Thursday 043015

AM – 5.6 super easy before heading out to the airport.  It would be great if the airports I was travelling to were all geared like this.

Played with time lapse for the first time today.  It requires like zero calories of work. 

Little wrap on the month as April is done.

April stats:  355.3 on the month, 49.75 hours and 29120 vertical feet.  On the year it is 1362.4 miles, 185.18 hours and 67,700 vertical feet. 

Muse – looking forward to the album coming out in June. 

Benji Durden training log from 1983.

Ron Hill has run an amazing 160000 miles in his lifetime. 

Wednesday 042915

Weird calendar day and had a window to get 8.1 in.  I felt the need to get after it a bit as I  will probably have tomorrow off (travel) and no hills real vertical this week.  I worked a couple of sections  fartlek style (.9, 1.8, and 1.1).

Strava is stupid.  Apparently I did not run a segment I thought I ran today.  GPS satellites must have shifted 3 feet to the right or something. 

Nice Durden interview.

Evening – 4 miles with some strides at the end.

Tuesday 042815

Someone has the ACT today.  This is their last minute studying with a donut and some hard core Calvin and Hobbes reading.

Items I am contemplating picking up for the antics this summer. 
NAO2
Black Diamond Carbon Trekking Poles
Garmin 910XT
Now, arguably, I don’t really need any of that stuff.  It is nice to have stuff that will make longer treks more comfortable to some degree but it is not mandatory stuff.  I have other lights, I really don’t need a watch (or I can go with a cheaper one or not even a GPS one) and I can find some other substitute for poles.  The cost of all those items up there comes to close to (185+165+375) 700 dollars.  I guess if I had to go with any one of the items it might be the light first, then the poles, then the watch.  Somewhere along the way I am looking at getting some new shoes (I am preferential towards Hokas for this affair), and another water bottle / hand holder.

The RunJunkie guys have a funny mash up on the Penn Relays.

Timmy Parr has a helluva race schedule.

Casey Neistat … “you have to keep bustin’ your ass to move forward.”

Afternoon – the wet and cooler temps have blown out.  I felt a bit heavy legged and lethargic and had a limited window so it was kept to 10.1 miles.

Monday 042715

I have seen tactical races, but this one has to be the most redonkulous one I have ever seen.  Oregon and ‘Nova leading going into the anchor leg of the 4xmile with Chez and Williamsz taking it up.  They both have the capacity to pop a sub 4 to post a never seen in college sub 16 for the race distance … but instead it turns into something that it both ugly and enticing at the same time.  Tune into it at 12 minutes if you can’t take the whole thing.

Nice follow up on the Daily Relay on those antics.

Day almost slipped away from me, but I got out late afternoon for some easy cruising.  10 3 miles. 

Saturday 042515

AM – 10.3, first mile or so with TZ.  Easy throughout. 

JZ and I headed to the National Western Stock Show complex for the Denver Area Council.  Glad he was in the front seat of this one.
JZ took on an afternoon project.
In the evening we did a fish fry in the neighborhood.

And KZ had prom.

While KZ was at Prom, we headed over to JAM (Just After Midnight) – the post prom affair to bring kids back to the high school to have a safe party.  It is open to the public to see (great marketing for people to get involved, and for future HSer to want to go to it – heck I want to go to it).  It is amazing what they do to entire huge areas of the school, with art, entertainment … the whole affair is incredible.

Sunday 042615

I was out late last night drinking beer, then some wine and eating lobster and conch fritters.  Not exactly the sort of thing I ought to be doing before an early morning long run.  But do the crime, do the time.

Dr. Nick convinced me to meet him at 6:30 over at Chautauqua.  I saw him as I was driving up Baseline and made sure to tell him that the rain we were getting there had not been an issue at my house in Broomfield. 

But we committed.  Up Flag, down Flag on the road both ways and then do it again.  18.9 miles with just over 4k of climbing for me.  I was glad that Nick elected to keep it easy because given my stomach was sloshing around like some beer bisque, a harder effort would have surely left a mark. 

