I have had a fantastic weekend.

Thanks to Eddie and Namrita for riding and hanging out yesterday, and thanks to Phillip and Ariel for showing up unexpectedly. Good folks, good fun, good work, and good food and beer. No more can be requested.

As an exclamation point, I had an excellent run this evening. 9 mile out and back, 1300ft up and then down, in an hour and a quarter. Not fast by any stretch, but given that I haven’t run at all in weeks and not done so in a real regular fashion in a very long time indeed, I was pleased. The hip flexors aren’t quite used to high speed rocky descending, but I’m taking this as an encouraging sign that the previous years base of cycling and hard hiking can be converted into running speed in a couple months. Good news, as the Red Hot 50k(+, they discreatly say on the promo material1) is less than two months away! I’m excited. Now if I could only find my damn Moab map.

1: If any of the three people that read this have any familiarity with what a “+” can mean in say the Gunks or Looking glass, you probably have the right idea. Based on my own sporadic career in first ascents, the formula is the following:
You’ve done a route that felt hard, or was at least scary while digging for holds under moss, 20 feet out from a small cam, onsight. You have no idea how hard it would “actually” be if you hadn’t been freaked, overgripped, with dirt in your eyes. So you pick the lowest grade that won’t come off as irresponsible and arrogant, than put a “+” at the end.
I’ve reclimbed old FAs, on top rope, and thought “shit this is easy”. Then I took another look at the gear. (“Wow that blue alien really was crap, good thing I didn’t fall, Jason and Chris would’ve had to roll me and my broken ankles back down the hill. Like Doug Scott on the Ogre, but with leaves.”)
This is the great kharmic cycle and how it works.