Week in Review (July 6 - July 12)

Tuesday (14,417 steps) - Work in the office. I went for a few walks during work and a short one after work. Apparently that's all.

Wednesday (16,946 steps) - Work in the office. Went for a few walks and then went to the gym during a late lunch for core and upper body. Nicole wasn't able to join me because she's been busy with interviews. Took Pika for a walk after work. 

Thursday (37,025 steps) - Endurance block day 1. I'll admit that I was terrified and stressed out when I saw my training plan for the week. Training for yet another 200 miler means doing everything I can to go into the race "prepared." I've been floundering a bit ever since I stopped running with Runners Edge - which at LEAST gave me a goal for a long run and overall weekly distance. Since hiring my coach about a month ago, I've definitely put in more work than I have in a LONG time. With that said, the first day of the block was 12-14 miles. Okkkk how am I going to fit that in during the week? With temperatures forecasted to be near 100 degrees. The answer was starting at 5:00 am. Even though I had taken the previous two days off from running, this was a struggle for the first 3-4 miles. Legs felt very heavy and I was TIRED. I do, however, love sunrises, so this wasn't all bad.

Can you spot the owl?

I will be eternally grateful that the dog park added port-o-potties a few years ago. I opted to try a new trail section in the northern part of the dog park that I had never run in, and it turned out to be quite a pleasant detour, at least in the cool morning hours.

Thankfully, once I started running south, my legs started to loosen up a bit and it wasn't as horrible.

It really started to warm up during the last hour of my run. I can't believe how ungodly hot it already was for the sun just coming up. CRAZY.

For this run I was really just guessing on overall distance, and added a little detour on the south side of the lake. It's still REALLY green, which is nice to look at.

As I was getting closer to home, I realized that I basically had created a half marathon course from my neighborhood. I had to be back in time for my weekly call with Abby, and I made it back with about 15 minutes to spare. Took Pika for a walk, then another walk after I got off work. Part of my training plan also included foam rolling, so I pulled a video off YouTube and worked on that while watching "The Life of David Gale." (An older movie, but I do enjoy that one).

Friday (39,502 steps) - Endurance block, day 2. Today was going to be even trickier, since I had to go to work in the office. That meant an even EARLIER wake up. This time, I was on the trails by 4:30 am. I had opted to run the same route as the day before, and hoped that the extra thirty minutes would be enough for me to finish and get to work on time. It's crazy how much darker it was, just being out a half hour earlier. Thankfully, it also didn't seem to feel as warm, although the forecasted high for the day was supposed to be about the same.

I had to stop at the dog park bathrooms again - guess it's just the timing of these runs, haha.

I strangely seemed to be feeling a lot better today, even though I had run a lot the day before and had not gotten a lot of sleep going into this. The sunrise was excellent again!

Managed to get back to the house with just enough time for a super quick shower and to re-blend my protein smoothie and out the door on time for work. Had my first review in TWO years, and was told that "no one complains about you, so you're doing fine." It was the shortest review I've ever had, although they ARE usually short since I'm good at what I do. The exciting part was getting a raise - also has been two years since I got one. Went for a few walks during the day and a late lunch at the gym. Core, upper body and some stretching. I was hoping they had a foam roller I could use, but they didn't. After work I had to rush home to pack since Ben and I had plans to go camping in Dillon for the weekend. We managed to get out the door in about an hour, which wasn't too bad. Traffic was ok, and we stopped in Silverthorne to pick up Chipotle for dinner. 

A beer at Outer Range and a quick trip to the grocery store for water and snacks, and we were at the campsite around 10. Later than we planned, but we still had time for a quick campfire before bed.

Saturday (40,316 steps) - I've been SO TIRED over the last week that I slept pretty amazing. Up early for our adventure of the day - Buffalo Mountain! Endurance block, day 3 had me scheduled to run 14-15 miles, and the loop in Frisco is just over 14 miles, so it was perfect. I cleared the route with my coach since it is certainly more hiking than running, and she was fine with it. We got a little bit of a later start than I would have liked since we were having trouble locking Shelly (the camper).

