Wednesday, January 6, 2021

Week in Review (December 29 - January 4)

Here we go for another year! 2020 seemed to drag on F.O.R.E.V.E.R. and yet flew by at the same time. I know that so many couldn't wait for the year to be over, but for me, it was a pretty great year. I was able to maintain running through the pandemic, got used to working from home (which is the greatest, btw), got engaged/married, and got a new house. With that said, a new year is always somewhat of a "new slate" and I've got a lot of things in the works for 2021.

Tuesday (12,304 steps) - Work from home. Took Pika for a run at lunch.
Wednesday (10,096 steps) - Work in the office. And it was a shit show of a day. I usually have only been working in the morning, but I had so much to do that I actually worked a 9 hour day with no lunch break. It wasn't fun.

I was basically the only person in our entire office building working, apparently
Went for a walk with Ariel when I got home and we had Qdoba for dinner, since none of us felt like cooking.
Thursday (11,166 steps) - Work from home. Took Pika for another run during lunch.
After taking a solid week off from from drinking, I finally had some beer for New Years Eve. Ben managed to find a beer called "Orange You Glad 2020 is Ending" - although I didn't really care for that one.

In true Rebecca fashion, I didn't make it until midnight.
Friday (43,261 steps) - Up early for the first dumb idea of the New Year. Tyler had mentioned in passing a few weeks earlier about running 20.21 miles. Somehow that turned into me creating a route and organizing a socially distanced fun run. At least I had the sense to not have it start until 9:00. I could not believe how many idiotic (and WONDERFUL) friends I have. We had about 30 people show up, with at least half committing to the full distance! I had created a route that was two 10 mile loops, with the first being on road, and the second being on trail.
I was DEFINITELY apprehensive about this run. While I have tackled a few double digit runs in the last few months, I really get anxiety about running in groups (still), because I walk so much and tire so easily. Luckily, I had warned everyone that I had no intention of "leading" the group, and a few faster folks stepped up for that.

We started in Morrison and run up the road to Red Rocks. It was a lot chillier than I had thought, and early on I wished that I had worn/brought warmer clothes.
People were really great about waiting at intersections so people didn't get lost. There was basically zero traffic out at this hour, and we tried to stay away from the road as much as possible.
Our matching skirts were a hit!


The first few miles of this route definitely suck!! It's a lot of climbing, which everyone knows is not my strong suit. Once we got to the top, it was an enjoyable run down to Dinosaur Ridge, especially since the road was closed for down traffic. Once again, I was able to run all the way up the west side of Dino Ridge.

We headed up the side of the road, through the tunnel to the bike path on the other side of the highway. I like this section because it's gradual downhill, although LOUD because of the traffic. We managed to see Precious & Jake at the trail head for Green Mountain, which was a fun coincidence.

I had suggested that Ben meet us at 10:45-11:00 for the second half of the run, but we were WAY later than planned. This was going to be his first run back since his knee surgery in mid November. Probably a good thing he didn't do all 20. We spent a few minutes at our cars dropping layers (it got sunny and warm!) and refilling water/using the bathrooms before heading into Bear Creek Lake Park for the second half of our run.

As expected, he felt great (after months off) and quickly took off in the front of the pack once we got onto the trails.
Zach was up front with Ben and it appeared that while he was following the route that I created, he was seemingly doing it in reverse, so I wasn't really able to navigate from my own watch. I was REALLY tired and running seemed really hard. 
When I was creating the route in Strava, it wasn't easy to tell what trails I was picking, and if they were paved or not. Luckily, outside of the climb up Mt. Carbon, it was all dirt! Ben and Zach FINALLY waited for us all at the summit, and Zach got a super cool selfie of all of us.
We got stuck behind an older couple walking on the single track, but after that it was pretty great. I was fairly close to the front, and turned around to get this shot of folks coming down.
I was basically DONE at this point, but sadly we still had like three miles to go. Ugh. Lots of run/walking, but we got it done.

When we got near the boat ramp we saw a goat. A goat!! He looked super happy.
When we finally hit 20.21 miles (we knew the route would be a tad long), we had some jell-o shots to celebarte.
We finally got back to the car, and spent a few minutes socializing, although most of the faster people had already left. A group of us opted to go to Green Mountain Brewery for a beer and snack. There was a taco truck and it was UH-MAZING.
It wasn't super warm now that we were just sitting around, so we headed home. Fun day, outside of the running part. 
Saturday (10,081 steps) - "Slept in." Took Pika for a walk.
Since Ben was off work, we spent some time getting the garage cleaned out. FINALLY getting rid of the last of the boxes. Woo hoo!
Sunday (20,403 steps) - Pika had woken me up at the insane hour of 3:30 in the morning wanting to go out. I figured I would use the bathroom while I was up, discovering that the carpet outside the bathroom was wet. WTF. We obviously weren't going to do anything THEN, but now we had stuff to do later. Ugh.

Ariel and I headed to Thornton for the first RMRR race of the year. A was planning on the 5K and I was going to suffer through the 10K. Once I found out that Mo and I were starting at the same time, we planned to run together. This sucks. Second slowest I've run this course (after the time I ran a few days after finishing 115+ miles at Across the Years). Lots of walking, but always enjoy time with Maureen!

Garmin Time - 1:07:48
Garmin Distance - 6.19 miles
Garmin Pace - 10:57
Mile 1 - 10:52
Mile 2 - 11:46
Mile 3 - 10:53
Mile 4 - 11:09
Mile 5 - 10:48
Mile 6 - 10:31
Mile 6.19 - 9:27 (wheeeee)
Doesn't A always look so relaxed when she runs? Her Strava comment was "I feel out of shape for sure haha" after running 3.11 miles in 27:53. Adorable.

We stuck around for a bit chatting with people before heading to Torchy's to pick up breakfast tacos. Greg and Maureen came over to eat/drink at the fire pit, but the wind picked up and Greg headed out pretty quick. Maureen and I took the dogs for a walk. A VERY WINDY WALK.
Maureen stayed for a bit longer before we kinda kicked her out to get working on the bathroom water issue.

Unfortunately for us, it was NOT GOOD. While the carpet was wet, we couldn't see water anywhere else, so we had to start taking tiles up. The tiles were HUGE and we weren't able to get them out with breaking them. the first one did not show any water underneath, although we did find out that there used to be a faux wood laminate under. By the second tile, we started to see moisture. And the next thing we knew... the whole floor was ripped up. Sadness.



We discovered there were MULTIPLE layers of laminate flooring, more than one subfloor, and a lot of water and some black mold. Yippee. Until we can get a plumber in, we think the toilet was not installed properly when the previous owners did the bathroom remodel. The toilet was not bolted in, and the wax ring was super jacked up. So for a while, we are in a state of disaster, and down to one bathroom. We are not happy.
Monday (10,201 steps) - Work from home. Walk with Pika at lunch.
In all the chaos, our Concept2 rower finally showed up!! We had been on a waitlist to purchase one for months, and it finally came!! I had a chance to try it out, and it's pretty great. There is an app that it uses and uploads directly to Garmin & Strava, as well as it's own logbook to track lifetime meters. This is going to be horrible/fun.

Stats:
  • 117,512 steps
  • 33.2 miles run
  • 18 minutes rowing

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