Red Rocks is back, baby!
First Red Rocks show in way too long. Headed up with Rocky Mountain Ride for some quality pre-show tailgating. Got to watch a nice lightening storm while drinking some cold beers. Show was awesome, though I wish he would have played more of his older stuff. Capacity was 66%, by far the least crowded show I've been to there.
We left Fruita pretty early on Monday and purposely skipped breakfast as there was a stop we wanted to make. I put politics on the same level as professional wrestling nowadays and this place might be ground zero.
Mon - nice two hour/22 mile gravel ride in the AM. After work I headed over to Manitou and ran up the Incline to the summit of Rocky Mountain, then down to Intemann and headed up Red Mountain. 8.9 miles, 2.5 hours, 3500 feet of climbing. Earned my beers from Manitou Brewing for sure. They have a new hazy on tap that's delicious.
Tues - bike commute 38. Eleven there on the COVID loop. 13.3 back on the world's greatest commute through Bear Creek and Red Rock Canyon, ending at Fossil. I am not in mountain bike shape for sure.
Wed - run commute 34. Five miles there in 42 minutes. 6.3 miles back through Sondermann in an hour. Good climb at lunch.
Thurs - bike commute 39. Seven miles there, four miles home. Busy morning as we packed the van up for the long weekend trip.
Leaving Thursday after work and headed west. Fruita is the plan, but we could change that at any moment. All we know is that we don't have to work until Tuesday morning.
Sun - was up at 3AM (1AM Colorado time) to start the return journey from Florida, so not much working out. Did get the dog out for a walk before heading over to Smiling Toad and then to Front Range for some live music. Masks are basically not a thing here in the Springs anymore.
Mon - 15 mile ride in the AM on the COVID loop. Incline right after work before heading over to Fossil for Alex's b-day throwdown. Raining all day.
Tues - still tired from the travel, plus a hangover. And it was pouring rain. I drove to work since I had to pick $100 up from the airport. Did get in a decent garage workout in the evening to keep the day from being a total zero.
Wed - solid run to work, 6.5 miles in 55 minutes. CityRock 53 at lunch.
Thurs - bike to work. Ten there, eleven back. CityRock 54 at lunch. Guitar and Benny's after work.
Fri - run commute 33. 4.2 miles in 37 minutes. Good bouldering session at lunch.
Doing my first couloir climb this weekend. Was supposed to be the Dragon's Tail in Rocky Mountain National Park, but due to weather and conditions the climb was changed to Snoopy's Backside up near Loveland Pass. $100 is doing a big bikepacking trip this weekend, so I'll hopefully be completing the climb quickly and safely before grabbing the dog and heading down to Canon City to meet up with her.
Speaking of the dog, apparently yesterday was national rescue dog day. Here's the last pic of my pup that was on my phone:
Boarded a plane for the first time since the Atlanta marathon trials back in early March of ‘20. Off to visit the in-laws down in The Villages.
The Villages are not my cup of tea, but $100’s parents sure do love it down there. We visited a watering hole called The Cove and then took a swamp tour on an air boat. Good stuff. The next day we went back to Silver Springs State Park for some kayaking. No manatee this trip but we still had a blast.
Did get two easy five mile runs in. Felt like I was swimming in the heat and humidity.
Took a planned down week since I knew travel would mess things up.
run - 22 miles/4.5 hours
ride - 8.6 miles/one hour
hike - 12.3 miles/five hours
Forgot to post this guy, whom I saw on my long run on Sunday. Snake season is here again. Yay.
Mon - it rained pretty much 24 hours straight, very rare for us here in CO. First time I bailed on an early morning dog hike for weather in a long time. Got the pooch out later, and in the evening I ran an easy ten miler on the Garden roads. Little bit of snow up high.
Tues - bike commute 34. Eleven miles to work, four back home. Had the last of the video lectures for my alpine climbing school. This weekend I'll be in Winter Park practicing some snow movement. We have two trips left with the class: a couloir climb, and the high peak grad climb. The grad climb looks like it will be a two day difficult route up Longs.
Wed - run commute 30. 6.5 miles there in an hour. 6.3 miles back home through Sondermann, including 12 hill repeats.
Early drive on Saturday to join my CMC ACS peeps for a crag day at the East Colfax area of Clear Creek Canyon, about 15 miles west of Golden. Great place and loved climbing all day. I'm getting much more comfortable on the rock, learning to trust the equipment and not freaking out about heights quite so much. Not getting ahead of myself in thinking I'm an outdoor badass though, there were guys highlining the canyon while we were climbing. Might have been 700+ feet above us.
Cannonball Creek Brewing for the apres. Also hit Mountain Toad Brewing before heading back to the Springs.
