support your local record store!

Saturday is National Record Store Day! So head down to your local record joint and show 'em some love! Let 'em know that iTunes isn't taking over the music world. Me, I'll be picking up the new Apocalyptica album so I can sharpen up my mad air-cello skillz for the big show on Tuesday. Of course, I'll then be ripping off record stores by burning the CD and sending it to a bunch of friends...

it's the lunges, stupid!

Figured out why I was so sore from the track workout. I had forgotten that we did a bunch of running drills after the workout. High knees, skipping, running backwards, stuff like that. Reminded me of my old Rogue days. But we also did a bunch of lunges, which caused my legs to feel dead. No worries though, the Incline Club hill climb yesterday put some life back into 'em.

ouch!

Still sore from Tuesday's track workout. I'm a pretty quick recoverer, it's rare that I'm still sore two days after a hard effort. Guess that short rest between intervals really shook things up. But it's all good, I'll do tonight's Incline Club hill climb and rest tomorrow before Greenland.

This morning's run was fun. Only went five miles, trying to get over that rough workout. We got about five inches of snow in Manitou last night, but it didn't lay in the streets and it was somewhat warm out this morning. Made for a real scenic run through the garden.

first round bye!

It's all a go - first round Nuggets vs. Lakers. Can't wait to cee crybaby Kobe coming up with lame excuses for the first round exit! Donnie, don't forget to bring my 40oz with you.

damn it!

Just remembered I left my windows open. It was super nice this morning. My house is gonna be freezing when I get home.

wtf?

It was 80 degrees yesterday. I ran without a shirt.

Right now it's snowing. We're supposed to get up to five inches tonight.

Gotta love that Colorado weather.

Happy Grilled Cheese Month!

April is National Grilled Cheese month. Seriously. Read about it here. Some interesting facts about the grilled cheese sandwich:

-Due to its superior melting factor, American cheese is the most popular cheese chosen for a grilled cheese sandwich. Cheddar and Swiss take second and third places, respectively. (Mintel's Menu Insights)

-About 22 percent of U.S. households serve grilled cheese sandwiches at least once in a two-week period. (The NPD Group, Inc.)

-Lunch is the most popular meal for a grilled cheese – 64 percent are consumed during this meal. (The NPD Group, Inc.)

-In 2004, a grilled cheese sandwich bearing the image of the Virgin Mary sold for $28,000 on eBay. The owner saw the likeness toasted onto the sandwich and kept it for 10 years before auctioning it on the site.

-Americans make 2.2 billion grilled cheese sandwiches at home each year.

Damn, suddenly I'm hungry for grilled cheese...

"All of Colorado is burning"

Over 30 square miles of Colorado is on fire this morning. About 15 of those are right down the road near Fort Carson. No big deal at Carson, as there's nothing really important out there to burn, though I'm hoping the fire doesn't spread over to Phantom Canyon, which is one of my favorite drives in Colorado. You can see the haze from the smoke way up north where I work, but other than that the fire won't get anywhere near my neck of the woods, either in Colorado Springs or Manitou. If you smell something burning in Manitou, it probably isn't a forest fire!

Free pint of Icehouse to the first person to tell me who originally said the above quote...

run

Good workout at the Manitou high track yesterday. Started out with 2 x 200m with 30 seconds rest. Hit those in 35 seconds. Then did 10 x 400m with 60 seconds rest in between. Finished with 2 x 200m.

Ran the first 8 400m repeats all between 81 and 84. I had never done track work with so little rest in between, so I had to take it easy to see how I'd respond. The short rests made for a rough workout, but I managed to open things up on the last two quarters and hit 71 and 74. Then hit 34 for the final 200's.

Afterwards some of us hit Kinfolk's to shoot the shit. Good times!

This morning it was out the door at 5AM to do the Garden 10 miler course. Wanna break 65 minutes for that race, but it's a real tough course so we'll see. That race starts by my house and a bunch of people are doing it, so I'll probably have some kind of shindig at my place to pass the time between the end of the race and the beginning of the hash.

clear the track!

