!

beer 214

Rock River Red Ale from Berghoff Brewing in Monroe, WI.  Enjoyed after once again not finishing the 3-2-1 workout on Pikes, settling for a 3-2 instead.  Can't complain about a ten miler all above treeline though.

beer 213

‎Death By Coconut. Oskar Blues.

French Fry Heaven

New restaurant in downtown Colorado Springs, French Fry Heaven.  It opened today and I was able to sneak out of work to grab an order.

Definitely not the best fries I've ever had.  That honor belongs to The O.  And at best they're the second best fries I've had in Colorado.  Unfortunately for FFH, the best fries I've had here belong to Bingo Burger, who is opening across the street any day now at the end of August.

Very meh on the place, but it's day one and I'll give them another chance.  Probably several more chances, since the place is on my walk back to the office after lunch visits to the YMCA.  I ordered the ranch fries today, and for $4.50 I got a mediocre sized cone of fries.  That's a steep price to pay considering one order of these fries won't fill you.  Kind of cool to munch on fries while checking out all the mental health issues to be found downtown though. 

beer 212

Belgian Pale Ale from Manitou Brewing Company.  MBC been fantastic ever since they opened in March and I think they have cemented their place among the top breweries in the Pikes Peak region.  Up there with Bristol, Red Leg, and Pikes Peak for sure.

Incline #35 on Thurs evening.  Rained the entire way, fitting since it hasn't stopped raining around here in days.  Drove by Maggie's Farm on the way into town, at 4:20PM they became the first place to buy recreational marijuana in El Paso County.  Despite warnings from all the old people in the county, Manitou has yet to collapse into hell.

Last big month before the crux of Leadman, and I made it count.  215 miles running (43.5 hours), 358 miles on the bike (43 hours), and another 9.5 hours of hiking.  Going into a hundred mile run I like to have at least two back to back 300+ mile months.  Now I'll be going in with back to back 200+ mile months.  Guess we'll see if biking really does get you into shape, or if it's just an outlet for dudes who like to spandex up, shave their legs, and show off how much disposable income they have. 

beer 211

Vanilla Firkin from Red Leg. 

Great show last night at the Black Sheep.  The Toadies opened by playing the entire Rubberneck album.  Hard to believe that album is 20 years old.

Out late, so no run this morning.  Got in a half hour at the Y over lunch.  Blasted the pecs, worked the guns, that kind of stuff.

beer 210

Easy five on the Garden roads on Tues AM, easy seven on those same Garden roads in the PM.  10K on those roads Wed AM.  The Garden never gets boring.

Rumor has it that Green Man here in the Springs has been contacted by lawyers from Green Man in Asheville.  To be continued...

The Springs brewery scene continues to grow.  Iron Bird will open on August 16, and Gold Camp Brewing will open a few months after that.  Read about them here.  Both breweries are walking distance from my office and a quick ride down the bike path from my house.

Toadies tonight at the Black Sheep.  Gonna party like it's 1994!

beer 209

I swear I'll get this updated some day.  Lots going on.  Spent all weekend up in Breck hiking around with the dog, $100, and the in-laws.  Not the biggest fan of Breck but I can't say enough great things about Broken Compass Brewing.  It has replaced Backcountry Brewing as my brewery of choice if I'm in that area.  No food there, so it will keep out all the runners!

Surprised myself with an eleven mile run after work today through the Garden, possibly the most I've ever run on a Monday.  Easy 5K (had to get to work early) this morning and a good half hour at CityRock as well.

Have sort of started my taper since concerts on Wednesday and Saturday will render this week useless from a training perspective.

beer 208

Chocolate Coffee Stout from Broken Compass. Highly recommend this joint.

beer 207

‎Hop Ticket from Victory Brewing in Downingtown, PA. Yummy!

Grays Peak

beer 206/brewery 102

‎Broken Compass IPA

beer 203, 204, & 205

Snuck out at lunch on Tuesday and headed over to Fieldhouse Brewing for a Fist Pump Milk Stout.  I attended the Hops for Heroes later that evening, but I stuck to New Belgium Ranger all night (life is so rough) and I couldn't remember if I had that for the beer challenge this year.

Wednesday was the Golden Ale from Eldo Brewing in Crested Butte.  Please see my review in an earlier post about how this brewery has really good bands play there.

We're over the 200 mark on the beer challenge, and I have yet to touch my stash in the basement that I built up over the last few months of 2013 specifically for this throw down.  Probably have 200+ different kinds of beer down there.  I've relied mostly on trips to Colorado breweries and friends hooking me up.  I should try to take a chunk of that collection out so the wife sees what she calls "progress" in clearing out the basement, but that might be a challenge as I have lots of trips coming up which present the opportunity for new brews.

Training is going well.  Might have drank a few too many brews on Sunday, as my ride up Cheyenne Canon on Monday was rough.  Rough as in I had to walk my bike up part of it, and I may or may not have been seen lying on the side of the road in the fetal position crying for my mother.  Bad day indeed.

