I just want to say thanks to all the people who train with me or listen to me talk about this stuff. Josh, Crazy Bastard Bucky, Kenny, my parents who think I’m certifiable, and especially my fiancee, Michelle, who puts up with my shitty attitudes that come with exposure to heat and lack of food and water for the few hours after I’m done training.

I haven’t lost near the weight that I wanted to thus far, but I feel way better physically today than I did even two months ago. I down about 10lbs since I started this blog. I’m sure I’ve packed on some sort of muscle in my legs though, right? Right? I’ll keep telling myself that and not dwell too much on the scales.

I picked up some cool gear for my birthday that has helped to make training, and hopefully the race, more enjoyable. Michelle got me a REI Doubleshot pack that goes around my waist. I wasn’t crazy about carrying a backpack of any kind to keep my back from getting sore and the waist carried camelbaks struck me as inconvenient due to the hose and time to fill. The Doubleshot pack has a holster for two 24 oz squirt bottles and a small zippered pouch in between for storing gels or snacks. It also has some elastic webbing across the outside of the pouch which is perfect for stuffing a light windbreaker in and cinching it down. Most important of all, it doesn’t feel cumbersome when running with it on. My parents got me a pair of RaceReady LD running shorts. They are super lightweight and have mesh pockets on the back for holding additional gels or food.

If you would have told me two summers ago that I would be running the Pikes Peak Ascent, I would have laughed at you and ordered another beer. Who’da thunk I’d be going up past treeline for a training run and looking forward to it? Hope this winter isn’t as bad as last and I can actually get outside and continue to build on the progress I’ve made so far. I’m even toying with the idea of running a full marathon sometime next summer! Let me get through the Ascent first before we get too far down that road.

I’ve been wearing some Montrail Hardrock shoes for trail runs.  They are pretty rigid and offer a ton of support.  However, they lack in cushioning and I’ve gotten some shin splints the last couple times I ran in them.  I threw on my old Asics Gel Trabuco VIII yesterday for the run on Ute Pass.  I wore those most of last summer for hiking.  They are a nice trail shoe that offer some good support, not as much as the Hardrocks, but they have a lot more cushioning.  They felt pretty good, but I can tell that they are over a year old.  I think I’m going to shop for another pair of these soon and wear them for trail training.  A newer version is out, but I can’t imagine they are that much different.

So they just posted on the Pikes Peak Marathon site the process to remedy the botch registration from last week. Looks like I’ve got to re-register now. The races that were less than 50% full which is all of the Triple Crown of Running spots and Wave 1 of the Ascent will pick up where they left off. The Marathon and Wave 2 of the Ascent (which I will be running) are set to start a brand new registration on Tuesday March 13th at 6 AM MST. I guess they decided on that time so as not to interfere with any other registrations starting at the same time. I hope the hardware over at active.com can handle the rush.

The message from the directors stated that no races were between 50% and full so that means both the marathon and Wave 2 of the Ascent were full before they shut things down. Myself and a couple friends at work will be trading information and registering for each other if something comes up next Tuesday morning.

The fine folks at the board of the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon had an emergency meeting Thursday night to discuss the epic mishandling on the part of active.com during the registrations yesterday. They still don’t have a resolution for the problem, but I hope they can get something figured out quickly. The board is to be commended for taking some extra time to listen to competitors and put some thought into the situation instead of just offering up a quick solution based on a knee-jerk reaction. I’ll be fine with whatever they decide. I just hope it’s something that doesn’t upset too many others.

There were talks of lawsuits and other nonsense on the PPAM forums today. That is just absurd. I realize some people plan entire trips around this race, but threatening to sue the directors would be a fruitless and frivolous endeavor. I know there are a lot of people still in the dark about their registration, but I’m sure that the board will come up with a solution that takes into account all the possible situations that folks are in right now. Whether already registered, registered multiple times, or just didn’t even know that the registration was halted and still got through after others quit trying, I think the race directors will come up with an equitable solution. You can’t please all the people all the time, but hopefully they can figure out a way to please most of the people some of the time.

Good luck to the directors and to all the runners!

Active.com is a website that a lot of race organizers outsource the tasks of registration and collection of fees to. The Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon was no different. However, with the shotgun registration process that is in place for the PPAM, apparently Active.com wasn’t prepared for the traffic all at once.

A buddy at work notified me at about 7:58am this morning that the registration had opened. I browsed on over and started the process. I knew after the first button I clicked on the page that things were messed up. It took a considerable amount of time for the next screen to show up. All totaled, it took me about 25 minutes to register for the race. When I got a receipt via email, it said that my card had been charged the $95.55, but the “Registration For” section of the receipt was blank. WTF? I then tried to print a receipt on the Active.com site. Everytime I clicked that link, it lead me to a blank page.

About 20 minutes after I had registered, I was finally able to print out a copy of the receipt and waiver. A couple guys at work also experience difficulty but finally managed to get registered in just under an hour.

As the day went on, the PPAM staff updated the website and eventually called off the registration until they could sort out the massive screw-up they had on their hands compliments of Active.com. For a website that many race organizers use, you would think they have their act together enough to accept registrations from a couple thousand people in an hour. It’s a pretty monumental IT failure on their part and I hope another system can move in and take over where Active failed so miserably.

As of now, I’m in the race. The Board of Directors for the PPAM is having a meeting tonight to discuss how to fix the botched registration. I hope my entry holds and they open it again for the remaining slots left. I think it would also be cool if Active.com would refund my $6.30 processing fee that I paid to fight with their website this morning for a half hour.

Stay tuned for more!