Monday - Tuesday 03-04JUN2019

On the running front, it has been a good couple of days in Scottsdale.

I was up early Monday.  Or at least the clock said it was early, given AZ is on Pacific Time (I think AZ does that thing where they don't do DST).  But the advantage was that it was only in the 70s for the run.  I jogged the canal for an hour.



Later - I didn't get out until about 8:30 in the evening.  It was still 90!

I jogged the neighborhoods for about a half hour.

While it is hot, I find it is very easy to run it.  The "it's a dry heat" thing is so true - at least for me.  I tend to wilt in the 75 and 70 percent humidity, but I can manage (I ain't gonna say thrive) in this sort of thing.

Tuesday - 50 something minutes in the AM, thru the local parks.

PM - it was 96 degrees when I got out of the office.  I turned around the gear and got over to Camelback to hit the La Cholla trail.  Everytime I do this, I a.) enjoy it, b.) ask what the hell am I doing as the last half mile of it is not running at all but all this class 3 and 4 goofiness that does nothing to improve fitness.  I am so slow on that stuff too.  Even on the easier class 2 stuff ... when I was jogging - A GUY CAME WALKING BY ME.  No, it is completely true.  Anyway, it was a fun up and down for an hour.

Sunday 02JUN2019

I was up early - which seems to be more the norm these day - I struggle to stay sleeping past 5.  And with everyone still sacked out, I decided to take advantage and get the run done - and get a run on Green.






My legs were not up for the task, and I knew this early on.  My brain wasn't super dialed in either, so I "went through the motions" ... and just had a grinder of a day slogging up the hill, not particularly quickly, but feeling like I was working hard.  I was fine with it as this was my second Green in a week - the first time I have done that in a very long time (certainly this year).

Round trip was about 6.9 (although it took me close to half a mile to remember where I parked the car).  I finished the week in the mid 60s, with my two Greens counting for my desired quality efforts.  The dual climbs pushed the week to be the largest vertical week of the year, and with the slower efforts the time climbed to over 10 hours for the first time this year as well.

Different sort of week on tap coming up:  off to PHX, and temps there are already in the mid 90s.  Should be fun to be back in the land of the cactus and scorpion.

Saturday 01JUN2019

A bit tired today ... a few with TZ in the AM and then cooked a bit in the afternoon sun for 8.5.

Friday 31MAY2019

Last day of May!  And we just had snow this week.  But today at least smelled a bit like summer for a little bit.





It was warmer than usual and I felt that but even with the heat, I managed sub 8s for an easy pace (that is not always the case).

May ended with 270 something miles, 3 Green trips, 2 donkey races, 20k feet of vertical.  I haven't even broke 10k of vert any other month this year so that is good.  Handful plus of other workouts, and 12 travel nights on the month.  Might be my best training month on the year, even with some days as "scratches" ....

Thursday 30MAY2019

My best run up and down Green in a while.  I went up Gregory/Ranger.  Still a lot of hiking for me on the steep parts but it was more running than I typically do up Amp/Saddle/Greenman.  Came back down Greenman, made the cutover towards Ranger and then back down Gregory.

Just a beautiful day on the hill.


Never felt super great but I was plugging well enough and moved faster than I have on the that is was significantly different.

Wednesday 29MAY2019

AM - did 5.8 with Syd B.  Easy.

Syd asked me if I could play one song for an open mic what song would I choose.  My answer was that it would depend on the audience.  I think I'd play a different song for TZ than if I had to pick one for an audience of a couple 100. 

I like to play music that the audience likes to connect to.  That might seem obvious, but that can be a really different set list than playing songs that the performer wants to play for themselves.  For example, in the acoustic thing we have talked about playing some Rush - maybe something like Red Barchetta.  I love that tune, but I can't see playing it as a part of our gig because it is not what I think folks want to hear.  They are out having a beer and so they want to hear something like Drift Away or Squeeze Box. 

Of course it is not a black and white thing, but I feel like I want to defer to playing things that people want to hear, be a part of and actually sing back at you - and that they can get away from it all for a moment and just be in that tune.  Now, if you can get them to want to do that with material you have created ... well, that is a "whole different bag."

