Week in Review (October 21 - October 27)

Tuesday (13,756 steps) - Peloton and Olive walk before going to work in the office. Gym at lunch - StairMaster, strength and a walk on the treadmill. 

Really only have the selfie because I want pics of my festive Halloween shorts!

Took Olive for a long walk to the lake when I got home. After dinner we watched "Speak No Evil" which was better than expected.

Wednesday (18,295 steps) - Olive walk before going to work in the office. We had a mandatory staff meeting where we were informed about some pretty big changes at work. While on the surface they seem like great changes, some people are worried. Ugh. I went for my run shortly after the meeting - my least favorite type - a tempo run. The workout was spread into two 19 minute segments. The first one was mildly terrible and I had to take a few walk breaks. Second wasn't as bad and managed to complete the whole thing. 

Took Olive for a walk after work. Ben made burgers for dinner (yum!) and more John Wayne Gacy documentary. 

I actually fell asleep on the couch, which hasn't happened in ages.

Thursday (11,858 steps) - Peloton ride before logging in for work. Ben had picked up surprise Dutch for me, which was amazing! Worked for a bit before heading into Arvada to donate blood for the fist time. Long story, but the gal doing my intake had to log my first iron reading (12.4) which was too low to donate and then the second reading of 13.0 could not be input. So after over a half hour (plus drive time) I was deemed ineligible to donate - I guess the machines can totally take over after all. Took Olive for a long walk at lunch to the library so we could drop off our ballots. 

Olive says "Woof! Voting is fun!"

After work I did a few deliveries before meeting Ben at Torchy's for dinner. Another walk with Olive before catching back up on Dark Wolf.

Friday (15,184 steps) - Wash Park! I hadn't planned on going since I've been pretty tired all week, but since I was awake with enough time to go, I did. Glad I went, it was a nice morning! 

Headed into work, skipping Stella's. Andrew caught me right away and asked if I could hand deliver a few settlement checks since his assistant is out. I waited for Erica to get to the office so she could walk with me and hang out with Olive while I ran inside. 

Took Olive for ANOTHER longer walk at lunch - she is really getting her steps in this week. Took Olive home after work and then met up with Ben for an NA happy hour. Ben ordered in Panda for dinner and a movie "There's Something Wrong with the Children" - didn't get great reviews but we thought it was pretty decent.

Saturday (28,398 steps) - Up early to head down to Runner's Roost to meet up with Alison! I haven't run with her in ages and she was wonderful company for a longer run. Felt pretty good the whole time and really enjoyed people's creativity with their Halloween decorations. 

Ben drove Olive down so we could stay and socialize with people since it was the Colfax pancake run. Olive even got a caricature done!  

We went inside and did some shopping - actually a lot of really good deals! I texted Larry and Terri on the way home and we met up at 4 Noses. It's been a LONG time since we all got together, it was great to see everyone. Took Olive for a walk and then went out to do some deliveries - it ended up being my busiest night in a while. Soup for dinner and more Dark Wolf.

Sunday (23,064 steps) - Failed attempt at sleeping in. Ben is still not running since his foot is bothering him and I messed up on my workout - I thought I just had 6 miles to do, but turns out I had a vert goal. I took Olive for a walk and after a long time decided to go to North Table to do repeats on the fire road. The parking lot was packed and I told Ben to just drop me off and head to New Terrain and I would just run there after finishing my climbing. The run was actually not bad and I didn't get too irritated with bikes! 

Golden's fall colors are hanging in there!

Be Real after the second (?) repeat - of four

This whole area was a burn zone a few years ago - looking a lot better these days!

Met up with Ben at New Terrain. I had a few Hoplark Citras before we  stopped at Parry's on the way home for a late lunch. 

Ben had placed a Costco grocery order for delivery and it showed up while I was walking Olive, but at least we didn't have to go to the store ourselves. Lazy evening of movies - we watched Candlewood (not good). While we were waiting for dinner to cook I did my yoga video (not bad) and then watched the most recent I Know What You Did Last Summer, which was semi predictable, but good.

Monday (18,278 steps) - Work from home, hurray!!! Took Olive for a walk and then I went out for my run. The run was actually pretty good, but I could not decide if I was cold or hot and at one point I did ditch my top, but then 10 minutes later had to put it on again. 

Went out driving after work and actually had a really good night - again! Took Olive for a walk when I got home. Dinner and another movie - Nefarious - which was... meh. I am used to a much better scary movie selection this time of year.