Switching workouts tonight, track intervals move from Colorado College to Manitou High. Should be good, haven't done a track workout with folks my speed in a long time. It'll be nice to have guys to push me again, maybe I'll have flashbacks to my days at Shikellamy when I lived on the track.

damn!!!!!

Edging out Buster Martin at the London marathon this past weekend was American Ryan Hall, running 2:06:17 to take 5th place. I might be able to ride my bike that fast, if there weren't any hills on the course. For those keeping score at home, that's a 4:49 per mile average over 26.2 miles. Check out this guy's splits:

10K, 29:11
20K, 58:58
1/2, 1:02:13
30K, 1:28:38
40K, 1:59:23
finish, 2:06:17

Damn, could we actually have a US contender at the Olympic marathon this year?

congrats!

Buster Martin became the oldest person to ever complete a marathon over the past weekend, finishing the London marathon in about ten hours. There are now reports that he may be "only" 94 years old, but it's still an impressive feat. He stopped at the halfway mark for a cigarrette, sandwich, and, of course, a beer.

helluva weekend!

Great weekend filled with awesome music, dive bars, and even a 10k at 10,000 feet. I'll do a write up shortly, until then the pics are here.

on-on to the mountains!

Off for a great weekend in Leadville, Copper Mountain, and Vail.

Rosie's brewpub (highest brewpub in the world). The Silver Dollar. The Manhattan. DAM brewery. George Clinton. Ben Harper. Matisyahu. Hot springs. Drinking Pabst (and probably gin & tonics with BLOS) above 10,000 feet. Not having to run 40 miles this weekend.

Woohoo! I love Colorado!

Congrats to C-4 and Net!

C-4 had her baby last night! I heard she's gonna take a break and wait at least nine months 'till having another one.

Incline Club hill climb! New PR!

Great workout tonight at the IC hill climb. One mile warm up to the start, then a 30 minute tempo run up Barr Trail. It was more like a race than a tempo run for me though. Hammered as hard as I could, held second place (first place if you don't count Matt) for 27+ minutes. Someone who paced themselves a little better was able to get me at the end, but the next guy was quite a ways back.

Smashed my PR to the top of the W's along the way. Old record was 23:17, ran last year at the Barr Trail Mountain Race. Hit that point today in 21:29, taking almost a full two minutes off my old PR! Slowly but surely I'm working my way into the best shape of my life.

Good quote taken from the IC newsletter. After the tempo run up Barr Trail, we do four hill repeats on Hydro Drive, which is the short but steep road up to the Barr Trail parking lot (or that nasty bitch hill at the very end of BTMR). This was overheard last week:

"We do hill repeats for our cool down. Do you really want to know what the 'workout' is?"

platte river pics

Ladies, not only can you get the usual life size posters and coffee mugs and such, but they now offer Wheaties boxes with these pics on 'em! For a small extra fee I might even autograph 'em.

ultra article

Good article on Tony K. from Denver's Westword newspaper can be seen here.

It should be noted that I regularly run longer on the Wed night CRC runs than he does. Yeah, he always cries about running 40 miles that morning and doing the CRC run barefoot, I guess we all have our lame excuses!

garden PR

Unlike some people, I didn't oversleep for today's Garden training run. Hard workout, and I was rewarded with a new PR for the tempo 7.2 mile loop. Ran it in 49:49. Doesn't sound too impressive, but it's a pretty hard loop. Had to throw in a huge surge from balanced rock all the way back to the parking lot to break 50 minutes.

Later today it's off to the Incline Club hill climb for a 30 minute race up Barr Trail. Should be shitty weather. Woohoo!

C-4 is going to try to steal my thunder later today. Good luck to her, but I think sub-7 minute miles in the Garden is much harder than giving birth. Case in point: how many high school kids can run seven miles in 49 minutes? Not many. How many high school girls give birth? Seems like all of 'em. So don't be whining to me about squeezing a basketball through your cooter or whatever analogy you chicks use, it can't be that difficult!