A couple days ago I had a hill repeat run workout scheduled in glorious 83 degree heat. My hamstrings were already screaming at me from a tough week of strength training so I wasn’t really looking forward to the run, but I knew it needed to get logged so I HTFU’d and pulled on my running shoes. After a 15 minute warm up that consisted of the shortest strides ever thanks to too-tight legs, I made it to the bottom of the hill I would climb six times. Jason had a hill repeat run too, only he had eight climbs because he’s more beastly than I am. We both started at the Volunteer Park Cafe on Galer in Capitol Hill and would run from there up a steep 200 meters until we reached the entrance to Volunteer Park, then we’d turn around and jog back down. The hill is somewhat crappy — it’s a steady climb for most of the way up and then has a nice and shitty steep finish. My hamstrings actually felt less sore when I climbed so the repeats actually weren’t too bad. I was running up the sidewalk during my last repeat when I glanced across the street and noticed two absolutely stupid looking Boston terriers running up the sidewalk too. A mild wave of annoyance crossed through me as I thought the owner was probably behind the dogs and had let them off the leash like a douchebag. When I got to the top of the hill, I turned around to descend but saw nobody in sight. At this point the dogs had reached the top of the hill and were darting all over the place in a spazzy little frenzy. Some random dude who looked like Wilford Brimley emerged from the park, saw the terriers, and exclaimed, “Well where did you two come from?” He fended off oncoming cars while trying to shoo the dogs out of harm’s way. The terriers turned around and started shooting back down the hill. By now Jason had realized that I was more interested in the dogs than in doing my cooldown, so he looked on in annoyance while I tried to flag the dogs down. He and I are mostly compatible with a few exceptions: He hates when I make hard-boiled eggs or eat tuna fish because they’re stinky I get annoyed every time he washes his face and flings water all over the bathroom mirror He’s not a big “pet person” Regarding #3, Jason and I are like the Sharks and the Jets from West Side Story. I grew up with a plethora of animals — since childhood, I’ve had a pet hamster, a bunny, a guinea pig, a cat (pre-allergies), and a wild assortment of dogs I’ve loved (my brother’s beagle) and loathed (two stupid, high maintenance chows). He, on the other hand, grew up in a pet-free home, so he’s never had much interaction with furry critters and is therefore pretty “meh” about them in general. I want to get a dog but he’s very eye-rolling about the matter. Since we’re at a standstill regarding bringing a dog into the household, I have to get my doggy fix with random pooches I come across. Okay, back to the Boston terriers. The big one shot down the hill on the other side of the street but the little one started to run towards me. I clapped my hands and coaxed it over, then spent a few minutes chasing it around until I managed to half-tackle the damn thing (I should have logged the extra time and distance with the rest of my workout...

It’s hard for me to award this dude the Mediocre Athlete of the Week since he was at the top of the pack for a big city marathon and is therefore a pretty bad-ass runner, but he lost the race when he inexplicably took a wrong turn 200 meters from the finish line and headed in the wrong direction.

Sunday was the Las Vegas Rock ‘n Roll Marathon, a race I signed up to do but unfortunately could not participate in because of my increasingly annoying Achilles injury. The last time I updated you on the status of my feet, it was the left foot giving me grief while the right Achilles was intermittently tight. Now my left foot appears to have healed but the right Achilles has gotten worse. It’s now instantly tight and stiff when I start running and is stiff in the morning when I wake up and hop out of bed (morningtendon?). At first I thought I could still manage to do the half marathon, but after realizing that I wasn’t going to post a decent time and would just end up risking further injury, I begrudgingly opted out of doing the race entirely.(Believe me, eating a $135 race entry is a tough pill to swallow. I can only imagine what it’s like to get injured when training for an Ironman and watching your $600 entry fee get flushed down the toilet.)

