whiskey #29

On Wednesday we meandered over to Front Range BBQ for a special Left Hand Brewing tapping and Woodshed Red.

Really digging my latest t-shirt.

We decided to drop by Alchemy on the walk home for a night cap.  I ordered the bartender's favorite whiskey.  At $28, it was the most expensive drink I've ever had.  Very good, but I'd much rather drink a local(ish) whiskey like Deerhammer, P.T. Wood's, or Telluride, especially since those drinks typically run about $7.

whiskey #28

On Sunday evening I headed over to the Black Sheep to check out a Dead cover band, The Schwag.  They were good, and I enjoyed the evening, but I would rank our two local Dead cover bands (Blue Frog and Lost Junction) ahead of them.

After the show I was trying to flag down a taxi (I can't get uber on my blackberry) and I noticed there were lights on at the old Knob Hill Lounge.  Lo and behold the place is open once again!  It's now called the Angry Pirate, but not much other than the name has changed.

I wonder if the owner knows what an angry pirate is?

They had a special of a 16oz PRB and a shot of Jameson for $5, so I jumped on that.  First swig of regular Jamo all year.

Thursday

Spent a lot of time with the dog today.  Took her along this morning for an hour run in Red Rock Canyon.  Then got home from work and we hiked up Iron Mountain in Manitou.  She is currently sleeping like a log despite the thunderstorm going on outside.

A few pics from the Iron Mountain hike:

Monument

$100 rode her first 50 miler on Saturday.  We celebrated halfway through by stopping at Pikes Peak Brewing.

And then celebrated about 51% through by dropping by 300 Days of Shine.

Both of these places rock.  Riding a bike to Monument is such a blast!

After the ride we headed over to Front Range BBQ for some beers and bluegrass.  A band called The Wooks came all the way from Kentucky and they did not disappoint.

Fantastic way to spend a Saturday!  And we did it all without a car.

track

2 x 1600m, 2 x 400m.  6:18 and 6:08 on the miles, untimed on the quarters but I'd guess they were in the 88 range.  About the best workout I can squeeze into an hour from the house.

I have drifted into severe depression upon hearing the news that Salsa has discontinued the Mariachi.  The Timberjack looks pretty sweet though...

whiskey #27

$100 and I paid a visit to the Burrowing Owl on Saturday afternoon.  They had a special of a can of Rainier and a Pickled Whisker for $4.50.

It was a solid pour of the whiskey so I'll count it.  The Benchmark was good, I enjoyed it much more than the pickle juice.

I like this bar and I'll definitely go back, though it will always have tough competition being so close to Bristol and Smiling Toad.  It's a vegan place, but since alcohol is vegan I guess that's alright.  Great selection of cans here, including this Townie which was delicious:

They also have great pride in their weird bathrooms:

It wasn't all drinking yesterday.  Made another trip up Pikes via Elk Park:

And got the dogs out for a good walk at the local dog park:

Friday

Thursday: Got up early to run but the dog guilted me into a Garden hike instead.  Last of our alone time for a while since we'll have two dogs for the next few days.

Did get out Friday morning for a quick road 10K.

Hoping to run the Elk Park route on Saturday, depending on how many beers I drink tonight.  Then hoping for a 100K ride on Sunday, I need to make some progress on the Cup 'O Dirt Challenge.

Not quite Dead & Company, but I get to go see The Schwag on Sunday.

podcast

Wed AM - New neighborhood 10K loop, which I devised on the fly after finding the Garden roads closed once again for repaving.  Then I walked the dog and rode my bike to work.  Great morning, at least up until 8AM when I had to start working.

I recently had the opportunity to make a guest appearance on a local podcast, The Little London Show.  My virgin podcast experience!  We discuss heart rate, MAF, low carb diets, zero drop shoes, and I take the final half hour to give a shout out to all my sponsors.  Just kidding, we talk about dive bars in the COS area.  You can listen to it here if you're bored.

Lost Creek

After completing the Jeep bed, we decided to head out to test it.  Got in a 2.5 hour run with some good hills on Saturday, then we loaded up and took off for Lost Creek Wilderness, a place close to home that I had never been to.

We found a good car camping location just off HWY 77 and then did a ton of hiking.  Including an eight miler up to Hankins Pass on Sunday morning.  Love Lost Creek and I will definitely be doing some more exploring out there.

Tuesday

Almost overslept this morning, but I ended up crawling out of bed with just enough time to make the five mile round trip up to Carson Pass and back.

Built a bed for the Jeep.  Allows the three of us to sleep relatively comfortably and gives us some storage.

D.B. Cooper

Tues PM - nice ride home after work.  Santa Fe, Bear Creek, Red Rock Canyon.  1:45.  Tried to end at Fossil but they are closed on Tuesday.

Wed AM - terrible night of sleep so I didn't answer the bell when the alarm went off.  Did get the dog out for an hour in the Garden.  Lots of coyotes today, including some that got so close I had to toss some rocks their way.

