I went back to Cheesecake for a quick lunch. It was expensive, but tasty.
I got back to the court house with a little bit of extra time, so I did a quick walk around the back of the building to get some extra steps in. I had no idea there were gardens back there!
The afternoon round of jury selection did not get me eliminated either, so I was going to have to plan on at least another day of jury duty. Ugh. Ariel came by after work. We took Olive for a walk and saw that one of the houses up the street had added some painted rocks to the base of their tree - which was cute!
We had not come up with a great plan for dinner, so Ben went to Costco to pick up a pizza. Ariel hung out with us for a bit before leaving to visit with a friend. Lioness.
Wednesday (15,228 steps) - Thanks to jury duty, I had to get up extra early to do my workout. Greg had scheduled me for 14x70s, which I have done a few times. I decided I would just run north to the bike path and do repeats back and forth so I didn't get too far from home AND so I would have access to a bathroom. It was a good plan, since I had to stop after my second repeat. Over all I just felt really tired during these and walked almost all the recoveries.
By the time I got home I had enough time to shower and barely enough time to take Olive for a short walk. Ariel had spent the night and said she could walk Olive at lunch. Court, day 2. This time it was even more jury selection. By lunch I found out that I would actually be serving on a criminal trial - FOR THREE WEEKS. I brought my lunch this time at least, and walked back into the garden area and read my book in the shade. Long day. I think we did a "just fend for yourself" for dinner since I was starving by the time I got home. Ran to the grocery store to find some food to take for lunch while I'm in jury duty that won't require a microwave. Lioness?
Thursday (17,860 steps) - Up early AGAIN to get my workouts in. I did a Peloton arms and shoulders class, but I still had to get a run in also. (Technically, I was supposed to do an hour of cross training, but I figured that twenty minutes was probably plenty).
Yes, it was a pretty morning, no, I was not happy to be out. I had planned on running to the lower pavilion and than cutting along the trail to get back. There has been so much rain that the grass and weeds have taken over and that section of trail is completely gone! I had to wander up the hill to find the higher up trail to run back down the way I wanted to go. Rushed home for a shower and then took Olive for a walk before going back to court, day 3. On my lunch hour I took a longer walk to see where all the bike paths connected and once again ate my lunch on a bench.
I will say, at least where I've been on my lunch hour, it's pretty. After work I went home to let Olive out before Ben and I went to Torchy's for dinner. We both took Olive for a walk when we got home. Lioness.
Friday (13,160 steps) - With it being a rest day, I just got up a little bit earlier so that I could take Olive for a longer walk, out to the lake. It was a beautiful morning and there were tons of people out.
Court, day 4. Same deal, walked around during lunch and had my lunch, this time at a picnic table and read my book on my phone.
We unfortunately did not get released on time, which was my first BIG annoyance of the day. Then, I walked out to my car and noticed that my tired looked flat. Sure enough, when I turned my car on the front passenger tire was completely flat! Thankfully, I still drive with run flat tires, so I was able to go home. It looked MUCH worse by the time I got there.
Ben brought home sandwiches from Taste of Philly. Lioness.
Saturday (28,572 steps) - Took Olive for a long walk to the lake and got all my gear packed up for our afternoon adventure of course sweeping for Aravaipa at Barr Lake trail races. First, we had to drive to Big O so I could drop my car off for the new tire. Then, we drove up to Brighton. It was at least 85 degrees when we arrived - with full sun. We had been asked to arrive at 11:30, but they were not ready for us to start sweeping until closer to noon. We saw the last runner go by the start/finish of the 9ish mile loop we would be sweeping with another guy, Jay. For a loop course, I was really surprised by the amount of flagging and signage. There was really only about a mile long section that had a lot of trash, and that was near the boat ramp area. Most of that was not race-related trash, but I felt like we should collect it anyway. My pockets definitely got really gross and sticky. We passed the water only aid station that was the 5k turn around and the first real aid station was at about mile 3 - where we arrived right as the runner left. I suggested that we wait at LEAST 5 minutes for her to get a head start on us. I had some watermelon and coke with ice. By now, it had to be pushing 90 degrees. Thankfully, Ben still had his quiver on his pack, which turned out to be the perfect way to carry all the pin flags!
