quarters

8 x 400m, 200m RBI.  Much better this week.  93 for the first one, then the rest were all sub 90.  Including 85, 84, and 82 to close.  Those are three of the fastest quarters I've run in a long time.  My track speed is rounding into form just in time for the olympic trials!

Awesome two hour ride coming home from work yesterday.  Cheyenne Canon, Upper Columbine, Spring Creek, Gold Camp, Red Rock Canyon.

whiskey #14 & #15

After finishing Collegiate Peaks I took proper recovery actions by immediately heading to Deerhammer Distilling Company only a quarter mile from the finish line.  Sampled both of their whiskies (also tried the gin as well) and it was all delicious.  The Down Time is up there in Stranahan territory.

Collegiate Peaks

Gimped my way through the 25 miler at Collegiate Peaks on Saturday.  A combination of a weak ankle and general lack of fitness for the longer distances put me about half an hour behind where I was hoping to finish, crossing the line in 4:55.  Very up and down race,  had some good moments and some bad moments.  Boyak ran steady as always, and I kept bouncing ahead and behind of him all day.  Got to catch up with quite a few folks I hadn't seen in a while, and that was great.

Despite the slow time and the suffering I endured the last ten miles of the race, I did feel I could have turned around and done the course again.  So the San Juan Solstice is a go.

quarterly update

Already a quarter of the way through the year.

Running - 680 miles

Biking - 1300 miles

Hiking - 100 miles (basically, anything that allows me to get the dog off leash)

Incline - 30

Whiskey - 13

Little bit behind on the running goals, little bit ahead on the biking goals.  Such is life when you're old like me and get injured all the time.

Should get my Incline goal fairly easily, especially now that the weather is improving.

And the whisky number should start climbing as I start traveling more.

incline #30

Thurs AM - Three weeks to the day, I returned to the scene of the accident.  Cheyenne Canon.  Ran jogged it fine up to the High Drive cutoff.  Wasn't pretty coming back down, but I made it.  Think next Thursday I will start up the Mt. Muscoco climbs. 

Thurs PM - Got to 29 inclines real fast, then it took a while to get to 30.  45:24, not too horrible considering I took it pretty easy as to not jack up the cankle anymore.  Hurt a lot more coming down Barr than it did climbing up.  Might be the last afternoon incline with the dog as the warm weather is bringing out the crowds.

Not going to lie, even though I publicly went with a goal of 50 inclines, I was shooting for 100.  Then I found out the Incline would be closed for a few months.  Then I missed three weeks due to injury.  So yeah, like I said, 50 for the year seems about right.

Fri AM - 1000 feet for breakfast up Rampart Range Road.  Beautiful morning.  My camera sucks in the dawn light but it's fantastic to see the sunrise over the Garden.

whiskey #13

Henry McKenna Single Barrel Bourbon.  This is the last in the "Jeremy" series, so the quality, or at least the price, of the whiskey will probably take a nose dive.

update

Starting to add some activity back to the schedule.  The ankle isn't 100%, but at least now I would label it as "discomfort" as opposed to "pain."  Still planning on running the Collegiate Peaks 25 miler this Saturday.  Should be interesting as the last time I ran more than ten miles was back at Salida in March.  But I'm in the JV race, so even if I have to hike the last 20 miles at least I won't have to feel guilty about making the volunteers waste the day, as I should still beat some of the 50 milers.  I'll make a decision on San Juan Solstice based off how the ankle holds up during CP.

I've also realized that Dirty Kanza is coming up really, really fast.  I should probably get on the bike between now and then.

Saturday - Was going to jump into a 5K but during my morning hike with the dog the ankle just wasn't feeling right.  So I took the fat bike out in the shitty weather for three hours on the Cheyenne Canon trails instead.

Sunday - 10K run, longest I've gone since busting the ankle.  Then I got on the bike for an easy two hours of local hike and bike trails.  $100 and I went to hot yoga that evening and I was able to push the ankle a bit during the balancing routines.

Monday - Now that Spring is here I have changed my usual 20F temperature to 30F, meaning I don't work out if the temp is below that.  Got up early to ride on Monday, but it was friggin' 26F, so I went to the gym instead.  Warmed up, and I was able to ride home via Cheyenne Canon for another two hour ride.  Monday was bike commute #50 on the year.