Looks like D.B. Cooper got away!


Todd Snider: D.B. Cooper from Justin Weihs on Vimeo.

Tuesday

Been getting outside as much as possible lately.

Incline #36 on Friday after work.  On Saturday I ran Elk Park/Pikes with Carson, 22 miles.  Then a very hungover Incline #37 on Sunday.  Great weekend.

No running on Monday.  Four mile hike with the dog in the morning, and did some hot yoga in the evening.  Then watched Tim Olsen take the overall lead in American Tarzan.

Back to the track today.  4 x 800m.  3:14, 3:06, 3:05, 2:58.  Meh.  Always good to get up early and sweat though.

whiskey #26

Enjoyed this around a campfire just outside Telluride.  So good.  The distillery is right next to Telluride Brewing and that combo itself is worth making the six hour drive down there.  Put a hurtin' on the bottle that night, which made sleeping in a wet tent in a wet sleeping bag with two wet dogs somewhat bearable.

whiskey 25

Not exactly what everyone thinks of when they think of whiskey, but Fireball does have the word on the label, which is the standard for me.  Amanda had been married for an hour when this pic was taken and she was already starting to hit the hard stuff.

track

Due to a combination of laziness and shitty weather, it had been a while since I had visited the Holmes Middle School oval.  8 x 400 meters, averaging right around 90.  Not great, but hopefully it helps get me back in the habit of breaking a sweat once in a while.

I'll try to start posting the pics from the weekend.  Here's a photograph of the most photographed waterfall in Colorado, just outside of Creede:

San Juan vacation

Back from a long road trip to the San Juan mountains.  Marc & Amanda got hitched, a bunch of us rode bikes all over the place, two dogs had the time of their life, and a lot of great beer was consumed.

Lake City, Engineer Pass, Mr. Grumpypants, Telluride Brewing, Telluride Distillery, Bolam Pass, Henson Creek, Phil's World.  Such an awesome weekend, even with two nights of sleeping in the rain with two wet dogs.

Near the end of my last ride I hit a rock with my pedal and broke the crank of the Mariachi.  Well over 2.5 years of very hard use and this is the first major repair to the bike.  $200 to fix everything.  Hope to get at least another 2.5 years out of the steed before forking down the cash for a new Mariachi.

queensryche

Tues PM - Four mile run up and down Bear Creek Canyon/666 with the dogs.  Holly and I kept having to wait up for Meesha, she is used to running with Amanda and hence is totally unprepared for the distance and pace.

Wed AM - Good seven miler on the Garden roads. 

Will hit my monthly goals of 200 miles running and 400 miles biking, with the highlights being the Dirty Kanza and San Juan Solstice.  Now it's time to concentrate on Pikes.

Halfway through the year and I've biked to work 74 times so far.  740 miles that are not on the Jeep.  That is $400 saved, according to the current IRS mileage rate.  I should probably go out and buy a new $4000 bike so I can continue saving so much money.

Anyone remember how big Queensryche was back in the 90s?  I think they used to play stadiums.  It was just announced they will be playing a show at the Black Sheep in December.  I'm gonna go party like it's 1995!

Tuesday

We are watching our other dog while Marc and Amanda are biking all around Colorado for their wedding trip.  Went to their house to pick up Meesha, which meant drinking a few too many beers, then didn't sleep very much.  So I bailed on my morning run and went to the dog park instead.  The dogs were totally cool with the decision.

Our super awesome downtown bus terminal got some new bike art:

Finally got back to the rock gym over lunch.  It had been quite a while.  Nice to have my two longest events of the summer behind me so I can find more time to do other stuff.



Lake City

I was able to notch my 7th finish down at the San Juan Solstice on Saturday, coming in just under 14 hours.  A bit slow for me, but given my lack of long runs over the past year it was about what I expected.   Pretty happy that I was able to keep moving the entire day, with no big breaks for the first 40 miles (I took longer breaks at mile 40, 45, and 49.9 to drink beer).  Probably hurt just as much as Kanza, but I have a lot more experience dealing with long runs and overall this mostly felt like yet another good day in the mountains.

We hiked Handies on Sunday.  So much more pleasant without throwing the entire Hardrock course into the mix.  Looking across American Basin from the top, it seemed like a lifetime ago that I had the desire to do shit like that.

High Alpine Brewing

New(ish) brewery in Gunnison we tried on the way down to Lake City.  Good stuff, though if I could only hit one brewery on this drive it would still be Elevation Beer Company.

Toasted Wyatt as I had a Green Gate IPA.  Guess it didn't pay off as it sounds like he struggled in from Green Gate at States.  Wyatt, you can blame me for somehow finding a way to run slower than Fuller did out there!