Stats:

• 128,833 steps
• 32.49 miles run - wow, big mileage week for me
• 14.86 miles walked
• 38 minutes of cardio
• 67 minutes of strength

Week in Review (October 14 - October 20)

Tuesday (12,281 steps) - Peloton and Olive walk before going to work in the office. 

Went to the gym at lunch and did some strength training and a walk on the treadmill. Headed home after work and took Olive for another walk. I had received a notification earlier in the day that we were having an internet outage - it ended up lasting all evening, which meant NO television!! I still have all my DVDs but no player. We also basically live in a cell phone dead zone. SO, that meant cleaning up the mud room - it's been an overwhelming task but we got a great start on it.

Wednesday (23,345 steps) - I actually had to get up early so I could get my workout in before work. I had hill sprints to do and wasn't sure I would have time to do it after work, sooooo up at 5:10 and on the trails within 15 minutes. I did pick a good hill for the springs, but I unfortunately misread the workout and it ended up being about 20 minutes later than I had planned, so I had to semi cut it short and do a less steep hill closer to the house, PLUS cut the cool down short. Better than nothing! 

Olive walk before going to work in the office. Took a longer walk at lunch since the weather was nice. Olive walk after work. We made dinner and watched "Nobody 2."

Thursday (11,136 steps) - Work from home!! Was pretty busy with work all day. Took Olive to the dog park for a run/walk. 

Got in a short ride on the Peloton and more strength training. After work met Ben at Torchy's for dinner. We are running out of things to watch, started a show called "Dark Wolf" that isn't terrible. 

Friday (10,378 steps) - Olive walk before going into the office for a half day. Left at lunch so I would have time to walk Olive before the guys showed up to blow out our sprinklers. After work we met up with Ben for happy hour at 4 Noses - their NA beer is really pretty terrible. Took Olive for a walk.

Home for dinner and Dark Wolf.

Saturday (30,041 steps) - We were supposed to run with Christina, but she texted early to say her son was sick so she was going to run solo. Took Olive for a short walk.

Impatient - "MOM LET'S GO"

On to plan b, running in Boulder. This was... ok. Not good, not bad, not awful. With about an hour left a front seemed to blow in and we were happy there was no moisture accompanying it. 

Went to 4 Noses and thankfully we were able to sit inside since we didn't have Olive with us. We took Olive for a walk when we got home. After that, not sure what else we did. Dinner? Watched "Play Dirty" which wasn't great, but probably better than the 3 stars it was given. Tried a new NA beer. Taste wasn't bad, but there was... chunky/pulpy things in the bottom? I guess the key is to not drink the very end of it.

Sunday (17,180 steps) - Up early to head to Louisville for the Roost "fall party." I had a workout on schedule, so Ben, Olive and I went for a run on the mesa. It wasn't bad, especially considering Olive doesn't super enjoy running. 

We got back to the store to find out that everyone was delayed leaving so we headed back out to meet Maureen and Colfax. 

Stuck around for a bit before heading towards home. Stopped at Ziggi's for a protein smoothie and a trip to Noses for Ben. Food truck looked delicious, so we got something to eat - the bacon was phenomenal. 

Nap, shower, took Olive for a walk and then I went out driving for a bit. 

Did my pilates video with Olive and Ben ordered in pizza for dinner and watched "Locked" - which wasn't great. Tried another NA - this one didn't taste like a juicy IPA, but at least it didn't have weird stuff in the bottom of the glass.

Monday (16,449 steps) - Work from home! I had a run to do and hoped that if I went early the wind wouldn't be too bad. Spoiler, it was already horrible when I woke up. I dressed crazy warm for it and was relatively comfortable until I was heading back towards home and had to take off the jacket. 

All in all, I was dressed fairly appropriately. Took Olive for a walk and then did laundry, ran the dishwasher and took a shower. Ariel came home for the day and we went to get the new latte from Dunkin. Delicious!! 

Watched the Haunting of the Queen Mary while finishing out the work day. Took Olive for a walk after work. Made dinner and started the documentary on John Wayne Gacy. Definitely learned some things!

Stats:

• 120,810 steps
• 28.89 miles run
• 14.61 miles walked
• 30 minutes of cardio
• 80 minutes of strength

Week in Review (October 7 - October 13)

Tuesday (10,863 steps) - Peloton and Olive walk before going to work. 