Tuesday - Track!  6 x 400m.  Very slow, the ankle wasn't the happiest it's been but I wanted to test things out.  Later, another two hour ride on the way home from work.

Cup 'O Dirt #1

Finally, my first 100K ride on the year.  I thought I'd be halfway through the Cup 'O Dirt Challenge by now, but Mother Nature has had other plans.

Easy route, from the house over to the Santa Fe trail via the Sinton Trail.  From there I went north and did a loop around Palmer Lake.

The Air Force isn't winning me over anymore.  The Santa Fe trail will now be closed until the end of summer.  A few of us commoners have been complaining about this for a while, but in the Gazette today Susan Davies, who has a much bigger audience than I do, had this paragraph in an article:

"Perhaps it's time to seriously consider a new route that would remove the region's major spine trail (also part of Front Range Trail) from academy property. Since public dollars paid for that stretch of trail, and now it is essentially a private trail at the academy, perhaps AFA would help finance an alternative trail that commuters and recreation users can rely on."

Air Force football opens on September 3 with Abilene Christian (no, that is not a high school) and I hope ten people show up.

Of course, being prior Army, I don't really take anything the Air Force says very seriously.  

Anywho, on the way back I dropped by Pikes Peak Brewing for some Elephant Rock IPA.

To stay on as much dirt as possible, I rode the final miles through Ute Valley Park.  Love those trails and I need to get there more often.

Who needs Moab?

Made a quick stop to see my other dog.

Ended up with 62.7 miles.  Strava data is over here.  Out there for almost eight hours, though that included three pretty long stops for beer (also hit Red Leg Brewing before the final push home through the Garden of the Gods).  It dawned on me as I got home that I hadn't eaten anything all day.  Did this ride on a liter of water and five beers. 

whiskey #12

Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel.  An elegant, complex whiskey.  The flavors are nice and tight.  I copied that review from the webpage, but it was another good drink.  Enjoyed with a cuban cigar.  Both the whiskey and the cigar were courtesy of friends, so I must  be doing something right.

brownie is back, baby (part 2)!

More comebacks than Alan Webb, baby!

30 minute road run this morning, covering 5K.  Very stiff, but no pain.  Will slowly work back into it, and am still hoping to run the Collegiate Peaks 25 miler next Saturday.

Last day of the climbing league last night.  Didn't push the ankle too far but it held up.  Flashed another V3.

false start

Tried to run this morning but after 30 seconds I knew things still weren't ready to go.  Dog was happy since that led to a full hour of hiking over in the Garden.  I'll try again Thursday, and if that fails I'll just wait until May.  I did run on Friday, but I had quite a few beers before starting and I guess that masked the pain a bit. 

Did an hour of hot yoga last night, pushed the ankle pretty hard and it held up well.  And I've been doing lots of hiking and biking on it.  It's still swollen, but it's only running that gives it any trouble.

activity

Ankle is still a bit swollen, but the pain has gone away, so I'm slowly starting to get back at things. 


My gawddamn ant stick is acting up once again, but I have been doing some good hiking with the dog and I did run on Friday - 4.5 miles at the PPRR Full Moon Run.  On Saturday I stood around most of the day at the Cheyenne Mountain 50K, volunteering at an aid station.  Did manage a 100K bike ride on Sunday, and I'll post more about that soon as it was my first ride of the Cup 'O Dirt Challenge.


Going to attempt to run on Tuesday morning and then keep an every-other-day schedule until I'm fully healed.


Took this while walking back from the aid station.  Think it's target #1 if we ever have a nuclear war.  But hey, show the terrorists you're not afraid and sign up for The Cheyenne Mountain Run, which was a blast last year.

brownie is back, baby!

Lots of activity on the gimpy ankle yesterday.  After taking the dog to the vet (rattlesnake shots), we hit up the dog park for half an hour.  Then $100 and I went for a nice ride over in Red Rock Canyon.  Then I stood on the ankle for a while as we downed a bunch of beers at Fossil.

Hour hike with the dog this morning in the Garden.  I'll be testing the ankle out tonight at the Full Moon Run.

RIP

We lost a great one today.

Chyna, thanks so much for showing up at my wedding and kicking the crap out of Spider Man.



A coworker gave her a fitting tribute.  He confided to me, "She didn't die today, they just found her body today.  She probably died a day or two ago."

Oh yeah, one of the Phish songwriters also bit the dust today (speed ahead to 3:30 if you don't have the patience to appreciate true musical genius).

