week of 2026:

run - 54 miles, 10.5 hours

hike - 12.5 miles, 5.5 hours

Mexico

Great time down in Mexico with Alpenglow Expeditions.   So nice having hotels and transportation all lined up.

Flew into Mexico City, and on my early morning walk I found a 10k.  I guess Sears is still alive and well down south.

Rest of the trip was travel around to the two big climbs.  First up was La Malinche, a 14,640 foot beast of a hike.  At the time, it was the highest peak $100 and I had ever climbed.

Lots of random dogs on the hike, all of which we made friends with.

Then it was off towards Orizaba.  We got our first look at the mountain from the hostel.

Took a day to acclimate, going on a nice four hour hike from the hostel.

Next it was off to the Piedra Grande hut.  Somewhat famous in the mountaineering world.  It was packed so we ended up sleeping in tents.

Here's me at the highest shitter I've ever been to.

Midnight wake up, 1am start.  Seven hours later we were at the summit!  18, 490 feet.  Incredible experience.  Up and down in just under twelve hours.

After the climb we went back to Puebla to celebrate.  Next day it was back to Mexico City.  We had an extra day there so we caught some Mexican wrestling!

Such a great trip.  $100 was motivated enough to sign up for a trip to Kilamanjaro.  I've been eyeballing some bigger stuff as well.