Good three hour long run on Sunday. Red Rock Canyon, Section 16, Stephanie's, and back through RRC. Just over 15 miles. $100, James, Melissa, and I went back to RRC at noon to try to get some more climbing in, but it started pouring before we could get going. So we bailed to Fossil instead.
For the week:
run - 47 miles/9 hours
ride - 78 miles/7.5 hours
hike - 18.5 miles/8 hours
Wed - run commute 26. 5.2 there in 49:33. Had to do some 15 second hill repeats on the way home, and there is a perfect hill for it in Sondermann. Eight of them. Can't remember the last time I did hill repeats. 6.2 miles in 68 minutes. CityRock at lunch, I think I've now done enough of them to say I'm a legit 5.9 indoor climber. Which would make me a legit 5.5 climber outdoors.
Thurs - Bit longer to work. Eight miles in 75 minutes. CityRock 46 at lunch. Easy four miles back home so I could have some time to play guitar before my weekly lesson.
Fri - bike commute 31. 10.7 miles to work on the COVID loop. Finally some decent weather. Saw a pack of coyotes over at the new retention pond at the Garden. Good bouldering session at lunch.
Spending the weekend at Castlewood Canyon, a state park located between COS and Denver. Doing some climbing and working on anchors with the CMC. More good weather on the way, I'm pretty psyched to get on some outdoor rock again.
Still got out there even though the reappearance of winter sapped some motivation. Good two hour/13.7 mile run on my COVID loop on Saturday to end the week.
20 weeks until The Rut, going to start looking to get in shape for that. I actually bought a plan from the guys at Uphill Athlete last year and never used it after the race was cancelled, but I’ll look to put some of those workouts into my week.
Chilled around the house this weekend. I think it’s the last weekend until June that I’ll be here. Between the CMC class and a trip to The Villages to see the in-laws, lots of travel on the docket. We are debating between Taos and Fruita for Memorial Day weekend.
For the week:
run - 37 miles/6.5 hours
ride - 55 miles/5.5 hours
hike - 22.7 miles/8.5 hours
Fantastic time over the weekend with the CMC alpine climbing school folks.
A few beers at Fossil on Friday, dog park and a run up to No Name Creek early Saturday, then I made a solo trip in the van up to Hoosier Pass.
Set off to hike North Star Mountain at 6AM on Sunday. Awesome hike. Not something I'd normally do this time of year, as there was still a lot of snow, but the day went well. Straight there on the way out, then on the way back we took a detour to do some legit (for me) snow climbing. We weren't roped up and there were a few points where a fall would have been fatal, but the snow was solid and I didn't find myself fighting off panic like I often do while rock climbing. Great mountain views and travel all day long. Eight miles on the day. I'll definitely return here in the summer to run/scramble this route.
South Park Saloon for the apres. Love that place.
Some random pics of the day, mostly stolen from some classmates:
 |
Mon - early morning run through Red Rock Canyon, ride on the COVID loop at lunch, Red and Iron Mountains in the PM. Going to start adding Iron to the run on Monday evenings now that spring is kinda somewhat here.
Tues - bike commute 26. Ten there, eleven back. CityRock at lunch.
Wed - the rare zero day. No pack to hike the dog, no running or riding or climbing. Could tell my body was trying to fight off some minor non-COVID crud thing, so I rested as much as possible.
Thurs - run commute 23. 5.2 there in 47 minutes, 5.5 back through Sondermann in 55 flat.
Fri - bike commute 27. Miserable ten miles to work. Looked nice outside, and I dressed for that, but it was cold and windy. Ugh. Decent CityRock session at lunch.
Heading back out in the van this weekend, up to Hoosier Pass. Doing my CMC snow ridge climb on Sunday. North Star Mountain. At 13,614 feet above sea level she is the 187th tallest peak in the state. Still significant snow up high, though it is melting quickly and this is a peak that minimizes the kind of dangers you can deal with on winter climbs. Pretty excited for this.
Fantastic weekend up north.
We left Friday afternoon for St. Mary's Glacier. We checked out Guanella Pass Brewing first, then headed up to the parking lot for the glacier. Great spot to park the van overnight.
Up early on Saturday to meet the CMC peeps. Had a big training day - snow travel, self arrest, snow climbing. All new stuff to me and I had a lot of fun.
We do our first trip this weekend and I'm looking forward to it. North Star Peak, a low 13er near Hoosier Pass still covered in snow.
After the training we headed to Idaho Springs for beers and burgers at Westbound & Down. Solid IPA. Then we headed up the Mt. Evans road, spending the night at a lot across the street from the Echo Lake Lodge. Two nights in a row sleeping above 10k feet.
On Sunday we headed back to Idaho Springs, allowing $100 a few hours to fish Clear Creek while the dog and I explored town. Then we decided to drive back the long way, heading over to Broken Compass Brewing in Breck.
