After a disaster of a 2013 Pikes Peak Ascent, Tim has brought me back on board for the 2014 PikesPeakSports.us Triple Crown Team.  You can go here to see my intro from last year.  Since I can’t figure out how to run the Ascent without getting embarrassed, I’m just going to settle for a full weekend of throttling from the mountain as I signed up for the Double.

Of course, there’s a little race in mid-July that I need to worry about first.  Hardrock prep is going well.  I’m trying to get my fifth finish there, the magic number that makes you an official old fart.  It also increases my chances dramatically in the lottery, should I ever want to go back.  Every year around 3AM, with 21 hours on my feet and another 15 or so hours to go, I promise myself this will be the last time.  We’ll see if that sticks this year.

You can’t tell it by looking at Pikes Peak, but spring is finally here.  I know this because when I ran the Horsetooth Marathon in Fort Collins the first weekend of May, the trails were covered in so much snow and ice we were afraid the race would be cancelled.  Two weeks later at the Quad Rock 50 miler, that same area had exploded in color and the trails were in great shape.  Yes, we needed that late snow with all our water issues around here, but hot damn am I glad winter is finally over!

This past weekend some friends and I headed up to Denver for the Colfax Marathon.  Such a great way to explore the Mile High City, something I don’t do nearly as often as I’d like.  My plan going in was to run with the 3:15 group for the first two hours, a solid workout for me, and then back off the pace.  Executed well, running with that group through 15 miles before stopping at a pub on Colfax to wait for some buddies.  Ended up finishing in just under four hours off a 1:35 first half.

Overall the training is going great.  I’ve been posting faster times on courses I’ve run before with pretty easy efforts.  If I don’t overdo it I should be in good shape to run 34ish at Hardrock and then shoot for a sub eight Double, which would hopefully include finally getting that sub three Ascent.  Because as I’ve shown in the past, in order to fail miserably you need to have huge goals beforehand…