Wednesday (17,583 steps) - Headed up to Lousiville after work. I had a workout to do, so I went out solo even though I saw Tyler as I was getting ready to head out. Even though it was over 90, with the cloud cover it didn't feel nearly that hot. I had planned a route that I expected to be around 6 miles. Most of my walking/breaks (lights) were on the climb up McCaslin.
Definitely was taking it easy. There was a guy walking really fast with his dog and I think I leapfrogged with him for a few miles (eyeroll). At one point I decided I really didn't want to do the out/back I had originally planned, so I pulled out my phone to run with the map.
I even got to see chickens, so that was fun.
I was one of the last people back to the store but arrived in time to win one of the raffle prizes. We all went to Murphy's after.
Thursday (21,294 steps) - Work from home. I should have gotten up early to do my hill repeats, but I didn't, so I found myself doing them in the heat of the day. All things considered, it wasn't that bad, other than feeling like I was going to pass out (although Garmin disagreed):
The first few repeats went great, but once I got lightheaded, I took some short walk breaks.
Took Olive for a walk, then went with Ariel to the bank and got slushies for 711 day.
Have I mentioned it's been unbearably hot?
Friday (15,484 steps) - Wash Park and Stella's. Went to 4 Noses after work (and driving) and they have a new collaboration with Outer Range, and it's tasty!
Saturday (46,685 steps) - Adventure Day! Fellow Summit 200 runner Ana was in town for the race, so we invited her to join us for a loop of (mostly) the course. Tyler, Terri and Larry met us up there, although we would only end up spending the first maybe 4-5 miles together before they all took off. The route was the same one we attempted back in May (when Olive escaped out of the camper).
I didn't take any pictures of the dirt road after Rainbow Lake. Last time we were up there it was FEET of snow, and I was surprised at how rocky it was. When we got to the campground/parking lot junction, we went onto trail (basically where we turned around last time) and it was gorgeous!
We did encounter some downed trees, but they didn't really slow us down.
We really enjoyed the shade and there were numerous places to filter water, which was helpful to see ahead of race day.
The section of the course that we were on was going to top at at one of the highest elevations that we would encounter, so it was somewhat comforting to see how I was going to feel at 12,700ish feet up. It was really pretty! Somewhat shocking to see so many bikes, but it IS summer...
Ben was very excited to arrive at this section, what he says is one of his favorite views in the whole area. I agree, it was lovely!
Finally we were at the saddle between Peaks 5 and 6. There were a decent number of bikes here and a huge group of hikers. The summit area was a bit rocky, but it was nice to move faster and get a bit of running in.
These were some of my favorite views in Summit, and we have been up here a LOT.
We seemed to descent a lot quicker than we had climbed, and we were back in the woods a bit and a lot more flowers.
More access to fresh water, and it was also getting sunnier and hotter!
I knew the last "few" miles were going to be on the bike path. What none of us realized was that it was going to be on the Triple Bypass course. Oooops.
None of us especially love the paved part. It was a LOT hotter, there were a TON of bikes. We actually ran into our friend Lee (who was racing) a few miles before we got to the truck. Thankfully the bike path is really wide, so even being on the course wasn't THAT bad. We did run/walk intervals and arrived at the lot within minutes of when the others had gotten done. It was somewhat comforting to do this at a good clip, although obviously we won't be that "fast" race day. We went to Outer Range afterwards for a beer and to chat.
We decided to head down to Parry's for dinner. I got the mac and cheese and it was delicious!
Sunday (16,465 steps) - Another adventure day. With forecasts still over 100 degrees, we went back up to Guanella to take Olive back to Square Top Lakes.
Even though it was later in the morning, we were able to get a spot in the lot. It was definitely warmer than the last time we were up. Olive did move a bit quicker this time as well.
I remember there being a lot of wildflowers, but it seemed like they exploded overnight! They never photograph well, but there were so many of them.
We got rained on the last few minutes back to the car. We sat in the cab of the truck people watching until we finally decided to head down. We stopped at Cabin Creek for a snack. A table of people had an unruly dog that actually lunged at a server and bit him! They didn't even get kicked out. Crazy. We were irritated with the whole experience and went down to Parry's for a pizza. ANOTHER dog incident - a couple of women showed up with a dog and then were complaining that they couldn't see the tv because they wanted to watch some game and left the dog alone outside. After maybe 10 minutes they came out, got the dog and brought it inside. AND NO ONE SAID ANYTHING?!? wtf?? There are no dogs allowed inside restaurants - apparently another set of regulars told them it was fine and they did. Management has NO backbone, and we have created a society where people think they can do whatever they want or I'LL SUE FOR DISCRIMINATION. So irritating. Goodbye, weekend.
Monday (10,637 steps) - Work from home. Officially tapering, so I didn't have a run. It was going to be another very hot day, so I walked Olive early. We got lunch at Torchy's. 
Did some driving and met Ben at 4 Noses for a beer and some delicious Korean BBQ.
Stats:
- 139,708 steps
- 36.87 miles run
- 15.25 miles walked
- 40 minutes of cardio
- 40 minutes of strength