We were able to see the runner, who was now accompanied by the bike medic when we were still probably 1.5 miles away from the aid station. Jay thought she might want company, but I thought we should hang back, at least for a bit. As someone that has spent some time with sweepers, a lot of the time I do NOT enjoy the company.
The next aid station was another 3.5 miles away, so maybe around 6.5 miles into the loop. We arrived right after the runner, and I could tell just by how she reacted to the few things that were said to her that she was not in the mood to hang out with sweepers. We stayed much longer at this aid station, and learned the girl captaining the aid station was going to be running Ouray 100 as her first 100, and her and Ben had some animated conversations about the race. We assumed we only had about 2.5 miles to go and headed out. Definitely getting REALLY hot now. The runner was definitely slowing down, and at this point in the course there were a LOT more signs that had to be pulled. We also saw some deer!
Some clouds finally came out with maybe 2/3 of a mile to go. This was a blessing and a curse. A blessing since it finally seemed to cool things down, and a curse because every mosquito in the country swarmed us in this section. Even though we had applied a bug spray multiple times - it did not matter. These were murder mosquitos. I probably got at least 20 bites in maybe 6-7 minutes. We were all really happy to cross the finish line.
There was a taco truck at the finish line, and as volunteers, we were able to get a free plate. They were so good! Unfortunately, the mosquitos had followed us. We put on even MORE bug spray, but this was not a lot of fun.
We stuck around to help tear down the finish line and aid station for about 30 minutes before we had to leave and go pick up my car. When I dropped off the car, we picked up Olive and went to 4 Noses. Dinner was leftovers from Taste of Philly. Lioness.
Sunday (24,827 steps) - Tried to sleep in and failed. Took Olive for a walk relatively early and let Ben know it was already feeling insanely hot so we should head out for our workout ASAP. I had 3,000' of vert to do, and since we had made plans to have lunch with Ariel in Golden, I suggested going to the Quarry road at North Table to do repeats. Of course I "forgot" that there is basically no shade. Even on the first repeat, there were only a few tiny patches of shade, and those were probably only a tenth of a mile from the top. We grinded out the first three fairly quickly.
There were NO clouds and it was HOT. Like really hot. Ben does not do as well in the heat as I do and I think on the 4th repeat he stayed at the top to lower his heart rate while I ran down and came back up. He ran down with me, but chose to stop after that one. So, I had two more to do, alone.
I had multiple people ask me how many repeats I was doing and they were telling me I was "awesome." More like stupid. We should not have started this so late in the day!!
The last one was a struggle and I stopped multiple times on the way up and thought very hard about not finishing, but of course I did. When I got back down I took off my back and went into the bathroom to rinse all the dead bugs of my arms and face. Thankfully, the bathroom has very cold water. It was refreshing!! We headed into Golden and got on the wait list for Woody's. By the time Ariel arrived our table was ready. Unfortunately, we had asked for "first available" - which was outside. SO HOT! The food was good, and it was great (like always) to see Ariel. After lunch we walked around on the bike path. She had to go home to get ready for work, so we also went home. We both showered and then grabbed Olive and went up to 4 Noses. We ended up sitting there for a bit and got food from the food truck (Georgia Brothers) to take home for dinner. Lioness. Also, the shortest and hottest weekend ever.
Monday (20,272 steps) - UGH. Normally a work from home day for me and a day I usually sleep until after 7. NOPE. I had to get up early to get my run in. I was definitely sore and tired from the repeats and this was a struggle.
I turned around on a similar path to the one I "lost" the previous week, thinking that there would be a feeder trail up to the higher path. Once again, I couldn't find it, so I had to trek up the hill again.
Super happy to have this one done. Ben had gone to Dutch Bros. and got me a coffee while I was out running, which was so appreciated! Took Olive for a walk and had to rush out the door for jury duty, day 6. Long day, again. Once again, I took a long walk around the building before settling on a bench and having my lunch while reading my book. We got out late, again. Ben was able to let Olive out, so at least I wasn't stressed about that. Goosie's newest outfit came in the mail! I love her hat.
We had to go to Costco, but as we normally do, we picked up a pizza on our way out for dinner. Lioness.
Stats:
- 131,318 steps
- 29.3 miles run
- 14.17 miles walked
- 25 minutes of cardio
- 20 minutes of strength