Watch died at 17 miles, but given the out and back nature it was easy to figure out the distance.  It was a bit wet and cold but not bad as long as we were moving.  Sort of one of those running in a cloud days where you are are going to be soaked when you are done even it was never raining.  It was sort of raining so we just got soaked sooner.   It was good we got it done sooner because it really started to come down as we finished. 

Oh yeah, we saw several SAR vehicles on the road – apparently for this.

Great to catch up with Nick on a variety of topics and I am pretty sure I would have bailed after one lap had he not been there.  And I guess I can officially name him as one of my pacers for LT this year.  He reminded me he is a pacer – not a babysitter.  Excellent. 

84.6 on the week, all singles and 13k of vertical.

Kipchoge has the resume wheels of Geb.

Friday 042415

Brandon has a humorous post regarding workflow at Chipotle.  This is funny, but it especially resonates with me as that sort of eyeballing of workflow is part of what I do.

Corporate weenieville … I see this stuff all the time.  And I am probably guilty of some of it.

CSI Longmont …

Strava gets in on the Boston Marathon geekiness.

Nice recap of Boston and a preview of London by the HOR guys.

Headed up Green via the middle route.  Started out hot.  Ended up in snow.

About 90 seconds after I took this vid, I started to head down, just as another guy came up on the summit.  He too was without a shirt and we laughed at each other as to how we each made the same silly choice.  He headed down Ranger, and I headed down Greenman (to go down the middle route). 

Just after the last of the rock fields (before the last bridge) in Gregory, I saw him (the middle route down is Greenman, Ranger, Gregory, the back route down is Ranger Gregory).   I was not pushing, and in fact my legs had felt like crap all day (up and down) and I was just absorbing the run versus pushing (but moving enough to keep warm).  I came up on him just before the Gregory lot … and as I expected he picked up the pace.  As we hit the newly carved Baseline trail I came by him and said hello again … except he didn’t quite give the trail … and so within five strides it was on.  I didn’t even think about it.  It just happened.  We barreled by Mark L who was finishing his own run and we must have looked like we had time trialed the whole damn thing together rather than the last 200 yards.  He cracked a touch as the trail flattened.  It sort of looked like this.

7.8 miles.  Fifth Green of the year.  All in the last 5 weeks.

Thursday 042315

Great wrap up of Boston (with hints to this coming weekend’s London) by Sully.  Nate has his DNF RR from Beantown (thoughtful).  And Sage comes up short on a tough weather day for his OTQ goal.  You got to figure this kid will get the sub 2:18 when he gets the right race.  ElevationTrail does their own coverage, including a read of Sage’s report.  Finally, stats fun if you want to geek on Boston a bit.

I like where Tawnee is going, with this post and the whole EP thing.

So here you have a masters woman win Boston and 10 grand with a 2:46 performance (keep in mind all the times were slow given the head wind).  Question:  should she have been allowed to win that given she had previously been hit with a two year ban for EPO?  You could argue she “did the crime, did the time” or you could argue she should never get to compete for such winnings again given her use gave her a lifetime advantage.

Apparently, going forward, if you run sub 3:30 at Barr Trail, you will be qualified for the PPA and PPM the following year.  16 weeks until Pikes. 

The training logs, stories that Bob Hodge has are great.  I found he also has a blog feed as well.  I met Bob back at Mount Washington in 2009 (was that really that long ago now) and he was an all around great guy. 
Good wisdom up in his training logs and posts.  Like this Canova stuff.  Runs hard, drinks beer, listens to things like Muzzle by the Smashing Pumpkins

I fear that I'm ordinary, just like everyone
To lie here and die among the sorrows
Adrift among the days
For everything I ever said
And everything I've ever done is gone and dead
As all things must surely have to end
And great loves will one day have to part
I know that I am meant for this world
My life has been extraordinary
Blessed and cursed and won
Time heals but I'm forever broken
By and by the way...
Have you ever heard the words
I'm singing in these songs?
It's for the girl I've loved all along
Can a taste of love be so wrong
As all things must surely have to end
And great loves will one day have to part
I know that I am meant for this world
And in my mind as I was floating
Far above the clouds
Some children laughed I'd fall for certain
For thinking that I'd last forever
But I knew exactly where I was
And I knew the meaning of it all
And I knew the distance to the sun
And I knew the echo that is love
And I knew the secrets in your spires
And I knew the emptiness of youth
And I knew the solitude of heart
And I knew the murmurs of the soul
And the world is drawn into your hands
And the world is etched upon your heart
And the world so hard to understand
Is the world you can't live without
And I knew the silence of the world

Got the permanent crown on this AM.  I elected to not get numbed up as it is just placing and cementing the crown on.  I was fine with it – except when they blow the cold water and the air on the underlying tooth to clean and dry it before cementing the crown on.  That is harder than any workout I have ever done.

