Went for a walk at lunch to meet Josephine because she is lending me a book! Other than that, a pretty calm day and I didn't have to work at the second job. Wooo.
I did end up taking more walk breaks than I'd like, but with some big climbing recently I'm not upset about it. Spent some time at the store after chatting with Tyler and Sandy.
Thursday (12,516 steps) - Work from home. Long walk at lunch again. Worked second job. The end.
Friday (21,374 steps) - Actually made it to Wash Park for a walk with the gang - first time in a REALLY long time. Walk was pleasant and coffee delicious! Worked in the office. Walked to REI at lunch because they actually have the new Rabbit skirt in stock and I'm still waiting for mine. I tried it on when I got back to the office and it seems like it fits fine with nothing in the pockets and no movement, but I'm betting I need a smaller size. Went to second job - warned Diego that I may not be continuing this employment too long... we will see.
Saturday (34,205 steps) - Up INSANELY early so that I could drive to Leadville! Got out the door on time, and stopped in Georgetown at the rest area to use the bathroom. My stomach was feeling a bit off so I sent Kristin a text to see if she might have some Tums or Pepto. Rest of the drive was uneventful and I found the trail head without any issues. I missed the text from Kristin asking me to text when I got to town - everyone but me and Cooper had camped the night before. It was a few minutes before they ran down the road to meet up. And then off we went!
Right from the start I knew it was going to be a rough day. I started in the back, where I would be the entire day. My legs didn't want to run the easy parts and I was struggling with the climbs more than everyone else.
The group waited for me at the bridge that crosses the river. SO PRETTY!
Interestingly, the next section of climbing didn't seem as bad to me, I'm not sure why the lower part seemed so brutal. It was getting warmer, but I really enjoyed being in the trees.
When we finally got out of the "forest" section I could kinda see where we were going - and it wasn't nearly as far as I thought, which was good.
When we got close to the summit we could see Joe waiting for us at the top. Cooper and Tyler had already continued down the other side, but Joe said they were only maybe 10 minutes ahead of us. That's not bad, considering how slow I felt like we were moving. We stayed at the summit for a few minutes and I ate part of my sandwich. Every picture I've seen of Hope Pass has prayer flags, but there were not any up there.
Terri was only planning on continuing for another mile or so, and Kristin was intent on getting her 20 miles in. I figured I would hang out with Kristin. The initial switchbacks off the summit were quite pleasant to jog down.
We got to a rock field before dropping into the more wooded section.
I did not enjoy this part, really at all. It was hot and humid feeling and the grade of the trail seemed REALLY steep. I cannot believe that people actually do this in the Leadville 100. This was not fun for me at all. We got to a trail junction and I figured that we would be going towards Winfield, but Kristin headed toward Sheep Gulch because she thought Tyler and Cooper would be finishing up their miles on the road before heading up. I was hot and didn't actually need the miles (just the vert), so I told Kristin I was going to turn around and head back since I knew I was going to be slow anyway.
I was sitting on a rock in the shade when I heard people coming and I was SO HAPPY when I saw it was Tyler and Cooper! They were definitely faster than me (Tyler moreso than Cooper, which was a bit odd), but they made sure I wasn't too far back and it made the climb probably a bit less awful. Although I will not sugarcoat it, the climb out was AWFUL. It was steep. It was hot. We stopped at every bit of water and dunked our hats and filled our
filter bottles. Tyler powered on alone and Cooper and I kinda dragged behind heading back to the summit. Tyler got a decent picture of me hiking back up.
We stayed a bit longer than we planned at the top. I was eating, Cooper was lying down and Tyler was being really chatty and friendly with the the other people up there. Randomly got in a conversation with a group of people that are crewing a friend at Bigfoot. This would have been good training for that, in retrospect. I let Cooper and Tyler take the lead on the way down, and did a decent amount of running down. The Twin Lakes side is the best side, if you can only do one, by the way.
I felt pretty good the whole way down, and we were able to get down a lot sooner than I thought we would have. Thankfully, the river was right by where we parked and I'm glad I had my Chacos so that I could walk out into the water a bit and soak my feet. It was freaking fantastic.
I headed over to where everyone was camping and chatted with Terri and Tyler, and had a beer. Eventually I decided it was time to head back to Denver, although I stopped on the way out of town at Silver Rush. The Roost had a big tent out and I talked with Sandy and Jeannene a bit. No free beer so there wasn't a ton keeping me there. I ended up meeting Ben at Malone's for dinner. I ordered way too much food and wasn't able to finish most of it. I figured I would be a lot more hungry after all that activity.
Sunday (15,584 steps) - Slept too late and completely messed up for my run. It was well over 90 degrees when I headed out before 10 am. My legs felt like complete garbage after all the hiking. I was supposed to be doing a 90 minute endurance run with pick-ups and barely just got through the time. It was a disaster and really pretty miserable.
It was too hot to take Pika for a walk. Ben and I went to the new Colorado Tap House and had some beer and food truck tacos and nachos. Watched a movie. The end?
Monday (16,952 steps) - Up early for a run! I had a goal of 500+ feet of climbing so I headed over to North Table. I planned on starting from the trail head, but there is no bathroom, so I ended up having to walk over to the baseball field to use theirs. What an amazing sunrise I was treated to!
Legs were still trash, so I didn't run much of the initial miles. I was SO happy that it was literally 35 degrees cooler than Sunday's run, and I couldn't stop taking pictures of the sunrise.
The trails were also WEIRDLY deserted. I didn't see anyone for the first 3 or 4 miles of the run - which is very VERY rare on this trail - it's normally completely crowded with runners, hikers and especially cyclists.
Once I got to the top I easy jogged the flats and the rest of the way down the canyon.
It was a truly spectacular morning, and even though the running part was probably not as good as I would have liked, I had a great time. Made it home with plenty of time to shower and get coffee before starting my work day. Ben booked me a pedicure - a very rare treat.
Took Pika for a walk. After I got done with work, sat around for a bit until it was time to go to the airport to pick Ariel up from her trip! Two weeks flew by, not just for me, but for her. Traffic was horrible (like usual), but we got there on time. Her friend stopped by and we had a fairly late dinner. A long day!
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