I have also been thinking about how I learn songs (there is a whole bunch on this I could write about how learning songs is doing some weird jacking of my brain, but that is a different post).  There is a little something unfortunate about learning a song.  When you first hear it, it might be this beautiful thing to you.  But then as you - or maybe I - learn it, you are breaking it down, ripping it apart, dissecting it into all these parts that are just repetitive components.  It becomes this mechanical exercise, and to some extent the initial beauty of the song is lost - because you get to see it for just each of the notes, fret board fingerings, timings that it is.  You almost can't listen to it and enjoy it because you are stuck seeing it that. 

I am finding that there is a a phase beyond that.  Once I work through all that breakdown, there is a question of if I can bring it back together into a bigger wonderful object again - to a point of it not being a bunch of pieces of spittle and shrapnel - but a piece that others can enjoy.  Yeah, I know that sound simple, but it is not easy.  At least for me. 

Afternoon - 5.1 miles.

Tuesday 28MAY2019

10 miles, most of it with Greg.  Got a weird combination of weather - sun, and rain, and hail.  Still pretty tired.

It hailed last night too.  It has been a more interesting weather month for sure.

Monday 27MAY2019

8.1 miles.  Pretty sore in the lower legs, assuming that is from the pounding down yesterday.  Easy.

Week wrap up 26MAY2019

Haven't posted since Monday of the week - really reflecting long days of work when I was in Carlsbad, and then a busy weekend when I got home.  Let's see if I can recall it all.

Tuesday AM - 4.3, easy and slow.
Tuesday PM - escaped for a bit and banged out a six miler along the coast in tempo fashion.  Good run.



Wednesday - tired, both from work and from the run last night.  AM - 4 miles

Thursday - nada.  Too tired to get out in the AM, and did a business dinner after work.


Friday AM - four miles, again - slow and REALLY tired.

Flew back to CO Friday evening and landed around 10PM.

Up and at it at 6AM on Saturday for the first race of the Pack Burro season - Georgetown.  I went in with no expectations really - as I have not trained a lot with Jack, we are getting older, and these early season races are not always the best indicators of what is to come.


All the typical pre race burro stuff - saddles, catching up with everyone, missing gear, etc.  New to it all was that it was to be JZ's first official burro race!



The start to all burro races is always interesting, but I had my share of the donk-drama this time.  The race organizers had set up several barricade saw horses to funnel us through a small section of the street.  Before the race started, I spoke up along with a few other racers and said this was a bad idea.  One of the organizers said it was to assure that we all went by the chip timer appropriately which was on the left side of the street.  BR said, "yeah but we don't want to die" - as when you try to get some 50 plus sets of burros through a start like that it sets up to be a bad idea.  I walked out and started moving the barricades.  BR held my rope for Jack. As I finished the third barricade the gun went off - I had not yet made it back to the start line.  Some one got this shot.



I scrambled back to the start, swimming up stream against burro teams and grabbed the rope and then tried to get Jack going.  It made for an interesting start!

We got out of town well enough.  As we went under I-70 I felt we were well positioned somewhere between 3 and 7th.  Just over a mile into the race, on the dirt path (still double track) Yukon (with Bob S) kicked Shad in the hip and he went down hard.  I stopped, quickly got AJ and checked on Shad.  He gimped up, and got going again.  We probably lost 30 seconds or so and thus we were now somewhere in the teens getting ready to get onto the single track climb.

By the time we got that, we recovered enough to be in 8th (I think).  As we passed Union Gap and started the climb to the turn around, we were anywhere from 5 to 15 seconds behind the leaders but keeping a fair position.  But as we hit the turn around, Jack and I fell WAY back.  The lead teams were quickly out of sight through the turns on the upper road.

As we came back over Union Gap coming down, I could see the teams anywhere to 200 to 300 yards ahead.  And I could see as time marched on, we were closing.  By the time we hit the double track back to town, we caught the group and were in the hunt for the top five.  The back stretch of road back through town whittled that down to four.

Jack is usually not a great finisher in tight town settings when sprinting against other donkeys, so I was fairly content that we got as close as we had and figured it was all gravy now.  As we crossed the final bridge, all the donkey got going in different directions and I managed to get Jack to get a little lead.  It was a tough go over the last 20 yards as I could hear Bob and Yukon closing but we eked a win out by some 3/10ths of a second.

