Running & Stuff

Since Collegiate Peaks, here's what I've been up to:

RUNNING
Not a whole lot to report here, other than my relative lack thereof. This is going to change quickly now and make for an interesting few upcoming weeks, since I just recieved confirmation that I was no longer on the San Juan Solstice wait list, but will now be running it... it looks like I've got a whole lot of suffering to look forward to in my near future; June 18th, to be exact. Hopefully I've done enough maintenance runs in the last few weeks to not die out there.

For those who aren't familiar with the SJS 50, here's the website. Think of it as Hardrock lite, with the general consensus being that it's the hardest 50 miler in the country. Some people say it's a toss-up with Jemez, and in about 3 weeks, I'll be the judge of that! To add to the excitement, they have had record snowfall and, in turn, runoff this spring, which should make for a course more treacherous than usual. Can't wait.

The only long training run I've done in the last month was a hard 20 miler last weekend. The highlights? Running into a pissed off wild turkey in Williams Canyon and having to hitch a ride home after I had a super-bonk due to no food or water, mixed with 80+ degree heat.

I have had some shorter runs/hikes worth mentioning, all of which are just west of Colorado Springs on trails that I never knew existed. This has made for some really enjoyable adventures and exploration despite the serious vertical gain. The last of these little adventures was to a random 9200' summit a few miles north of the Scar which houses the local bighorn sheep population. Right around the 9000' point my friends Marc and Amanda and I found the remains of a 1944 B-24 Bomber plane crash. In case you're wondering, this is NOT a small plane, and there were still bits and pieces of this plane and its fuselage spread all over a couple acres on the side of a steep and loose mountainside. After doing a little background research, Marc discovered that this plane went down in an April snowstorm while on a training flight, killing all 7 crew members aboard. It's an eerie feeling stumbling across a crash site like this and imagining the final seconds of those individuals' lives...

Anyway, moving on to less morbid subject matter,

HEALTH
I've been sick for a while, and by a while, I mean I just found out last week that I'd had strep throat for almost a month. I originally got really sick about a week before Collegiate Peaks, and then it kind of just lingered with me basically getting used to having a terrible sore throat every day for weeks, regardless of what I took for it (lozenges, salt water gargle, etc.). Last week I finally broke down and got it checked out at the doctor, and sure enough... strep. After only 4 days the sore throat is gone. Weird. I kinda wish I'd done this, oh, say, 3 weeks ago! Live and learn, I suppose. At least it's behind me now and I'm feeling almost human again.

STUFF
New discovery: Intermediate league hockey is considerably more competitive and faster paced than Novice... our season just ended and I"m pretty sure my team went 1-6. It might have actually been 2-4, but when you're losing that often, it all kind of blends together...

Besides hockey, I've recently discovered something else I'm really not good at - golf - except with this 'sport', I can not only be bad at it, but I can be pissed off the whole time as well. If I was mentally stable, I'd be writing about how I'm never going to play again, but being the glutton for punishment I am, I'm sure I'll be squeezing 9 in around all my other bad ideas/hobbies.

Tonight Yeasayer is playing the Ogden in Denver, and Tony and I are both going to finally see them in person for the first time. It has the makings for a fun evening! I know this video is uber-weird, creepy, and slightly off-putting, but if you can get beyond the weird, oozing, blob-creature, it's a great song.