cold

Shitty week as the latter part brought some super cold temps that made going outside pretty awful.  Got in a good 20 miler on Monday but the mileage tapered off after that.  Did spend a lot of that time at Planet Fitness, so not a total waste.

For the week:

run - 43 miles, 7.5 hours

hike - 22 miles, 9.5 hours

Dry January came to an end for me on Friday the 23rd.  We had a bunch of people over to the house to watch the Alex Honnold climb, and he ended up postponing that to Saturday.  I had a bunch of Yuenglings anyways.

dry January

Mon - incline number three on the year.  Trying for 52 of those in 2026.

Tues - run commute five.  Five miles there, five back.  Ran the middle three miles of the AM commute pretty hard.  CityRock four at lunch.

Wed - run commute six.  Five there, five back.  

Thurs - work from home in the AM, so after a Red Rock Canyon dog hike I got up to Sondermann Park for a few miles.

Fri - run commute seven.  Five there, 3.6 back.  Watched the High Lonesome lottery in the evening.  For the third year in a row, not only was I not selected to run, I didn't even make it on to the 125 person wait list.  Working on a back up plan now.

Sat - super cold temps, it was 12F when I got the dogs over to the dog park.  Not very motivated to run, managed 3.4 miles in half an hour before heading over to Planet Fitness.

Sun - nada.  Did a 12 hour shift with the Security Fire Department, riding along in the ambulance.  Finished my EMT class, now all that's left is passing the national exam and I'll be an EMT.

I have once again made an attempt at dry January and am still going strong, my longest effort yet.  I should be able to make it at least until the 21st, three full weeks, before giving in.  My biggest break from alcohol since 2003 when Iraq made it slightly more difficult to get beer.  I wish I could report back on great health benefits or feelings of euphoria, but I feel the same as when I'm having a few beers a week.  Only now I'm more bored on weekends.

For the week:

run - 47 miles, 9.5 hours

hike - 33 miles, 13.5 hours

7457 feet of climbing.

snow

Mon - easy four miler on the Garden trails in the AM, second incline of the year in the evening.

Tues - run commute two.  Five there, six back.

Wed - run commute three.  Five there, 3.5 back.

Thurs - Five miles on the Garden trails in the AM.  Looks like winter might finally be making an appearance this evening.

Fri - no AM dog hike as I had to dig out our house.  8.5 inches of snow, which is a lot here in the city.  Run commute four, four miles there and 3.5 back.  CityRock at lunch.  Caught Adam Carolla at our local comedy club in the evening, he's a little more right wing than I remembered but he was funny as hell nonetheless.

Sat - up early to volunteer with SAR at the Winter Series.  The wife has been sick lately so instead of heading out for a run afterwards I took the dogs (we're also watching Millie right now) over to the dog park to run some energy out of them.  

Sun - Dog park in the early morning, SAR training in Red Rock Canyon, then 14 miles on the road through the Garden and Manitou.  

For the week:

run - 51 miles, 9.5 hours

hike - 25 miles, 11.5 hours

9187 feet of climbing on the week.

2025

I got older and slower.  Yay.

The numbers for 2025:

run - 2150 miles, 467 hours, 221,450 feet of elevation gain

hike - 1468 miles, 698 hours, 204,907 feet of elevation gain

bike - 835 miles, 78 hours, 37,499 feet of elevation gain

102 run commutes.  39 bike commutes.  87 trips to CityRock.

Just over 600 hours for SAR.  About half of those hours are missions, which can happen at anytime and make regular training difficult nowadays.  

But I got another hundo in, and another San Juan Solstice, and a few more state marathons.  And a big honkin' mountain.  I ain't quite dead yet.

In '26 I'm signed up for the Little Rock, Salida, and St. Louis marathons.  Possibly Des Moines later this year.  Pondering some new to me races this summer, though I'm sure I'll end up at Pikes again.  And we just had a Planet Fitness open across the street, so I'll probably spend some time there fighting this old age thing.

For the first week of 2026:

run - 54 miles, 10.5 hours

hike - 12.5 miles, 5.5 hours

Mexico

Great time down in Mexico with Alpenglow Expeditions.   So nice having hotels and transportation all lined up.

Flew into Mexico City, and on my early morning walk I found a 10k.  I guess Sears is still alive and well down south.

Rest of the trip was travel around to the two big climbs.  First up was La Malinche, a 14,640 foot beast of a hike.  At the time, it was the highest peak $100 and I had ever climbed.

Lots of random dogs on the hike, all of which we made friends with.

Then it was off towards Orizaba.  We got our first look at the mountain from the hostel.

Took a day to acclimate, going on a nice four hour hike from the hostel.

Next it was off to the Piedra Grande hut.  Somewhat famous in the mountaineering world.  It was packed so we ended up sleeping in tents.

Here's me at the highest shitter I've ever been to.