For some reason Olive wanted to stand and watch me ride this morning

Gym at lunch. Took Olive for a walk after work and ran into Ben, who had put Batman in the backpack, so we added on a bit of distance. That was fun and weird for Olive, I don't know that she had seen that before.

No recollection of anything after that. 

Wednesday (16,250 steps) - Olive walk before going to work in the office. Went for my run at lunch - speed work. Blah. It actually wasn't terrible and thankfully a bit warmer. Ben was home early enough that he joined for the afternoon Olive walk. We randomly had Chili's delivered for dinner. The loaded mac & cheese was fantastic!

I *think* we watched Murders, but can't remember this far out.

Thursday (16,172 steps) - Definitely was an annoying day. So many many months ago Ariel started to have issues where her horn would just honk when she was turning. Some days worse than others. We have spent months calling around and trying to figure out what it is, checked fuses, etc. We really wanted to get this taken care of before she went back to school. Well, a few weeks ago (like the day before I left for Divide) the honking got MUCH worse - like every single time she turned the wheel it would honk, so Ben & I actually disconnected the horn. We called the local shop that has worked on her car before to get something scheduled and all our research led back to a clock spring - which is an unusual part to replace. The guy asked "has this vehicle been in an accident" - and yes, it had. He suggested we push harder on the shop that did the repair work from when she was hit last April. LO AND BEHOLD, we had taken her car in last week and found that yes, that was the part that needed to be replaced AND they submitted everything to the insurance company and they were going to take care of it. ANYWAY, the shop is in Aurora, which is on the opposite side of the city where we are AND I had to meet Ariel there at EIGHT (on my remote day!!) so that she didn't have to sit there all day while it was getting worked on. We picked up coffee on our way back to the house. I went for an early run, which wasn't awful, and then we went to Chili's for their lunch special (ironic to eat Chili's two days in a row when I don't think I've been there in 3-4 years). We were JUST getting ready to get an update when we got the call her car was done. It was one jillion hours of driving back to Aurora and home. I never want to go there again. Met Ben at Torchy's for our usual Thursday night dinner. Took Olive for another walk. Watched... something. Finished up all our packing for the weekend!

Friday (15,722 steps) - Up much earlier than normal for a Friday! Took Olive for a walk and then Ben drove me and Olive to my office. Olive broke out her bee costume for the month!

I had multiple meetings but got the clearance to head out right after the early afternoon one. Ben picked us up around 2:15 and we started the LONG drive to/past Moab! The forecast was crap, it was supposed to rain most of the weekend. I was working on my laptop using my hot spot and kept losing coverage, which was ANNOYING. Ben wanted a beer at Outer Range and I still couldn't use their WiFi since it wasn't secure. At least I was able to log out before we got back on the road. It started raining while we were there and it proceeded to rain for the next 6 or so hours.

We were getting hangry and had originally planned to stop in Grand Junction to get food but stopped at the brewery in Palisade instead. Even though they were busy, thankfully the food came out pretty quick. Delicious!

We still had to stop in Grand Junction to get gas and to do some last minute shopping at Walmart. We had not been to Moab since we raced the 240 in 2020 (outside of driving through in 2022 to go to Antelope Canyon) so we were "excited" to be back. The aid station that we were going to be volunteering at was closer to Canyonlands, so we had to drive through Moab and then go another 45ish (maybe an hour) past town. We arrived around 11:30 pm, and thankfully Makinsie was there to show us where to set up and park. By the time we got everything unloaded and the bed made in the back of the truck it was nearly 1 am!! What a LONG day.

Saturday (22,751 steps) - We were awoken by the pouring rain just before 5 am. We didn't realize that it had started to rain again and we had the side windows cracked and poor Olive was getting rained on - and didn't even let us know! We closed everything up and then got up to head over to the "beginnings" of the aid station in hopes of finding hot water to make coffee. It was pouring rain and we still had the canopies that needed to be set up, the sleeping tents, and we had to move the drop bags PLUS start making all the food. Luckily, no one was upset about Olive being there - she was kind of a hit, to be honest. 

We got our coffee made and Olive realized that inside the food tent was dry. 

It was pretty much a nightmare trying to get the canopies up with it pouring rain, but there were enough of us there that it didn't take too long. We set up chairs and the fire pit - mostly for us volunteers since we were already chilled. By 9:30 we still hadn't seen the first runner and it seemed like it was going to be a bit before he got there, so I took Olive for a walk - thankfully it had stopped raining by this point. It was too muddy to go on the dirt, so we just walked on the side of the road. 

