Week in Review (August 13 - August 19)

Tuesday (19,445 steps) - Strength class during lunch. REI was having a big sale, so I finally picked up my Micro Puff (that will hopefully get me a). through Tahoe and b). Through winter in general).

Forgot my running shoes, so I was only going to be walking again at Milk Market. I did do a few sections of jogging to break up the monotony of walking, however. Food was random and delicious (pesto & peaches on bread?).

Wednesday (21,856 steps) - Core class during lunch. Runners Roost Boulder!

Super hot night again. Run was hard (is it ever NOT?), but still managed a fairly decent pace. First time I've actually run the whole route in a while.

Meant to start packing, and didn't (really).
Thursday (15,278 steps) - First day of 8th grade for A!

Left work early for volunteering with BMA & OSMP. A decided that she was too tired to go, so I drove alone to Boulder and met Chelsea at the free lot. We then drove back down to the Flatirons lot, where we were transported by truck most of the way. We still had to carry pickaxes and water, but it wasn't nearly as far as if we'd walked all the way from the lot. Work was a lot harder this time - pickaxes are heavy! We were gathering huge rocks and then digging holes for them to create "rumble strips" on a downhill to help with erosion and bikes going to fast. Late night.

Chelsea is having an awfully good time watching this guy play Tetris with rocks

Friday (10,967 steps) - Core class during lunch. After work rushed home to grab A and a handful of things to head up the mountain. Heavy traffic again, and we decided on Noodles for dinner. A bit of a headache trying to find Velcro for Ben's gaiters, but we managed to get some from Lowe's, and got to his house around 8. In bed way too late for an early wake up.
Saturday (26,149 steps) - Up at 1:00 am. Yes, 1. Initially I told Ben to wake me up around 2:15, but once he was up, I was too. He is really... slow moving on a race morning. We enjoyed coffee and breakfast, and then he finalized all his packing. Still had to get gas on the way up to Leadville. Crazy that we still were parked (only a few blocks from the start line) with about 20 minutes to spare. Plenty of time for the bathroom and a pre-race pic.

I ran into quite a few friends at the start, but at 4 am, I wasn't too keen on sticking around for a long time. Grabbed Oza's info on the house, then drove BACK to Ben's house. Had hoped to get a few more hours of sleep, but I was too cold. Up before my alarm, showered, had breakfast, and then A and I grabbed the last of our things and headed into Silverthorne for some coffee. Not more than a minute after leaving, I got a text from Ben - "I'm hurt. Lost some blood. Moving. Running. 911 called but I kept running." AND THEN HE DIDN'T RESPOND TO ANY FURTHER MESSAGES. "Luckily, he made it to the next aid station and a mutual friend of ours was working the medical tent, and she sent me a pic and message. He certainly did eff himself up.

He wanted to continue running and insisted he was fine - so I messaged him that we would see him at Twin. Now of course THAT was also an ordeal. By 9:30 the line was so long for parking that I opted to drive all the way to the road to drop Ariel off with Ben's giant 400 pound bag. Ended up having to park nearly two miles away.

Found A with no problem at Becki Lynn's tent. Socialized with everyone while waiting for runners to come in. Everyone seemed to be coming in later than expected. Ben was in good spirits when I finally saw him, and he looked a lot better once we took a few minutes to clean him up and get him into a clean shirt.

I walked him out to the road and told him we would be at Winfield. WHICH WAS ALSO AN ORDEAL. New this year, was needing to take a bus. As a conservative guess, we waited nearly two hours for a bus. We hadn't had a chance to go to the car (since it was two miles away), so we didn't have water, snacks or sunscreen. By the time we did get on a bus, they were overfilling them, so I had to share a seat with 2 people and A had to stand. FOR AN HOUR.

We finally arrived at Winfield. Hot & sunny. Chatted with Jeramiah, Andrew, Lisa A. and Koltin, while waiting. They really had us worried, but everyone came in about a half hour before cutoff. I actually got Ben out of the aid station pretty quickly, and Becki said she would take good care of him on Hope Pass.

Ben looks happy and I look like I have a double chin - walking him out of Winfield for his second trip up Hope Pass

We were there to watch all the people get cut that didn't make the cutoff, and I surprisingly emotional watching athletes get their bracelets cut and not being allowed to finish. Shockingly, the bus back was no better. We waited well over an hour for one, and when we got on, there were hundreds of others behind us. (Rumor has it some were still there at 9 pm!!)

Luckily, the bus driver was pretty helpful and stopped along the road near Twin and dropped us off, so we didn't have to walk as far to get back to the car. This time, we were only a little over a half mile away. Went back to BPCO's tent and thankfully Margo was there and made us some food. We were starving!!

As it got darker, we obviously got more concerned. Becki had sent her husband a text asking to give me Tylenol for Ben when he came in. Shortly after that, A got a text that Tyler wanted to drop and they probably wouldn't make the cutoff.

Once we were getting down to the wire (about 9:40 pm) - we walked over to the road and watched as runners were rushing to make the 10:00 pm cutoff. Yet none of them happened to be Ben. Once our watches read 9:55, we knew there was no way that he could be in and out of an aid station in that amount of time (we were probably at least a quarter mile from then aid station by now). Ugh. After all that work, Ben was going to miss a cutoff. A decided to go back to the tent to wait for everyone, and I planned on hanging out until I saw them.