But how can you be mad at her when she is so cute??

We had hoped to start by 8 and ended up not getting on the trail until almost 8:30. And the small lot was already full! Having done this route before I knew that a bulk of the climbing would happen right at the start. 

We didn't see anyone for a LONG time - not even the group of backpackers that left 10-15 minutes before us. I'm just so slow on the climbs and really struggle with breathing the higher up we get.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day, though, the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

We finally caught up the hikers a the trail juncture (and passed them). Thankfully, I had remembered this last little push as being longer, so I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived at the saddle - TO AN ADORABLE MOUNTAIN GOAT!!

We spent a ridiculously long time taking pictures of him - he was just so cute and so photogenic - and genuinely seemed to be posing for us. What a treat!

Once we got down a bit we were able to get some actual running in, which is always nice after moving so slow.

The lower we got, however, the warmer it got. We saw a lot of people heading up the trail (not to do the loop we did, but there is apparently a waterfall somewhere off the trail that we have never been to that's a popular spot). I will never understand how people start so late in the day when it's so warm!

Ben seemed surprised that we were going to be out this long, but it didn't seem that long to me. Tried to run a bit more the further down we got - I was getting sick of being out in the heat!

The burn area looked totally different than last year - lots more wildflowers this time around.

When we got down we went to Outer Range for a beer while we decided what we were going to do the rest of the day. We ultimately decided to head up to Leadville to watch people finish the Silver Rush 50 miler. We met Kristin, Doug and Joe at the pizza place in town - and it was a total disaster. The line was nuts and they couldn't seem to handle the number of people that were there and were quoting people a two hour wait for pizza. Which seemed insane since there were like ten people working. Luckily Kristin shared some of their pizza with us since we hadn't eaten yet. We headed over to the finish line and spent some time chatting with Jared and Kelly while we waited for Tyler to come in.

We stuck around for about another half hour before driving him to his hotel and then heading back to Frisco. We stopped to pick up some stuff for dinner at Whole Foods, then went back to the campsite. We didn't stay up too late after cooking dinner - both of us were exhausted!

Sunday (31,528 steps) - While neither of us was especially excited at the prospect of another early morning, we definitely wanted to get started early enough that we would have time to come back to the campground and pack up before noon. Our adventure of the day was running the Run the Rockies course again! I have run these trails every year for 6-7 years now and I just love them. They aren't too technical, none of the climbs are too outrageous - and it's super pretty with plenty of trees, wildflowers, and a view of the lake. My legs were certainly grateful that we had opted to NOT do a run with a lot of vertical. All the miles from the week were starting to catch up with me! The trails did not disappoint, and there was hardly anyone out at this hour.

I was definitely struggling more than I had hoped, but I did run as much of the flats and downhills as I could, and worked on strong hiking on the climbs.

Once again, Ben seemed to think that we were out a really long time, but I was pleased to have been out right around three hours. We got back to the campground in plenty of time to clean up and pack all our gear. We stopped at Outer Range for a beer before heading back to Denver. Traffic into town was the worst I'd seen in a while, and it took a LOT longer to get down than we had hoped. We unpacked and ordered pizza and went to bed early.

Monday (33,794 steps) - Final day of the big endurance block! Still had 12-13 miles on schedule, so I opted to get up early (again) and go out for a finale of the same loop I had done before to see how my legs had held up from the weekend. I was still out the door before 5 am, since I needed to make sure I was home in time to take A to practice and to get to work. It actually was not nearly as bad as I feared it might be, and my time was almost identical to what I had done on Friday, so I was pleased.

Work from home and took Pika for a walk at lunch. After work Tyler and Koda came over to celebrate Pika's 11th birthday! Ben had gone to the dog bakery and picked up an adorable cake for them to share. It was too cute.

Stats:

• 213,528 steps
• 66.31 miles run
• 0 minutes of cardio
• 68 minutes of strength training