Afternoon 12.2 miles.  Easy for the most but felt good so opened it a bit on a couple of parts, nuthin’ nutty.    This crap is slicker than it looks.

Wednesday 042215

Afternoon – 13.3 miles.  Muddy on the Mesa.  I wanted to get some vertical and I figured the Mesa would be a good mixup – no big climbs outright but it just adds up over it.  And a mix of up and down over and over, versus the classic go up and then come down sort of thing.  That works for Pikes but not as much for Leadville where there is more than a single climb.  2.8k of vert.  More vert now in April than in March.

I was pondering this on the run today:  how to teach my son Kanban board principles to organize various work he has to do for Scouts.  Not sure if that will work or not. 

And I was also pondering this:  in running we know the concept of hard-easy in training.  And if we can really listen to our bodies, it is something you innately know.  After a hard day you can feel that need for the easy day as you maybe sore, edgy, a bit stiff.  Here’s the turn:  I had a bigger week of work last week.  While it was not fighting fires, it did require me to be “on.”  So it was a “hard” week.  While I am not outright fatigued I can feel in my brain a desire to have an “easy” week.  The same way after a hard workout on the easy day you can feel soreness in that hamstring, I can hear quiet disdain in my head for small talk in the office.  You can still run on it, and maybe you might even push it and of course I engage with people positively but I can feel that small edginess back there.  Rather than listen to voices in podcasts, I have tuned into Brahms.  Facebook nearly disappears because it screams in the corners of my head.   I found a nice solace in the white noise of the lawn mower. 

Tuesday 042115

Jenkins apparently passed out at 19 miles.  Matt T is at least honest:  “Do I like the marathon? I think it takes a special person to really….. No, I don’t like the marathon.” (six minutes into his interview).

Sharman is coming back to Leadville and is wanting to break 16 hours.

Afternoon – 12.1 miles, with some vertical (~2.2k) while avoiding the snow.  Work to be done.

Monday 042015

AM – in the office, wrapping up on items from last week but keeping priorities.

If I had to pick the US marathon teams today, I’d have to go with Meb, Ritz and Teg.  I can’t see Hall coming back, but admittedly the drop to the third spot is significant.  That could be Estrada, Cabada, Eggleston, Arcinaga or (gulp King) … and when you think about how Ritz is considered pretty fragile and Meb is like as old as the book of Exodus, their spots are hardly guaranteed.  On the women’s side it is probably a bit more clear for the top two:  Shalene and Desi, but then again – that third spot is pretty open.  I like Cragg but I can see Burley being in the mix there. 

Bummer on Nate J. 

Go back and watch the last 100 yards of the women’s finish.  Dibaba was right there and then finished in second four seconds back.  You can see how once Rotich went to her last gear, Dibaba markedly shut it off.

Somewhere over the weekend I ate my temporary crown.  I didn’t even notice until after the fact sometime.  Ugh.  Back in the chair to get a new temp on as the actual crown is not in yet.

Late afternoon – 10.1 miles with strides at the end.

Browning is saying the race down in SA (Ultra Fiord) is the most technical he has ever seen.  Yoiks.

I have taken pause for a bit in watching various WWII documentaries and picked up Netflix’s/Marvel’s Daredevil.  I have been hooked by the story line but it is ridiculously violent.  I think I can say safely that it would not have been considered acceptable in nearly all media outlets 30 years ago.   I was wondering a bit on my run today why we have seemed to embrace violence on the stage so much or in other forums (say video games or MMA) while at the same time as a society look to embrace peace.  We of course don’t see folks hung or burned at the stake as we may have in our history, but we still see as much violence – or at least have it pretty accessible.

