Since picking up some new shoes a couple of weeks ago, I’ve run with them three times on a treadmill at the gym. The pain behind my knee that I had the first time hasn’t returned and I’ve really been enjoying the shoes. I did get some pain under my right arch on the third run, but this occurred this past Monday after the long hike over the weekend. So I’m pretty much sold on the shoes, and I even took them for their first outside run today. The weather has been pretty nice lately and I figured a nice run at lunch today was just as good as any other time. Besides, Kim injured her ankle playing volleyball last night and probably won’t be running again until next week.

So I mapped out a nice 5K route around the business park. It’s a bit hilly, including one hill section that I did twice, but it wasn’t too bad. I managed to finish my course in just over 25 minutes and with no pain. It was fairly enjoyable, so hopefully I decide to run the route again sometime soon.

One of the fellow engineers on our hut trip just emailed over these screenshots from his GPS unit that was used throughout the hike. I found the data to be really interesting and therefore wanted to share it for all of the nerds out there. This first screenshot is an overview of our hikes. The yellow line is the trail that we followed on our way down, also known as the correct trail. The white line is the path we carved on our way up to the hut after missing a turn, becoming lost, and trying to find our way to the hut. You will notice that we obviously started on the correct trail, split off for awhile, and then eventually found the trail again to complete the hike.

What is even more interesting are these elevation profiles for both hikes. You will notice that both start off the same, but the hike up quickly becomes extremely steep when we lost the trail. We ended up hiking much higher than we would have if we followed the planned trail. After peaking at around 10,600 feet, we went back down to around 10,000 and then finally back up to the hut at 11,000+ feet. The profile for the hike down doesn’t have nearly the same amount of elevation change and is much more consistent. Here are both screenshots, with the hike up first.

I definitely need to get one of these devices. I tried using a watch that I bought from woot.com that uses a pressure sensor to estimate altitude, but it somehow reset itself at some point in the hike. And besides I wouldn’t have been able to download any data to my computer anyway.

Update: I put together an overlay of both of the hikes, so you can easily see the extreme differences between the two:

The lineup for the Austin City Limits Festival was released today. Included are Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, Beastie Boys, and many more. Those headliners I listed are reason enough for me to really want to go to this festival, October 2-4. I haven’t compared the list to that of the Mile High Music Festival, which I’m sure I’ll be attending, but it doesn’t seem like there are too many repeats. So this is definitely a possible late summer stop for me, especially since Austin is fairly easy for me to get to and I had such a good time there earlier this month. And the obvious bonus is that I could see DMB, which as of right now I have no plans to see this year.

Over the weekend I participated in my very first hut trip. Along with fourteen others, I hiked around six and half miles (from 8,620 ft to 11,180) up to the Eiseman hut on Saturday morning and afternoon. Most of the trip we wore snowshoes on our feet as there is still a ton of snow up in the mountains. We managed to accomplish this strenuous hike, with large and heavy packs on our backs, in around eight hours. This includes the time we spent lost off of the trail. Thankfully we were well prepared with plenty of snacks and water, along with GPS units, two-way radios, and maps. We all arrived with no major injuries just many blisters, aches, and pains.

In each of our packs were sleeping bags, minimal extra clothing, and lots of food for dinner that night along with breakfast the following morning. After leaving the cars at 8am, we all arrived within a half hour between 3 and 3:30. After that we popped open a few celebratory beers, relaxed and tried to stretch out our painful muscles. We then prepared a great dinner, and afterward held a friendly euchre tournament with sides of whiskey and wine. It was a great way to spend the evening hours.

The following morning, after breakfast, we packed up all of our bags, cleaned up around the hut, and then started our descent back toward the cars. The hike back was mostly downhill, besides one section of strenuous hiking, and we actually managed to follow the trail the entire way this time. The scenery was beautiful as we had a couple inches of fresh snow covering everything. The trip down only took three and half hours and was pretty relaxing for the most part.

As a briefly mentioned earlier in the week, Kim and I attended the Spring Back to Vail celebration over the weekend headlined by O.A.R. The show started at 5PM with an opening performance by the Crash Kings. I didn’t watch any of their performance, but I could hear it loud and clear from our hotel room. They were a littler edgier than what I typically listen to, so I wasn’t in a hurry to get out and see them. Though from what I could tell, they play a pretty sweet cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs.”

On to O.A.R.’s headlining performance. They came on around 6:30 in the evening and played for about an hour and a half, going just past sunset. The crowd was large, as to be expected with a free show, but I could tell there were definitely a handful of big fans in the crowd. And those that may not have been as big of fans certainly became more familiar with the band as they played nearly every single popular song of theirs. True, I would have preferred to hear a bunch of rarer songs played, but I was content hearing “War Song” and their fun cover of “With A Little Help From My Friends,” both for the first time live. It was a fun show, and I’m glad that I finally got to see the band perform again. Here is my recording from the night, which turned out much better than I was anticipating.

I often ride my bike to work, using the light rail for most of the commute. This consists of riding from home to the I-25 & Broadway Station (a couple blocks) and then from the Lincoln Station to the office (around one mile). It’s pretty easy to do, but from time to time I crave a longer ride. Sometimes I’ll get off at the University of Denver stop in the evening and ride home through Wash Park. A couple of times I have tried either riding the full length from home to the office or vice versa after a long day at work. Yesterday, Earth Day, was one of those days.

I decided that I’d ride a new route home via the Willow Creek Trail and then the High Line Canal Trail. Upon reaching Dartmouth, I took street marked bike paths home. The full route can be seen below, all 22.5 miles of it. I didn’t think it would take me too long to do, but in the end it all added up to two hours. I probably should invest in a quicker bike, though I’m not sure how it would handle the partially gravel/dirt path of the Willow Creek Trail. Regardless it was a nice workout and a smooth ride.