But I have a short memory, and I headed back up the Canon today after work.  Crushed it.  Under an hour from the office to the top of the Canon, and sub 1:15 to the top of High Drive.  On the way home I got caught in quite the storm, with lightening such as this:

That pic was stolen from the FB page of our local super hottie meteorologist, pictured here:

July has been a good month for me.  Not much going on this weekend other than hiking with the in-laws up in Breckenridge, but I'm still on pace for 215 miles running and 350+ on the bike.  After this month it's just lots of yoga until I can (hopefully) put this Leadman thing behind me.

Drank an Elevated IPA from La Cumbre Brewing Company out of the A-B-Q tonight.  Not quite as awesome as blue meth, but pretty good.  Went down well while watching Slaying The Badger, which is well worth the three bucks on amazon if you're into the Tour de France or watching a good 'ol 'Merican boy kick the shit out of a Frenchie.

Saw this shirt the other day.  Couldn't agree more.

beer 202

This was my supper on Monday night.  Being an adult rocks!

Red IPA from Eldo Brewing in Crested Butte.  Payment for the strenuous job of dog sitting for Marc and Amanda.  Eldo has a great music lineup.  That's all I'll say about that brewery.

beers 200 & 201

On Saturday I met Grimes up at Twin Lakes for a tour of the harder parts of the Pb100 bike.  We rode up and down Columbine, then drove over to Fish Hatchery and rode up and down Powerline.  Of course I drank a beer in between, Fire Eagle IPA from Austin Beerworks.

The rides went well and I'm feeling confident I'll finish the bike, barring a mechanical issue or wreck, in around eleven hours.  Coming down Powerline was rough for me but not the impossible barrier I was expecting.  Here's proof I made it to the top of Columbine:

We stayed up high for a bit to get in some altitude. 

Six hours of riding total, I was pretty beat by the end.  Refueled with brews and pizza at Eddyline.

On Sunday I made the drive up to Elk Park and ran up to the summit and back.  Think it was my 23rd legit summit.  Long day due to some trashed legs, the entire trip took over six hours.  Saw a guy on top sporting a Hardrock t-shirt, turns out he's a five time finisher.  We chatted for a bit and he said he got his 5th finish back in 2008 and then went on to find other non-100 miler things to do.  Think that's the boat I'll be in after Leadville this year.

Sunday evening was spent at Front Range BBQ for some brews and live music.  I feel my life has a much better balance lately now that I'm seeing live music regularly.  FRBBQ has the 120 Minute IPA from Dogfish available.

 

This Tuesday I'll be headed over to McCabe's for the Hops for Heroes shindig.  I work very closely with the Operation TBI guys so being able to support them by drinking beer is pretty awesome.  If you live in Colorado Springs you should check this out.

beer 199

Silver Rush

Nice shot of the 1500 meter run at the Monaco diamond league meet.

Just kidding.  That's me and some other dude, obviously in a big hurry, putting the rush into the Silver Rush 50.

Another one.  Still crushing it.

beer 198

Rode down to the New Belgium Clips of Faith shindig at America the Beautiful park on Thursday night.  Lots of NB stuff on tap and I went with the FOCOlaboration for the beer of the day.  Two of my favorite Colorado breweries teamed up for this, New Belgium and Odell's.

Got to meet one of my bike heroes, Fixie Dave.  He parked my bike for me at the bike valet.  Dude rode the Continental Divide Trail on a fixed gear mountain bike in 33 days.  When I had a fixie, I struggled to control the thing on the 3.5 mile paved commute to work.

 A few of the usual suspects on the red carpet:

Before the movies, $100 and I dropped by the new 503 West, formerly known at the Dutch Mill Tavern.  Good burger and if you're a fan of Colorado beers you won't be disappointed.  $100 is now dying to hit up there weekend bloody mary bar. 

On the ride home we couldn't pass up a visit to Alchemy.

Needless to say, I did not get up early enough for a run on Friday.

beer 197

Scotch Ale from Rohrbach Brewing Company in upstate New York.  Good stuff.

Close call from all the rain on Wednesday evening.  Camp Creek filled up FAST!  But the creek held.  Whatever flood mitigation work the city is doing seems to be working.  SOP for floods is to head down to the Red Rock Lounge, which was filled with folks from Woodland Park and Manitou who couldn't get home due to closed roads.

beer 196

Red Betty IPA from Central City Brewing in Canada.  Our neighbors up north can brew some decent beer!

Finally starting to feel normal again.  Did an hour of hot yoga on Monday evening, which helped speed up recovery.  This morning it was an easy 30 minute dog jog, followed by the quick bike to work.  Not much of a lunch, but I snuck out for a few routes up and down CityRock.  Then an hour home on the bike in the rain.  Easy day, but I feel much better than yesterday.