Sunday 041915

Afternoon – 12.6 miles.  80.1 on the week, 232 on the month.  10 hours this week and flat – just over a 1000 of vertical with half of that coming here in Colorado after I got back from Vancouver.  A bit zipper in terms of pace – as evidenced of an average of 8mph.  Since XC Nats I have averaged 83 miles a week, with a low week of 50 (the week after Nats). 

Eagle COH this afternoon.

Saturday 041715

Travel home … sunrise over Vancouver.

On the flight, caught up on the latest ATC (what the hell is a movement snack?) and ET (the classic debate on what roadies could do at ultra distances).  On the run this afternoon I listen to the Nate Jenkins interview with Jay Johnson.  Or is that the Jay Johnson interview with Nate Jenkins?  In any case, it is excellent – really dig what Nate is talking about in terms of marathon training in this interview.

The family is happy to see me.  But this girl takes it to another level.

Afternoon – back home.  10.1 miles.  Easy cruising.  Tired from the travel but not so much in a running regard.

Fastest legit mile (not downhill) in CO …

Friday 041715

AM – slow to drag my arse out.  5.1 miles.
I head back tomorrow cuz I could not find a flight this evening that worked.  I am surprisingly having a better week than I expected – both in terms of how I feel running and how much I am doing. 

Carpenter is finally in the Colorado Running Hall of Fame.


Finished our onsite work here today and headed down towards Gerry Point to relax for a bit.

Evening – post dinner, 4.3 miles.

Thursday 041615

AM – easy cruising, 6.3 miles after a 6AM call with Ireland.  I am in a bit of a vacuum on this trip as I am heads down on work, sneaking in runs, and sleeping.

The latest in exercise science:  The studies also found that prolonged or intense exercise is unlikely to be harmful and could add years to people’s lives.

Evening – a break in the action and a beautiful night.  11.5 miles out to the southwest end of Richmond and back.

Wednesday 041515

AM – was able to get up, shake off the morning sleepiness and get at it in a reasonable timeframe.  10.8 miles along the Dyke trail, starting easy, progressing and then a bit of low grade tempo for the last four, five.

PM  - I got a bit of a break from the grind and was able to get an hour in.  I was intending to go real easy but it was such a beautiful night, sea level, I was suddenly easily floating at a pace that was 30 seconds to a minute a mile faster than what I’d call easy back home.  7.1 miles.

Otherwise I am getting crushed at work this week.  I want to write up a bunch about Matt C getting into the CRHOF but that is slipping by me while I am up here in the Pacific NW.

Tuesday 0411415

AM – slow to rise, as is often the case on day two of these events (my body catching up with the schedule change and a general non desire to get out at the crack of light).  6.1 miles on a breezy morning, including some strides at the local track.

Monday 041315

AM – Vancouver.  6.1 miles, slow and sluggish to start.  I got in around 9:15 local last night after a bumpy flight where I shared my seat with a gentleman who was easily 2x the human I was.  We all shared a nice hour snaking through the customs line.  Then waited for another 30 minutes for the airport-hotel shuttle.  Ah, first world travel problems.  But it sort of unravels once I get out for the AM jog.  A little rainy.
The view from the hotel room.

Sunday 041215

Mid afternoon – 5.1 miles.  I woke up pretty creaky from yesterday’s effort and didn’t sleep so well.  After a couple of hours of moving around the house however, I felt pretty good.  Biggest issue is, if there is a big issue, might be the chaffing.

91 and change on the week, 8900 feet of climbing and just shy of 12 hours.  All around this might be my best week of the year so far with the 3 Greens in 3 days, and then the longer run yesterday and even touching the gas on some stuff towards mid week.  I feel pretty good.

This next week will be a “down week” as I am traveling to Vancouver.  I will be near the shore without a car so my ability to get hills will be compromised as well.  No worries – I will take what I can get.  A recovery this next week is fine as well.

Saturday 041115 Palmer Lake

Palmer Lake:  41 miles, 5:45.  Really, I could use Brett’s report from Lake Hinson from a couple of years ago as the template.