It would be a while, nearly 45 minutes, before I would see them (and they were only minutes behind Jeramiah and Tyler). For missing a major cutoff and now a DNF, he seemed ok with it. We headed to the aid station to check in with medical and tell a race official that he was done (but accounted for). Both Becki and Ben were freezing, so we stayed in the tent a while for them to warm up. Probably around 11:30, we finally headed out. I had offered to give people a ride to their car because the thought they were about three miles away.

Ben after 64ish miles & Becki still adorable after 14+ and 8(?) water crossings

Thankfully, we had enough service to map to Tyler's place in Twin, as the thought of trying to get down to Ben's was daunting. His parents welcomed us in, and we were treated to some beer, pizza, and most importantly, a shower and a bed to sleep in. Lights out after midnight - but still earlier than any of us planned.
Sunday (5,071 steps) - Clearly, I did nothing. We were up early. Had coffee and decided to go into Leadville to watch the last of the finishers come in. By the time we go there, we only saw the last two official finishers. Spent some time at the Roost tent, congratulated Lexa, then went over to PB, where we remained with various groups of friends for a while. Went to Safeway to pick up some last minute food, then headed back up to Tyler's place at Twin Lakes.

Monday  (7,669 steps) - Made the decision at 3:30 am that there was no way I could drive to Denver at that hour. Slept a little later, helped Tyler clean up, then drove into Frisco to take Ben to have his head looked at. A even got to go back with him for his catscan. 

Actually looks worse than it was, X-ray didn't pick up anything. Just a bruise.

Thankfully, he did not sustain "serious" injuries from his fall (no brain bleed, breaks or fractures), although he was diagnosed with his second concussion of the year. We went back to his house for a few snacks and some relaxation before heading to Denver late afternoon. 

Took A to her Scout meeting, went home to shower & do laundry. After her meeting we went to Outback (thanks, Sharon, for the gift card). 

In bed early-ish.

Stats:

• 106,435 steps
• 6.6 miles run (huh. Well, I was supposed to pace Ben, so I guess I'm missing those miles, but wow, I didn't realize I didn't run.... at all.)
• Three gym classes

Week in Review (July 9 - July 15)

Tuesday (19,333 steps) - Strength class during lunch. Milk Market run club after work! It was super hot and I planned on a run/walk (at best). All the miles I put in over the last week (and lack of recovery from Black Hills) caught up with me and it was pretty miserable.

Pizza!
Wednesday (21,723 steps) - Core class during lunch. Runners Roost Boulder! It was super hot (again) and we did a pretty challenging route.

There was a newer gal there and I wasn't as far in back as usual, so that was nice.

Thursday (20,485 steps) - LONG day at work. Left early to pick A up to do some volunteer trail building up in Eldorado Springs/Boulder. It was nearly a two mile hike to get to the work site, and then it was quite a bit of manual labor. Basically, I spent a few hours shoveling rocks and dirt.

Went out with everyone after to Southern Sun, which was delicious. Very late night, not home until 10!
Friday (26,733 steps) - Core class during lunch. Had planned to go to Lair o' the Bear after work since I knew A was going to be at a party/sleepover. Turns out she ended up needing a ride so I had to go home and get her there. Decided to go to the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge for a run. I put on bug spray, headed out, and proceeded to get chewed up by flies. Pretty miserable run.

Saturday (12,275 steps) - Runbarre! "Easy" 30 minute run with Mo and then a 30 minute barre express class. It's hard to believe I ever did this regularly, as I really struggled! To be fair, the last barre class I took was in October.

Ben, Mo and I got cupcakes after (you know, for breakfast), then headed home.

Took a nap and watched some TV before picking A up. Grocery shopping, then a quick snack before driving up to Ben's. (He had to work a later shift so we didn't end up getting up there until 8). Quick beer at Angry James before going to Cheba Hut for dinner.
Sunday (29,406 steps) - To the amazement of everyone, Ben and I were up and out the door just after nine for a long day of hiking/running. (We probably should have been out hours earlier, but...) Ben had mapped out a pretty cool route (that was going to be long, with a lot of vertical), but when we arrived at the lower lot we found out the fire road we hoped to drive up was closed. Ugh. It ended up being about 4.5 miles just to get to the trail head for Argentine Pass. Womp. (Not that it was bad training, we still gained about 1000' in those miles.

The sky was getting pretty sketchy, so we agreed we would monitor and turn around if/when it got too scary. The trail was super pretty and not too steep. Didn't even really need the poles I brought with me, although we did have several snowfields we had to cross, and the poles did come in handy for that. After crossing a half dozen or so of those, the sky continued to get more dark. Even though we were probably only a half mile from the summit (that would probably take at least 15-20 minutes), we decided to turn around. Good thing, we did get rained on a bit and had to put on our jackets. No thunder/lightning, but you can't mess around with weather in the mountains!

Moose on the loose! (A calf jumped out shortly after I took this)

Once we got into town we picked up Chipotle (by now it was four and we hadn't eaten anything of substance!) and went to Outer Range for a few beers.

Finally headed home around 5:30 and THEN the downpour started. Picked up pizza for a later dinner.
Monday (26,041 steps) - Ugh - early drive into Denver. SUPER hot, and Ariel ended up going to Water World with her friend, so I opted to skip the exposed New Terrain run and decided to go Eldorado/Boulder for a loop I mapped out. It was blissfully clouded, but about two miles in it started to rain. By mile three it was raining pretty heavily, although I never got cold because it was still in the 60's. The trails got a bit muddy, which is never fun. Loop ended up being just under nine miles.

Home for a hot shower and dinner.

Stats:

• 155,996 steps
• miles run
• Three gym classes