muddling along and learning the hard way

The last few weeks, I've really missed running. My mileage has dropped off and am only running MAYBE once a week. The knee pain is my current reason/excuse, but it hasn't kept me from biking. In fact, Chris Locke and I are considering doing the Firecracker 50 mtn bike race in Breckenridge on July 5th.
I'm considering changing jobs again. I have an opportunity to stay with the company and change positions again to something that I think I'll like better, but am not sure. I've been in telecom so long that I think I'm getting burned out on it. Although I still love technology, it might be a good thing to change industries completely. We'll see.
Got a call late last night that Allison's Grandfather passed away. Her Grandmother (his wife) died February of 07 and he has been getting weaker ever since. Still, no one thought it was his time just yet.
A couple of weeks ago, Lee and I tried to summit Mt Bierstadt. It's one of the 14ers out here and I thought it would be a good one to try first.














really didn't think that climbing a 14er in the summer would be much of a big deal. We hike up there, struggle with a little breathlessness and then hike back down in a couple of hours and then say we did it. Not that easy at all.



















We made it within 500 feet of the summit, but had to turn back due to weather and me being very unprepared. The weather forecast that day was for a high of 45 and sunny so I had three shirts on and compression shorts under hiking shorts. Other than a numb face, I was fine until my foot punched through the snow and got wet and subsequently numb. The higher we went, the colder it was and with the wind at a constant ~30-50 mph, and snow blowing, we decided to turn back instead of pushing it to the danger limit.















The video was taken somewhere around 12,800 to 13000 feet.


We'll be going back VERY soon to do it again and will be successful next time.