Pretty much an easy run for the first 30 or so.  With easy running and breaks every .82 miles for water I hit 10 in 82 and 20 in 2:45.  Somewhere in the 30s, the legs were starting to protest just a touch and so I called the effort at 50 laps around the lake (41 miles).  I could certainly stretched the taffy to 50 miles, and I strongly considered it, but I didn’t want the taffy to snap, or put myself too deep in a hole.  I just knew that another 9 miles would have been digging a bit to get under 7 and it would leave me more on the downside than I wanted.  So you can say I pussed out. 

Basically, I feel mission accomplished … a longer than usual run for me, not completely thrashed out but stretched some, and I learned a few things as noted in the video:  need to figure out nutrition for longer runs since I seem less than compelled to take it, don;t make the rookie mistake of forgetting Vaseline, my Garmin has a battery life of 5 hours, and I better not go this quick to start Leadville.

Mentally I held up well.  I sort of like these courses and the mental games you can play with it.  “Okay, five more laps for me to get my phone for some music” (I didn’t use it for the first 35 laps and then when the watch died I stopped using the phone for music as I fired up the Strava app).  I know some would find this sort of run in stupid circles thing nuts, but my brain seems to find it easy to embrace.

Saw Jeremy Bradford and Peter Jones (and a few other of the typical characters in the ultra community) out there.  They look to be running all night.  Have fun with that.  I was home in time for dinner. 

Chatted with Wes T at the end (he came out to check it out and ran my last lap with me).  Good to chat with him as always.  Other things I need to dial up are light and poles.  More to come.

Post script Saturday morning:  cool pic from Peter.

Friday 041015

Helluva story:  member of Nirvana, Soundgarden and Special Forces.

Sub two on a the round trip to Green via Bear Canyon looks like to be a challenge I will chase this spring.

I have decided to head to Lake Palmer tomorrow, and get in a long run. Ideally I’d get through 50, learn a thing or two, run it without blowing up, and under six hours.  Of course, things are rarely ideal.   If they ain’t I will game some game day calls on how to manage. 

Afternoon 5.7 easy, with the dog to start.  Of course since I have decided to toe the line tomorrow (well, sort of, I expect to get there about an hour or so after the start), I become hyper conscious of how everything feels, which then means everything feels like crap.

Thursday 040915

I was kicking around with JV the amount of time it takes to get to the Green summit from Chautauqua via the Bear Canyon route.  On Monday that was 80 minutes for me and on Wednesday it was 75.  I certainly was not “crushing it” but my mind started to wander a bit on some numbers … certainly I could break 70 with some effort, right?  Heck someone had to have run this under 65.  This sort of seemed like a good emulation run for the Barr Trail race, 6.5 miles up and just under 3k of climbing with nearly all of it being runable.

Of course Strava told me that Sage had the fastest known time in 67 minutes but based on his HR, hardly working.

I was surprised to see that Brandon had such a zippy time.  No offense to Brandon, but I figured if he popped a 69, then I was clearly slacking in my efforts.  So after some email exchange with JV, I took a look at the respective routes.  On the right is Sage’s and on the left is Brandon’s  You can clearly see that Brandon’s route is more direct than Sage’s – and that makes sense.  The trail had not been rerouted to the longer circuitous version it is now at that point.  The vert was obviously the same, but it is now a lot longer in terms of distance with all the switchbacks. 

So the question really is why does Strava even think this is the same run?  I mean, I guess there is a commonality to some extent:  same start, finish, and a good amount of overlap on the Mesa portion (but even that has been rerouted). The variation from the grey line trail is significant in multiple places … obviously some level of variation has to be applied because in a typical race there could be folks running different tangents and stuff … or someone might even go off the course a little bit for a pit stop.  Of course, runs might change up in the hills even without a trail reroute (consider the ladder towards Saddle Rock).

New ET sticker on the laptop.

AM – 5.6 with strides at the end.  Felt pretty good.  Off to get a broken crown removed.  All this gold.  I am gonna be rich.

I can’t make this year’s Kohl 5k (travel) but it is a good local 5k if you are in the area and looking for that sort of thing.

Evening  - 5.2 miles before a corporate affair.  Picked up the last mile and a half and felt pretty good.  Four buzzard over the neighborhood.