Wednesday

Good run on Saturday.  Up Barr Trail to the Bottomless Pitt sign and back down, then up Red Mountain.  21 miles.  Saw all the superstars - Trimboli, Staponowich, Charlie Brown, and even the rare sighting of Tony K (yes, I screamed like a schoolgirl).  Got horribly sunburned, and it's still incredibly painful on Wednesday.  I'd like to say I learned my lesson and it's SPF 100 every single time I leave the house from now on.  But I've now been dealing with sunburn for 40 years and I'm going to continue to forget to use sunscreen and at some point I'm going to die either of skin cancer or something else.

Got out for two hours on Sunday.  We have been having a heatwave here in the Springs and Sunday in Red Rock Canyon was tough.

Haven't been able to sleep well due to the sunburn, so the running this week ain't much to talk about.  Should be better by Saturday though.

We hosted a kid who is biking across the country on Sunday night.  His blog about the day he arrived is here, and the day he left, including his breakfast at King's Chef, is here.

whiskey 23 & 24

Drank a lot of this local whiskey over the weekend.  If you live here in Colorado you should definitely give Axe and the Oak a try.

Kanza

Finally got an account of the DK200 up on Pikes Peak Sports.  Grab a beer and go check it out.

Incline #35

Good day on the hills.  AM run up Mount Muscoco, then a post-work slog up the Incline.  They have removed all the graffiti from the Incline.

whiskey 22

incline #34

Solid effort up the Incline yesterday.  Summer has definitely arrived, damn hot up there.  Pikes is melting fast and it won't be long before Barr is clear to the top.

home again

Back in the Springs after a debacle of a time trying to get home last night.  Thought we'd be home by 10PM, but it was well past 2AM by the time we crawled into bed.  Seems there was some bad weather in Denver that delayed just about every airplane ever built.  Still don't see why some locals prefer to fly out of Denver than COS, that drive home after the flight lands is rough.

Kanza was a much harder event than I prepared for, and it has taken me a bit to recover.  And then, just as I was able to start running, we headed to Wisconsin and I ate all the cheese and drank all the beer.  I actually did get some good running in - a hard four miler around Devils Lake, a speedy (for me) 15 miler on the 400 Trail, and an easy hour on the Madison bike path on Sunday - but otherwise it was a very unhealthy weekend.

Not at all ready for Lake City but I'll give it a go anyways.  Figure I'll be somewhere around 14 hours, much slower than the 12 hours I usually shoot for, but given what's been going on with my running lately I'll take it.

Wed

Very easy four mile run this morning on the Garden trails.  Recovering nicely, but not quite there yet.

I heard 150 riders dropped out within the first six miles of the race due to mechanical issues from the "lake" crossing we had to do.  I did see a lot of very expensive bikes on the side of the road during that early stretch.  Can't imagine what I would think, or how quickly my wife would quit talking to me, if I bought a $5K (or higher) bike that shit the bed less than 10K into a 200 mile race.

Kanza shot from when I still had a smile on my face.

Tuesday

Still recovering from the ride.  Hands and shoulders still ache, and the quads don't want to do much work right now.  Sat on my ass (which also still hurts) all day Sunday and Monday.  Easy 30 minute run this morning.  Did bike to work on Monday and Tuesday, so maybe my claims of never riding a bike again I made around 1AM on Sunday were a bit dramatic.

This pic, taken from Linda Guerrette Photography, sums up how mile 100 to 170 went for me.  Except I didn't have any water.

News is breaking today that the AF Academy has finally opened up the Santa Fe trail!

RIP Muhammad Ali.

DK200

Took just about everything I had but I finished the Dirty Kanza 200 miler.  18.5 hours.  I'll get a write up done later this week.

graduation

Was bummed that I had missed out on tickets for the AF graduation tomorrow, but a co-worker came through.  President Obama is speaking.  I always try to go see the president, whoever it is, speak.  I saw Bush II (who I greatly disliked, due to the fact his decisions wasted a year of my life, though I couldn't imagine saying some of the disrespectful words you see nowadays towards that position) and this will be my second time seeing Obama.  If I can get some face time with El Pres I'll lobby him to open up the Academy trails to the public.

Oh yeah, there will be some airplanes there as well.  The hat toss/flyover thing ain't easy to pull off.

May

192 miles running, 463 on the bike.  Pretty good month coming off the cankle injury.

Also have a new watch that tracks walking, got in 36 miles there.

Dirty Kanza is Saturday and I'm as ready as I can get.  Course looks to be in good shape, at least compared to last year.  No idea how this is going to shake out as it's by far the biggest ride I've ever done, but I feel confident that barring any major mechanical issues I have a pretty good shot to finish.

Been a wet year so far.  $100, the dog, and I did a quick loop in Red Rock Canyon yesterday, in the rain, and everything is so green.  And I heard Pikes got even more snow last night.  I saw Ron at Bristol on Saturday and we were joking about how he would have to shovel a path up to the top for his race this year.