Every month or so I head to Colorado for work. This time around, I brought Jason with me so we could attend my boss’s housewarming party (I use the word “house” loosely, as 12,000 sq. ft is less of a “house” and more of a “Xanadu”). We spent the 4th of July hiking and trail running in Colorado Springs. That may sound impressive at first until I tell you that I both fell on my ass in true Mediocre Athlete fashion and we got horribly lost and ended up going twice as far as intended. Never go hiking with us unless you want people to stumble across your squirrel-eaten carcass months later. Jason and I drove over to Colorado Springs (we held our breaths as we passed the Focus on the Family Visitor Center exit so we wouldn’t get our souls stolen) and parked at a 6.5 mile trail head so we could do a hike/trail run. We had an 18 mile run scheduled for that day but figured we could manage to do a 3 hour hike/jog in the high elevation (around 7,000 feet) and trail terrain and call it good. It was a hot, sunny day and the trail was virtually deserted. We ran when we could and walked when we felt like our hearts would explode. I snapped a picture of Jason as he tried not to look like he was drenched in sweat: I made him take a picture of me before we ventured on: After a little bit, we stopped so I could do the requisite “self-portrait attempt” with my long monkey arms. 10 times out of 10 this results in me cutting off the top of Jason’s head in the photo (stupid 11″ height differential). Here’s attempt #3: We ran a bit further and came across a little foot bridge that took us over a tiny stream trickle and some rocks: Since it was so hot outside, I splashed some of the cold water on my arms and neck. When I turned around, I saw a little butterfly. “OMG, NATURE! MUST TAKE PICTURE!” Jason patiently waited for his dorky girlfriend. When I was ready to leave, he jokingly said, “Don’t slip and get swept away by the strong current.” I was like, “Hurr durr, I won’t,” and then promptly slipped on the rocks, fell on my ass, and slid a few feet down towards the foot bridge. It was so ridiculously inept that I couldn’t help but laugh: Then: “Wait a sec, I didn’t sit on the butterfly, did I?” Thankfully, I did not have a squished butterfly corpse smeared across my ass. After laughing heartily at me for a few minutes, Jason helped me up, cleaned me off, and we finished our trail run. From that trail head we drove over to the Garden of the Gods, a park that has a bunch of cool rock formations and lots of intersecting trails. We got a map at the gift shop and decided to do a 4 mile loop. While running, we came across a couple who offered to take a picture of us in front of some rocks. It turned out pretty ridiculous: We had to dodge a ton of horse crap on the trails because a bunch of dooshers were riding horses and couldn’t be bothered to clean up the giant dung piles their animals left behind. Running amidst steaming horse shit on a hot, sunny day aren’t my ideal hiking conditions, but to each his own. Jas and I tried to head back to the car to complete our 4 mile loop, but since all of the trains intersect and...

Last week I spent four nights in New York City, came home for a day, went to Penticton over Memorial Day weekend to train, came home for less than 24 hours, and flew to Denver (where I am right now) for work. Despite all of the jet setting, I managed to get in a decent training weekend. I have tasted Ironman Canada, and it tastes hilly and challenging. Jas and I drove to his parents’ house to carpool up to Penticton. On the way we stopped at REI so I could pick up some leg warmers because I realized it’d likely be ass cold over the weekend and I had forgotten to pack tights. We arrived at our hotel in Summerland, unloaded the bikes, and enjoyed the overcast views of the lake. On Saturday Jason, his dad and I woke up and prepped everything for our ride. We parked a few miles from the transition area and started setting everything up when I realized that the black rolled up wad of fabric I grabbed and shoved into my bag wasn’t arm sleeves like I thought, but rather compression sleeves for my legs. Fudgers! It was going to be a gray, chilly day, and my wimpo arms were surely going to freeze without some sort of cover. Jason suggested I just wear my compression sleeves as arm warmers. I didn’t have any better options, so that’s what I did. I ended up with 90 miles of compressiony goodness, but unfortunately I realized two things after the ride: The sleeves, which typically go from under my knee to my ankle, weren’t long enough to cover my entire arm. Even though the sun wasn’t out, that doesn’t mean the rays weren’t poking through the clouds. As such, I ended the ride with this B.S.: The watch tan I’m used to. The half-forearm tan? Not so much. (I’ve grown accustomed to the hairy arms though, so deal with it.) Anyway, I started riding for a whopping minute before realizing that, no fucking way, my bike computer’s cadence sensor wasn’t working again. What the shit, I just replaced this stupid thing two weeks ago! I angrily fiddled with it for a while, and it went from not reading my cadence to not reading anything. Great, now I was going to ride 90 miles with no indication of my speed or cadence. Frustrated and fueled by rage, I took off and anger-rode for an hour. After a while, Jason appeared next to me, slightly out of breath, exclaiming, “It took me forever to catch up to you! You need to slow down!” Apparently I was averaging about 24 mph and was climbing rollers going 20. To be fair, the first 30 or 40 miles of the Canada course are pretty fast, with lots of flats/downhills and a few inconsequential hills. I pouted a bit more about my broken computer but decided to slow it down in anticipation of Richter Pass. Before we got to the pass, Jason’s dad got an epic flat by running over a huge kinked wad of wire. He wrestled it out of his tire and changed the tube but wanted to stop at a gas station to properly fill the tire with air. While he was fixing his bike, I stopped inside to use the bathroom and buy more fuel. When I came out, I saw Jason barely hiding his irritation while a filthy grifter with roughly four teeth peppered him with questions about our bikes. Apparently this Canadian mountain man had been marveling at how nice our bikes were and said that someone should build an eight person stealth bomber...