'Twas a very active, busy weekend. Friday night, Sawyer and I continued our slowly developing Friday Happy Hour bike ride. It has really been good for me to get out on the bike for a long ride rather than going to hammer back a few beers. This Friday, we took a pretty ambitious ride, from downtown Denver to the top of Lookout Mountain in Golden. Google Maps tells me that we did roughly 8,000 ft. of climbing, but that seems, oh, ridiculous? Subtracting roughly 5,000 feet of Denver elevation seems to get me to a better number...3,000 feet of climbing. It was a brutal climb, but it wasn't 8,000 feet. Either way, it was 36.5 or so miles, and took us about 2h 15m. It was a great ride.

Saturday morning I got up to run the Flat Out 5K - a Bolder BOULDER qualifier. I ran very well, considering the bike ride I had the night before. 20:40 - a 6:40/mile pace. I felt a bit tired at the end, definitely went out a bit quicker than I finished. I was hoping to get under 20 minutes, but not this day. It's amazing to me the people that come out and run these things though. There are so many people who are a) INCREDIBLY cocky, and b) just plain rude! This one guy was decked out in pure professional gear, nice racing flats, the new Skins tights, a racing bib with a wind breaker over the top. Just to the T pro runner. He was telling a very nice looking co-ed how he just had to finish the race in under 19:50 to qualify for the wave he needed to get in. Right as the gun goes off, he starts pushing his way through the crowd, getting frustrated with the 'slow start', and eventually finds a seem and is just gone. Oh, he made it a point to push through a mom running with her kids, both not older than 8. About 2.5 miles in, I see our pushy co-ed hunter, and just cruise right on by. He let out a very nice belly roar, obviously frustrated with the number of people that had passed him. I wanted to say something, but I'm not the type, and I don't understand why so many runners have to be such arrogant pricks. I can understand wanting a good race time, but get to the front, and let mom and her kids have their day. One of the kids was obviously upset from the near trampling, and probably has a bad view of running now since some prick was trying to get some ass. We're not out there making a living, so why is it so hard to be nice to fellow runners? That's why I love triathlon, it's the most accepting endurance sport out there. And I don't even want to get started on the pompous jerks that are 'pure cyclists'. There are exceptions to all of this, I've met some pretty cool runners and cyclists, but in general, they are too elitist for me.

And one more bit of ranting. There is a really cool new sport shop at Flatirons called At Altitude. They were open very early Saturday to accommodate the running crowd, and they were giving a 25% discount to the runners. Ellie and I went in, she picked up a jacket that was on sale, and I got a Fat Tire Bike Bell (AWESOME!). We go to check out, and this rep from Adidas is at the counter just giving it to the store owner - telling him how the At Altitude tent set up in the courtyard was taking up valuable beer garden space. The store owner politely told the corporate schmuck that he had gone through all of the right channels, and had everything cleared with the Director of Marketing for the event, and that he had no plans on moving his tent. Schmucky then said, "Fine, I'll just move it myself". The store owner, again, politely explained that he had every right to be there, and if Adidas moved the tent, then security would be called. Adidas boy stomped out of the store (he gave a much better tantrum than my 7 year old bro and sis EVER have). I don't know how it ended up, but I don't plan on ever buying another piece of Adidas gear after the way that whiny prick represented his company. What a joke.

/rant.

E