As I mentioned at the end of last week, Kim and I headed up to Vail this past Sunday, which was their last day of this season. We attended a pub crawl on Saturday, and therefore were really slow to get moving Sunday morning. We finally made it up to Vail around 1 or 1:30, we checked into our hotel (highly recommended), and hit the slopes. Immediately I noticed how slushy the conditions were. On the first lift I saw a big crowd gathered at another base nearby. It was at that point that I realized that the pond skimming competition that was originally scheduled for Saturday was taking place Sunday. I later found out that it had to be postponed due to road closures from the previous days’ storms. So we headed over that way on our first run to check out the action.

Pond skimming is a competition where the entrants ski or snowboard down the hill, hit a rather large jump at the bottom, and then attempt to skim over a pond. The goal is to skim all the way across to the other side, but that is something that is rarely done. We must have sat and watched wipe-out after wipe-out for an hour or more. Before we knew it, we were ready to get something to eat, and decided to do so before closing time on the slopes, which would allow us to get in somewhere without a wait. So, we pretty much only did one run for the day.

On the way back to the hotel to drop off our gear, I heard the sounds of O.A.R. coming from around the corner. We walked around and found that the band was getting ready to run through a quick sound check. After playing about half of their song “Shattered,” the band members came down into the crowd to say hello to Kim and I. They were playing a show later in the night, which was the biggest reason we decided to stay in Vail for the night. But more on that later, in another entry.

So, the season officially wrapped up for most of the resorts in Colorado. Arapahoe Basin is still open, and we stopped there on our way back to Denver Monday. As their location is higher up than most, their conditions were much better than we experienced the day prior. We managed to get in close to ten runs in a short amount of time, and before too long were back on our way home. I’m sure we’ll head up to A-Basin a couple of more times before they close in another month or two.

By my count, we only did 15 days (16 for Kim) this year. I guess the low snowfall did hurt us this year, after looking at last year’s stats. Anyway, here is how our days broke out this year:

• Breckenridge – 7 days
• Keystone – 4 days (1 was on the same day we did Arapahoe Basin)
• Vail – 3 days (I missed 1 of these days)
• Arapahoe Basin – 2 days
• Beaver Creek – only 1 day :(

I’m hoping we can get to twenty days next season. A guy, I’m assuming retired, was awarded a free pass for next season after he hit the slopes of Vail every day of this season. Something like 137 days! Can you say, jealous?

This past Thursday night we ventured out to see my favorite Denver area band, SoundRabbit, play at the Hi-Dive, which is right up the street from our house. We don’t often venture out for late night entertainment during the week, but this was an obvious exception as it would be their last local show for awhile. The band leaves tomorrow for a tour sweeping across this vast nation (dates are below). The show gave me the chance to hear many of the songs from their recent release, Tree Trunk Airplanes, for the first time live. The all sounded very polished and ready for tour. I could really tell that the band had been busy preparing for all of the shows they will be playing over the next couple of weeks. Here is my recording from the show, which turned out okay, despite the sound guy being completely unfamiliar with the bands material.

And here are the upcoming tour dates:

• Wed, Apr 22 – Des Moines, IA – Java Joe’s
• Thurs, Apr 23 – Madison, WI – Alchemy Cafe (still being confirmed)
• Thurs, Apr 23 – Columbus, OH – Scarlett & Grey Cafe
• Fri, Apr 24 – Edinboro, PA – Edinboro University
• Sat, Apr 25 – Canton, NY – St. Lawrence University
• Mon, Apr 27 – Burlington, VT – Nectar’s
• Tues, Apr 28 – Waltham, MA – The Skellig
• Wed, Apr 29 – Charlottesville, VA – Bel Rio
• Thurs, Apr 30 – Memphis, TN – Private Event
• Fri, May 1 – Yellow Springs, OH – Peach’s
• Sat, May 2 – Lake Lotawana, MO – Canoe Club

Please pass the news onto anyone you may know in any of these areas. And tell them that I sent you.

I just experienced my first thundersnow. I wish I would have been outside to see if there was lightning with the snow or not. Windows will now be open the rest of the day. We are having another one of our wild spring snowstorms. Currently it is coming down in huge flake form. At one point earlier in the week they said we could get up to two feet of snow in the downtown Denver area, though I think a bunch of it fell as rain earlier today. I’ll be curious to see what happens the rest of the night as temperatures drop again. Good news in the mountains where I’ve heard that some spots could get up to three feet of powder! It’s closing weekend for most ski resorts that aren’t already closed. Kim and I will be at Spring Back to Vail!

Nearly a month ago I mentioned that I needed some new running shoes. Well I finally made it into a store last night to get evaluated for a new pair. It’s always a long process once I get into a store, as the employees try to figure out what the heck is wrong with my feet and legs. The first pair I was given felt fine, but once I was on the treadmill it was easy to see that they weren’t going to work as I still had some major pronation occurring. So we moved onto to a series of four new pairs. Each of these corrected my stride very well and so then it all came down to a matter of personal preference on the fit. It came down to a pair of Mizuno’s, Asics, Brooks, or a new brand to me Pearl Izumi.

In the end I went with the Pearl Izumi syncroFloat III. I really liked the way they hugged my foot, giving a nice secure feel. This is due to the seamless uppers with webbing support where the fit comes through the laces, not the material around. I’m still not 100% sold on them, since I’ve had no experience with them before, so I took them on a test run at the gym. As long as I keep them inside I can bring them back to the store for a refund. I noticed some pain behind my right knee after about a mile and then realized that I forgot to put my heel lifts in the left shoe. I still couldn’t kick the pain during this run, but I’m hoping to give it another go on the treadmill before taking them outside.