Lost Lake camping trip...

August 22-24 - Lost Lake:

Busted out to Lost Lake Friday afternoon. Lost Lake is ~16 miles west of Crested Butte--which is just north of Gunnison, CO. Did some hiking both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Sunday I hit some random bike trails north of Crested Butte. Absolutely beautiful territory out there. Although it took me ~5 hours to get out there--I somehow made it back in ~3.5 hours. Long drives--but definitely worth it and exactly what the doctor ordered for this weekend.

Dani got wood:


Just a nice shot:

Christy:

Dani striking her pose:

The crew starting the hike Saturday morning:

North of Crested Butte (driving back from bike ride):

Pikes Peak Ascent/Marathon weekend...

Saturday, August 16 - Pikes Peak Ascent:

JQRC manned the Ruxton aid station again this year. It was pretty wet out there this year! Many of the Ascent runners missed the cutoff time to get to A-Frame and were forced to turn around. By doing so, their ~13 mile run turned into an unexpected ~20 miles.



Later that evening, we all met at Paul Niewinski's place for a post-Ascent/Wild West Relay party. The evening started innocently enough with food and Olympics watching--later evolving into beer pong and water guns...

Sunday was the Pikes Peak Marathon. Most of the crew did the Ascent only. Ryan signed up for the double and successfully summited both days. Meanwhile, JT attempted the Leadville 100-mile foot race. He made it 70/100 miles this year. Valiant effort!

Sunday evening JT held a MOPP hash starting at "The Keg" in Manitou. This "hash" really turned out to be a bar crawl since virtually everyone there was involved with some daunting race over the weekend and wasn't in the mood for any more running.

Last several weeks in a nutshell...

OK, I'm really behind on updating this thing. Who really has time to blog their life? Nonetheless, I felt I should drop an entry into this blog to attempt to fill in the space...

In a nutshell (only a partial update):

Saturday, July 19 - Moonlight Classic Bike Tour (Denver, CO):

Angie, Tungsten, Olivia, and I did this midnight bike ride through downtown Denver, CO--starting and ending outside of the capitol building. http://www.moonlight-classic.com/


Monday, July 21 - DIM hash:

I co-hared this hash with Allison Plute and Chris Lee. We started at Mill Hill Saloon on 21st, went through various parts of Bear Creek Regional Park, and ended near Gold Camp Road. We actually cheated and pre-layed part of this trail (the last 75% of it). Chris and Allison live-layed the first 25% and lost the pack right off the start. I received no end of flack about this--but the beer stops were good and the on-after was a great success--so I did my job well IMHO.



Sunday, July 27 - Pool Day:

OK, I needed a day to relax. So I went to Angie's posh fitness club and chilled by the pool the better part of the afternoon...


Friday/Saturday, August 1/2 - Wild West Relay:

I participated in the Wild West Relay this year with a team from Jack Quinn's Running Club. We called ourselves the Jack Quinn's Drunken Runners. As a team we ran 195 miles from Ft. Collins, CO to Steamboat Springs, CO. Each runner had 3 legs (average distance about 7 miles). Some serious uphill--some easy downhill. Our team finished in ~27 hours, 36 minutes.

The team consisted of two vans, 12 runners:

Van #1:

Kerry Page
Karen Evers
Charlie Grumbine
Matt Laubhan
Paul Niewinski
Jesus Jimenez

Van #2:

Jeff Owsley
Tim Barry
Karen Barry
Ande Barry
Shawn Finley
Jeff Chowning

And, of course, we appreciated the help of our volunteers Brian Maguire and Paul Niewinski's sister Christine Tomasino!

Some of us stayed the night in Silverthorne Saturday night and boozed it up at Johnny G's in Frisco. We then hit the bluegrass and beer festival in Keystone on Sunday.

Quite an experience! Will definitely do it again next year if I can!

Monday, August 4 - Jerry Garcia DIM hash:

I co-hared my third DIM of the season with JT. We started at Red Rock Lounge in Old Colorado City and ended at Townhouse in Manitou Springs. The trail started down the middle of this creek:

And ended with a turkey/eagle split.


Saturday, August 9 - Woodland Park Mayor's Cup 10K:

Due to other obligations, I couldn't run the Georgetown to Idaho Springs half marathon. Instead I opted for a small 10K in Woodland Park. I ran it in about 44:20 (~7 min miles). Got first in my age group. Good way to wake up! Met some cool people in town from out of state for the Pikes Peak Ascent/Marathon next weekend.


Sunday, August 10 - DeCaLiBro 2008:

JT, Katie, Tungsten, myself, and others decided to hit Mt. Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross (just outside Alma near Kite Lake). We met at JT's place at 5:30 AM and got started at the trailhead at about 8:30 AM. Altogether we traversed about 7.7 miles of mountain and approaching 4000 ft worth of ascent. We were moving out to beat the incoming rain--but T and I did manage to hit all 4 of 'em. Then stopped at South Park Saloon (the nation's highest saloon) for some high-altitude cow...