In another week I will have officially been playing guitar for one year.
I have always been a huge fan of the instrument, chasing the sound at live shows ever since high school. I always thought it would be cool to play. But that was always followed by "I wish I had started playing in high school." Or college. Or when I moved to Austin, the live music capital of the world. Always sometime long ago.
As COVID hit and I slowly realized things were going to change for a bit, I thought it might be a good time to pick up a new habit rather than just increase my booze intake.
The goal had always been to play a Fender Strat. I had a crappy $30 Suzuki left over from who knows where in the basement, and I made a deal with $100 - if I could play 30 minutes a day, five days a week, for a year, I'd get the green light to buy a cheap-ish electric guitar setup.
I kept that schedule, playing for half an hour in the morning after the dog walk. Super basic stuff from the Fender Play app. Struggling with cord changes. Kinda sorta playing Louie Louie and Bad Moon Rising. Quite often I'd get in another practice session at night before bed. After a month of this I walked in to Moondog Music, located in the same building as Benny's, and signed up for weekly lessons.
Through some creative loopholes, the wife allowed me to upgrade the acoustic guitar long before the year mark. I was the proud owner of a beautiful Seagull Entourage. A fantastic guitar that I have loved playing these past few months, though at $550 it's way more expensive than I deserve at this point.
About a month ago it became clear that, for better or for worse, this wasn't a habit that was going to go away anytime soon. So I started talking to a few guitar playing friends and searching around the interwebs. I wanted to keep the total price for guitar and amp below $1500, which is a bit much for a rookie in his mid-40s but is still fairly affordable once you go down the guitar prices rabbit hole.
And boom, there she was. Exactly what I wanted, but used. Same with the amp. A Fender Player Stratocaster and a Fender Champion 50XL amp. $806 after taxes and shipping to the local guitar center.
So I'm pretty excited to tear into this thing. I can even kinda/sorta play a Hendrix tune - Hey Joe, though my solo would be a bit less than Jimi would offer up.
Completed the CMC land nav course on Saturday. I used to be good at using a map and compass, I helped guide General Washington across the Delaware River back in my Army days, but I hadn't really done any of that stuff since then. It's just too easy to pull out your phone nowadays. But it was good to get out there for a little refresher. Buff Creek had a ton of snow, and I assume they got a ton more since I was there. Up next in the CMC alpine climbing school is snow travel, including a trip to St. Mary's Glacier in a few weeks.
We had planned on staying the night up there, but the place was just a mess of snow and mud, and with freezing temps on the way we were afraid we'd get the van stuck. So we bolted back home and hit Fossil Brewing.
Decent run on Sunday around my COVID loop. 13.7 miles in 2:09, coming right after a 90 minute loaded dog hike. Warm and sunny for the run but you could see the weather moving in.
Monday morning was devoted to snow removal. Probably had seven to eight inches in the yard. Did get up Red Mountain in the evening, followed by Manitou Brewing.
Tues - bike commute 22. My biking is pretty much dead right now due to the sloppy conditions on the trails. But hopefully soon I'll be taking Cheyenne Canon or Red Rock Canyon on the return home commute.
Haven't posted a pic of my dog in a while, so here you go:
I did get in a good run on Saturday in lieu of the Salida marathon, but since then I haven't done much. Ice and snow, shitty weather, some stuff for the CMC alpine climbing class I'm taking, and, of course, just being fairly lazy has made this a pretty low mileage week.
Good dog hike on Monday in Salida, and another good walk in Florence on the way home.
Tues - bike commute 19. Through Sondermann there, straight back home. CityRock 31 at lunch. Renewed my annual pass at the climbing gym today. I was still feeling a slight hangover when I went to bed.
Wed - run commute 19. Not too bad there, as I hit miles two, three, and four in 7:11, 7:02, and 7:55, despite having a fairly heavy pack on. Five miles there, 5.6 back through Sondermann.
Thurs - another quick bike commute and CityRock day.
Fri - bike commute 21 and a decent climb at lunch.
We are headed up to the Buffalo Creek area this weekend. I'll finish up the land nav portion of my current CMC class while $100 and the dog hang out. We'll have to get back early on Sunday as we are expecting another significant snowfall.
Bummed to miss the race but we still had a great weekend down in Salida. I got a good 90 minute run in on Saturday morning, and lots of good dog hikes in, but the bulk of the weekend was spent either at Tres Litros or Benson's, with a little Moonlight and Wood's thrown in for good measure. It's going to take my liver a few days to dry out. The hazy IPA at 3L is dangerously good.
The weather in Salida was fine until Saturday evening, though lots of other parts of Colorado were getting some major snow. More snow coming this evening, and possibly some heavier stuff early next week. I'm ready for Spring.