I still had to do my run, and I figured I should get it done before we got busy. I changed clothes and went to head out and Olive was NOT having me leaving her at the aid station, so I took her with me. Hoped for the best since I was supposed to get a mid-length run in and she isn't much of a runner. I still set my watch up for intervals. 

She was about 50% interested in running on the way out. Finally gave up on trying to get all my miles in and turned around. On the way back she did much better, which is normal for her once she knows where she is going. Honestly this was probably her longest actual run - most of our mountain activities are more hiking anyway. 

The first set of volunteers - we had many people join on/off all weekend

The first hours back to the aid station it was actually pleasant weather! Sun came out and dare I say, it was even slightly warm. The first runner, Kilian Korth, came through and only was there a few minutes. It would be at least 3.5 hours before anyone else came through. Thor, the medic that I had met in person for the first time at Monster showed up with her new puppy, Athena. Isn't she the (second) cutest??

We had a TON of volunteers, but we didn't have a ton to do without there being that many runners out. I offered to take charge of the parking monitor on the road (only half the runners were allowed to have crew at this aid station, so we had to check for parking passes). Candice stopped to talk to me on the way to the aid station and got a cute picture of me and Olive "working."

The rain unfortunately came back, although it was on/off for a while and we kept getting amazing rainbows!

It finally started to get busier once the sun set. Ben was mostly assisting with medical since Thor and the other medic, Dawn, both also had to get sleep. They swapped duties so people could rest. 

It was unfortunate that the runners didn't have an indoor sleep station, it was so cold and rainy! We had a lull in both the rain and the number of runners, so I decided to take a 2 hour nap with Olive around 11 pm. It took a bit to fall asleep and it was rough getting up just after 1, but I didn't want to be away for too long.

Sunday (12,950 steps) - The overnight had been ROUGH on people. It was rainy and muddy and cold. All in all, the athletes were in high spirits. I spent most of my shift getting food/drinks to runners so they could stay seated by the fire pit. We had a hard time having enough chairs for people and trying to find blankets, but I think we did a pretty good job of keeping people as warm as possible. Once we had a break in the rain (again) I took Olive for a quick walk.

We saw a herd of deer, which was super fascinating to Olive. It was also funny because the deer clearly saw HER and they were doing the "sneaky" walk.

Since we both had to work on Monday, we were going to have to leave before the aid station closed, which was sad. We were having a good time getting to know runners. Around noon a runner and her pacer came in, and as I try to do, I chased down the pacer and asked if she had put in a food order and she looked like she was about ready to burst into tears. I gave her a quick hug and asked her what was going on. Well turns out she is vegan and has been hungry for 50+ miles because the aid stations didn't have the vegan food as promised. Went out of my way to get hot food for both her and the runner (who ended up being the DFL runner of the whole event, Christine #225!!). They were both really appreciate of the personal attention and help and it was a great way to end our volunteering sending them happy and fed back onto the course. We stopped at the start/finish so we could get some swag. I was delighted to see that there were stickers from other races, as I really do want to put a Tahoe sticker on my car! Talked to Candice and Brian for a bit and then we really did have to get out before it got too late. Olive was exhausted after the weekend!!

We stopped in Frisco to grab a slice of pizza from Whole Foods and have a beer at Outer Range (my first one in weeks!). By the time we got home it was 10!!! We unpacked only what was necessary. After not having slept anything other than about 90 minutes on Saturday night I basically blacked out when I went to bed.

Monday (15,668 steps) - Thankfully, a work from home day. I saw a Facebook post in the morning about a Trail Sisters unofficial run/walk of 4-5 miles. Well, that's basically what I had on schedule for the day so I decided I would just take Olive for a long walk at lunch and meet up with STRANGERS for a run at 5. It has been MANY years since I have joined a run group and it's probably been at least a decade since I joined a new group without Ariel (waaaaah). Spoiler, the women were all really nice and I'm super glad I went!

Jenny, Sarah, Kate, me and Sadie

Me, Jenny and Koda

I definitely was the slowest one in the group, but since Jenny was sorta doing intervals I didn't get left behind. Which would have been "ok" since I know the area, but I'm glad it didn't happen. Headed home and we made dinner. Still had some unpacking to do, but we really just wanted to sit on the couch and recover (yes, still) from the weekend. 

Stats:

• 110,376 steps
• 18.21 miles run
• 12.4 miles walked
• 20 minutes of cardio
• 40 minutes of strength