Rob Murphy

Nice night at the Boulder Outlook. "The Cure for the Common Hotel".

I got up at 5 this morning and drove up Boulder Canyon (if that canyon was in Utah we'd have three or four half marathons in it) and ran Mags. 15.75 miles in 2 hours. Hilly, about 9,000 feet.

I can say "Mags" now because I've done it twice.

Other stuff...

Drove Magnolia Road and through Nederland with the family.

Took Andy to his first big leage game at Coors Field. The Pirates beat the Rockies 7-5

Ate dinner in downtown Denver.

Checked into hotel at the Denver Tech Center.

When The Congo achieved its independence from Belgium in 1960, only 12 people in the entire country had a college degree.

1.5 mile walk from my hotel to Cherry Creek High School. Scored two new tennis balls for my dog. CCHS has won 38 state championships in boys tennis and 27 in girls since 1972. That's dominance.

Cherry Creek High has a great track with a college sized stadium. Think I'll do a workout there tonight and run some stadium stems. Jupiter Creek Steeplechase this Saturday!

PM: Ran to CCHS, hopped the fence into their spiffy stadium/track (similar to a D II college I'd say), circled the track for a long time and did 20 stadiums.

People around here like their Jag-U-ars. In fact, while running back to the hotel I saw a wreck involving two Jag-U-ars. It was funny to see their two slicky boy owners in suits obsessively snapping pictures of the damage with their phones. I wanted to shout "it's good to be bad".

The traffic around Denver is insane. Almost approaching Southern California levels in some places.

Ann, Abby, and Andy went back up to Boulder today and spent most of the day tubing down Boulder Creek.

Literally not possible to run today. Third zero in the last six days. Don't feel good about that at all. 

Not only that but I'm sitting all day and eating super healthy hotel breakfasts and conference food. Just IDEAL for my race this weekend!

I need to get rid of my job and my family and be in a state that doesn't have 48 straight hours of continuous thunder storms and torrential rain.

Finally, a halfway decent run. 7.25 very early miles in the drizzle around the CCHS track.

Last day of my conference. Will drive a couple hours tonight and make it home tomorrow.

Colorado has a lot of rabbits.

4.25 miles around the neighborhood. It's good to be back down to low altitude.

Jeez this has been a lame running week.

Today I learned that I suck at mountain trail racing. There isn't a single part of it that I'm good at. I'm mediocre on the steady uphills, I suck on the steep uphills, and I really suck on the downhills.

I'm really bummed at how many people passed me the second half on the downhills. Some of them didn't even look particularly fit.

On the other hand, Blake Bennion does not suck at it. He ran 2:01 to finish 8th overall and was mixing it up with some really good guys. Way to go Blake!

On a positive note, I did hit 50 miles for the week.

Oh, and the race people insisted it was "about 16 miles". My Garmin said 14.87 when I crossed the finish line and that included the extra quarter mile I ran when I took a wrong turn.

I just heard a quote from Patrick Star (I'm watching Sponge Bob) that helped me put today's race in perspective. "Then it's ok to lose, as long as you had fun doing it". It was pretty fun out there this morning.