Thursday

Finally, one full week into this ordeal, some big movement on the cankle front.  Tremendous improvement after a good night of sleep.  Longest morning walk with the dog in the last week.  If it improves this much by tomorrow morning, I will consider it more of a nuisance than anything painful.  Still looking at a few more rest days unfortunately.

Went down to Colorado College to see Jon Krakauer last night.  While we were in line, he walked by us, drinking a bottle of Compass IPA from Bristol.  So I like him even more now.  Very interesting to hear him talk about some of the thoughts that went into his books.  He mentioned that every single sentence in every book of his has been rewritten at least 100 times.  I thought about how rarely I spend more than five minutes on a single post here.  I guess that's the difference between having a blog only your mom reads to being a famous, bestselling author.

Pre-talk burritos and brews at La'Au's Tacos.

Wednesday

Not much new on the cankle front.  It actually hurts today worse than it has since Friday morning, but the swelling continues to go down.  Another AM half hour walk with the dog, bailed on riding to work due to the pain.  Starting to get antsy with all this inactivity.  And my life balance is getting out of whack, there's nothing to counter all the junk food and beer I'm consuming.  Blech.

Pikes got a ton of snow with the recent storm.

There is a bicycle themed hotel going in just down the street from us.  Maybe this will be the bar that replaces the void caused when the Red Rock Lounge closed down.

cankle update

The cankle is slowly but surely returning to normal.  Still a lot of pain, but at least it somewhat looks like an ankle now.  Lots of black and blue around the ankle and even the toes.  I went to the dog park yesterday evening and limped a good 3/4 of a mile with $100 and the dog (the dog went significantly farther), and I got up this morning to limp around for a half hour with the dog.  So at least I'm moving again.

This was as good a week as any to have this happen.  A long stretch of shitty weather (it snowed again last night) and a Wednesday trip to see Krakauer (so I would have missed climbing anyways).  Aiming for a short run on Friday evening at the PPRR Full Moon Run, a rest day Saturday as I work an aid station all day at the CM 50K, and then a big ride on Sunday.  Hopefully the schedule is back to normal by next Tuesday.

Yes, sometimes us superstar athletes have to deal with ankle injuries.

whiskey #10 & #11

Needed to get out of the house on Sunday, so $100 drove my gimpy ass down to Manitou Brewing Company.  Besides having great beer, MBC also has a decent collection of locally made whiskey.  Had me a Colorado Whiskey from Distillery 291, located a few miles from the house at the old Bristol Brewing location.

After that it was back home to enjoy another in the Jeremy series, Lost Spirits Leviathan III from Lost Spirits Distillery.  Delicious.  As a bonus, one of my 14 million TV channels was playing Tedeschi-Trucks from the Southern Ground Music & Food festival.

The doctor laughed when I refused a prescription for pain meds and said I'd drink whiskey instead.

whiskey #9

Another treat from Jeremy in his "whiskey gifted in containers that look sketchy" series.

Buffalo Single Trace Oak 109.  Again, a super fancy whiskey that comes in significantly on the wrong side of triple digits per bottle, meaning I'll probably never try this again.  But it certainly was enjoyable, something I haven't said much about the super expensive whiskeys.

Buffalo Trace has a 5K on the distillery grounds if you find yourself in Frankfort, Kentucky on July 4.

V3

I had been doing good things before my cankle injury.  Track on Tuesday morning, then a solid trip up Carpenter Peak with Kircher Tuesday afternoon (followed by Living The Dream brewing with he and JP).  And on Wednesday evening I even got my second ever V3 problem.

I am still terrible at slacklining.  I can't even sit on the thing when it's on the ground.  Here's a shot of Team 2 before we all hit the bar.

Someday I will get to the 5Point Film Festival in Carbondale.  Almost got there this year, but could't quite make it work (yes, I say this every year).


2016 5Point Adventure Film Festival Trailer from 5Point Film Festival on Vimeo.

Twisting the knife is that this year will include a live Dirtbag Diaries with Semi-Rad talking about his latest book.  I just finished his book, and it is fantastic.

One book I got from the library and wasn't able to finish was the follow up to Born To Run, Natural Born Heroes.  I felt like McDougall just wanted to grab some cash from the waning popularity of his first book and the crossfit folks.  Terrible read that I returned to the library after getting halfway thorough.