Midnight wake up, 1am start.  Seven hours later we were at the summit!  18, 490 feet.  Incredible experience.  Up and down in just under twelve hours.

After the climb we went back to Puebla to celebrate.  Next day it was back to Mexico City.  We had an extra day there so we caught some Mexican wrestling!

Such a great trip.  $100 was motivated enough to sign up for a trip to Kilamanjaro.  I've been eyeballing some bigger stuff as well.

20:35

Chip time of 20:35 at the Ugly Sweater Run  5k at Wash Park in Denver yesterday.  OK with that as I didn't run at all while we were in Mexico, but obviously I still have some work to do.  Went for it, and while it wasn't a total disaster I definitely showed down a bit the second half of the race.  Miles were 6:28, 6:42, and 6:44.

The Mexico trip was a total success and I'll get some pics up from that soon.

holiday weekend

The usual for me - drank too much but did get in two inclines.  Including the first run of the season for the Incline Club, which now starts just after Thanksgiving due to the September date for Pikes.

All packed for Mexico!

The blog will go silent for a bit as $100 and I head down south to take a crack at Pico de Orizaba.

turkey trot

Solid run at the annual Turkey Trot over in the northeast part of town.  A few too many beers on Wednesday didn't help, but I ran smart, holding a little back on the uphill first half and passing quite a few folks on the second half.  21:06 officially on a slow course.  I finished around a few people who can go sub 20, so that gives me hope.

Shout out to my dog Mookie for finishing his second turkey trot!

Moab

Good times down in Moab!

Left on Thursday after work, stopping for the night at Broken Compass in Breck.  One of Mookie's favorite breweries.

Next day it was off to Moab.  Did the van life thing and I ran the Dead Horse 50k.  The run went well, the camping was great, the hiking was fantastic.  Such a great time!  Just under six hours for the race.

Stayed in Moab until Monday morning, then we went back east to Fruita and spent the night at 18 Road.  

On Tuesday, after another great AM hike, we made the trip home.  Stopped by Angry James brewing, who is giving a chunk of change from their winter ale to the Mile High Weim Rescue.  We got our first dog, Holly, from those guys.  Support your local dog rescue!

For the week:

run - 59 miles, 12 hours

hike - 20 miles, nine hours

Kokopelli XC

Took me a bit to recover from the long day with Gnar, but still a decent week.

Jumped into a rare 3PM cross country race down south at El Pomar.  5k course, mixture of dirt and grass, but flat.  Was hoping to hit the sub 20 goal but once again came up short, crossing the line in 20:16.  From the satellite watch and talking to folks after the race, I think the course was about 30 seconds short.  Hot damn I was falling apart the second half of the race.  I will take another crack at a sub 20 on December 21st at the Ugly Sweater 5k in Denver's Wash Park.  Flat and fast, I'll have no excuses.  Also doing our local Turkey Trot, but I won't go sub 20 on that course.

For the week:

run - 33 miles, six hours

hike - 30 miles, 14 hours

Taking the van out to Moab for a few days towards the end of the week.  Excited to get back out there, it's been a while.  Mookie's first time to Utah.

24 Hours of Gnar

Another year of running a bunch of loops on a dirt road up in Fort Collins.  Went up Friday evening to join some friends at Intersect Brewing, and then at 8AM on Saturday I started running one mile laps at some youth school just east of the highway.  I ran really well for the first twelve hours, then hiked mildly OK for the last twelve hours, though the breaks at the van got longer and longer as the time passed.  Ended up with 76 loops.  Great event but next year I'm only doing the twelve hour run.

Caught up with Kircher at Denver Beer Company on the way home.  DBC no longer has this brew on tap but holy hell I wish I could have tried some.

Monday was a big, fat zero day as I was super sore.  Four miles on Tuesday on the Garden trails, still sore but improving.

On Sunday a great friend and stalwart of the Pikes Peak Road Runners passed away.  Not sure how the local running community will replace her.

Franktown

Been way off my usual routine lately and it's showing up in the human powered numbers.  

Went to Franktown for three straight days for some EMT classes, on top of dog sitting anywhere from one to three extra pups.  Plus a heavy SAR week.  On top of that, I got a shingles shot which knocked me on my ass for a full day.  Oof.  Good thing it's the offseason.

Happy eleventh anniversary to Fossil Brewing.  Good times over there on Saturday.

For the week:

run - 19 miles, four hours

hike - 16.5 miles, eight hours

No Doubt

Not much going on fitness wise.  Did get up Mt. Herman for a SOTA activation on Saturday, and made the trek up to Barr Camp on Sunday with Mookie.

Get to hang out with Kircher's dog Ollie for a bit.  Lots of dog park hikes in the near future.

We will be making our first, and probably last, trip to the Sphere this May.

For the week:

run - 48 miles, eleven hours

hike - 30 miles, 15 hours

bike - 41 miles, 3.5 hours