Apparently we ran the race about 9 minutes faster than last year too (and we finished second by a nose there) so I will take positives from that as well.

JZ came in a short while later with tenth!

I was super stoked for him and then I talked trash for the rest of the afternoon.  These burro race affairs are probably the only thing less than 10k that I can still have a shot at beating him at.
Got home, cut the lawn and then saw Rails End was having an open mic.  So at the last minute, I jumped in.  Did four tunes, about 150 people out there watching.  Screwed up a few parts, still have quite a bit to do to be more confident in my singing, but have improved with the few reps that I have put in.

We were back at it in Idaho Springs.  If Jack and I could win the second day we'd win the Red Tail challenge.  It has not been won by anyone yet and the pot of money associated with it keeps growing each year.  This year it would be six hundred bucks.



I had little anxiety about this.  Jack and I have never won this race and it is not suited for our strengths.  We don't climb up Virginia the way we used to, and with typically seven teams coming out of the woods together and another tight in town finish,  and it only being five miles, it does not set up great for us.

We stuck with the lead teams on the climb up, and were even with everyone on the downs to the trails in the woods.  It became a bit of a show in the woods as several teams got off course, and were fighting the scrub and scree in the ravine.  It screwed up several teams, including Bob and Yukon who were driving the whole race at that point.

As the teams came out of the woods, a group of seven teams came together to race it out over the last half mile.  As is usual, one of the minis - Crazy Horse with Andrew this time, had a late rally and nabbed the win at the line.  Jack and I were in third, perhaps a second behind it all.

JZ had a slower day, ending up 19th, but had a blast in his prep for Fairplay (he is thinking short course at this point).

Got home and did an easy five and change with Greg along the ditch. 

At home this week so I'll try to get in some solid Pikes prep training.  It was only a mid 40 something mile week, but I got close to 5k in vertical – the most I have had in a week this year.  And some good workouts, including the burro races. 

Monday 20MAY2019

AM - 30 minutes in Carlsbad to wake up.  3.6 miles.

PM - 4.5 miles, with the second half touching the gas a bit (after I finished the first half easy with a colleague). 

Weekend 18-19MAY2019

Super busy weekend. but one with the cup was full.


First on Friday we celebrated TZ’s father’s birthday.  He turned 80.  We were supposed to do this in a local park, but the weather turned – so it was “hey, let’s have 50 or so folks at our house for BBQ.”  It was pretty awesome.


There were a lot of family out for JZ’s graduation, so the whole affair was a family  reunion of sorts.  It was pretty wonderful.


Of course there was JZ’s HS graduation on Saturday.  That was a nice little milestone


Particularly impressive at the graduation was the kid in the band who built a house of cards to stay entertained.



Saturday was a zero – my first day off in about 10 weeks.  There was just too many other obligations with graduation activities and related celebrations. 

Sunday – I made it over to Green, and on the way, I gave JV a call.  He was kind enough to allow me to keep the pace slow.  It was fun to catch up with him.  It was one of those interesting days on the hill where it was different temps on different side of the mountain – with it probably being 10 degrees cooler on the backside compared to the front.
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A high fifty week with 2 days of significant “get up” work.  Not bad but not great.  Will keep plugging in SD this week.

Friday 17MAY2019

AM - 8.5 miles through Lac Amora.

Thursday 16MAY2019

Started the day with an easy four miles along the ditch.  The water is flowing good there now.

Then off to the State meet for the 4x8.  The girls got a visit from the runner up in last year's 5A 16 and 8 and who ran from behind to bring a 4x8 victory to the Eagles, and now a runner at Wisco - Maddie Mooney.



It was also Greg's birthday.


The state meet is always a blast.  We didn't have our best day at the meet in terms of performance, but we were there, will learn from it and press on.  It was and will be good.

In the afternoon, I had the privilege of getting a run in with the boy who graduates this weekend.

And he most definitely made me run a bit faster than I had intended to. But it was a gift.

Wednesday 15MAY2019

AM - a couple with TZ and then added a few along the ditch, very easy.  The ditch is full!  So exciting.



State meet starts tomorrow.  In the distance events, we have girls competing in the 4x8, 8, 16 and 32.  Should be a fun few days.  It starts off tomorrow with the 4x8.