This past Friday I headed up to Blackhawk to run in the 13th annual Golden Gate Dirty 30, a tough 50K race in Golden Gate Canyon State Park that makes for a perfect spring training tune-up and excuse to dive from ski season into running season. It was my 5th time running the race, which made for a cool milestone and came along with a special bib and “5 year finisher” embroidered jacket. Megan’s attention to small details like these is what makes Dirty 30 a great race and one that’s easy to return to year after year.
It was a good day out there for me. Snow season in the Vail Valley ended awhile ago below 10,000 ft so I was able to log several long runs with decent vert heading into race day. Each year the course seems to get slightly easier too, mentally if not physically as well. The weather was also nearly perfect this go around, even for 8am starters, as things stayed nice and cool in contrast to the 80 degree heat of the past few years. Keep reading…
Earlier this year I signed up for the Dead Horse 30K thinking it’d make for a good excuse to head to Moab for a weekend in late-November. The Dead Horse Ultras put on by Mad Moose Events offers three distances – 30K, 50K and 50-mile – which all start from the same point and wind up and around through the Magnificent Seven Trails area northeast of Dead Horse State Park. The courses feature lots of miles running on red slickrock and through creek beds and sand washes, which lends to a true desert race feel. Keep reading…
To kick off the month of November Anna-Lisa and I headed back to Hawaii for a week, to the Big Island this time around. Generally speaking November is a great month to go to Hawaii and it usually also happens to be a great month to get out of Vail as well, so it’s sort of a no-brainer. While there we did our best to channel the island vibe and relax a little, but also made sure to get out for a couple adventures in between. Keep reading…
Summer is more or less over in Colorado, with snow starting to accumulate in the high country as winter’s grip slowly tightens. But as per usual the late-summer/fall window made for a nice venue to bag some peaks and ultimately hit my 500th thirteener summit this past Sunday, a nice milestone to reach just ahead of ski season. As I fell behind on keeping up with blog posts throughout the fall I figured I’d summarize things in one go. So without further ado, here are the highlights… Read more…
