After my walk, I headed over to Green Mountain Brewing for "run" club. I had told Mo I was planning on walking, and she was fine with that. Easy, but HOT, walk with Colfax. Then onto Green Mountain Brewing for a seltzer.
Wednesday (16,614 steps) - Well, this was an interesting morning. Day one of my training plan with my coach and she has me still "recovering" from War Hammer. She scheduled me for 45 minutes on the Peloton, which is more than twice as long as I have ever ridden. I got up early and did every minute of that ride, and it really wasn't that bad! I definitely stayed on the low end of the resistance, but it was not as terrible as I had feared. I showered and took A to practice before heading into the office. Went for a walk at lunch, then took Pika for a walk when I got home. We all went up to Carraba's to meet up with Eric and his parents. Eric is the runner that Lesley and I ran with in Texas at Possum Kingdom that was coming out to (hopefully) finish his first 100 miler, and I had given him my number so he could reach out with any questions. His parents were super friendly and sweet.
Thursday (17,652 steps) - I'm always quick to say that if I'm spending money on something I'm much more likely to take it seriously. So I got up early AGAIN and did my planned run for the day. Before I hired Steph I had planned on taking off from running at least until the weekend, but I'll do what I'm told! I took a few short walk breaks around the halfway point, and outside of a ridiculously high heart rate, this wasn't as horrible as I had feared. At least it wasn't 100 degrees.
I actually stretched when I was done! Took Pika for a walk at lunch, and happy to see the sunflowers are coming back already!
Did an upper body video. After work, we headed over to Berkeley Park for "run" club and an event with High Lonesome, Altra and Tailwind. Ariel and I took Pika for a walk at the lake while Ben stayed at the shop.
Didn't stay too long, and picked up Qdoba for dinner.
Friday (16,336 steps) - Up early to meet the crew at Wash Park! Janet was back - I haven't seen her since she had her Achilles surgery - it was good to catch up. Headed into work - and we were given a half day for Juneteenth, which was a pleasant surprise. When I got home from work (early!), Ariel and I took Pika for a walk, then since we were home sans Ben, we watched a few scary movies.
Saturday (28,269 steps) - I got up early-ish to get in my "short long run" - Steph's wording, not mine. The goal was an hour on road, with a mini goal of not stopping. I tried to take it easy, and the only stops I took were at intersections/lights. This definitely felt like it was on the edge of my abilities right now, but I'm glad I got it out of the way before it got too hot.
Tyler had dropped off Koda/Kevin while I was out running, so after I took a shower, Ariel and I took both dogs for a walk. I dropped off A at her friend's house for a birthday party, then Ben and I headed up to the lake to volunteer at the Happy Camper Endurance Runs. Even though the head volunteer had indicated that there wasn't going to be a parking fee, we had to pay to get in. Ugh. I'm not really sure why they had us out there, there weren't a ton of entrants. We handed out water, helped out at the aid station a bit and cheered on the runners. Crazy that people were out in this insane heat.
We saw Precious and Jake (Precious was running the 50 miler), and we were able to see Eric come in after completing his 6th loop. He headed out pretty quick for his 7th, and I walked him out as far as the ranger station. Ben and I finally headed out around 3 to Berkeley Park. Phil had asked if anyone could help out at their tent sale. I managed to even sell a few pairs of shoes! It was a busy afternoon, and we headed out as soon as the shop closed so that we could take the dogs out since Ariel was still at her friend's house.
Tyler came by after 8 to pick up Kevin, and we headed to bed fairly early.
Sunday (21,515 steps) - Up early to head up to Frisco for our mountain adventure of the day! Steph wanted me to get in some power hiking, with a goal of 400' per mile for about 70 minutes total. Well, the only way I was going to be able to get that "small" of gain would be to stay in the city, and I didn't want to do that, so I had in mind two different options to get some vert. What we picked/did ended up being WAY MORE vert than what she had on schedule, but I didn't figure she would mind. We got tot he trail head for Mount Victoria just before 9:00, and there were hardly any cars in the lot - phew! Our only goals were to get some climbing in, so we pulled out our poles and headed up. Couldn't believe how soon I was getting out of breath! Starting at 9,000+ feet with a lot of vertical will do that. Within just a few minutes, a group of people were coming down in a hurry - they told us that just up the trail a big brown bear had crossed the trail, so they were bailing. One guy joined us when we said that we were going to risk it. Sure enough, we saw the bear at one of the main clearings.
He was heading the opposite direction we were (in a hurry), so we continued on with Justin, the guy that had turned around. He stuck with us for a bit, but being from Illinois, he was struggling a bit with the elevation, even though he had done Mt. Royal the day before. I had done Mt. Royal once, with Ben, back in 2019. Holy cow was this a lung buster!
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| Not tall enough to ride this ride |
The trail split off to head up to Mt. Victoria. I had read some reviews that said there was still snow near the top, but it seemed so hot that I didn't believe it.
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| I can see the brewery from here! |
There were a few sections where it was a bit hard to find the trail, so I was glad to be with Ben, who had done this before. There was, in fact, snow.
Even though there was a ton of climbing, we made it to the radio tower just below the base of Mt. Victoria pretty easily. We did have to stop a few times to catch our breath, but considering we haven't been at altitude, it wasn't that bad.
We had a quick snack while in this saddle. We were discussing if we wanted to just stop here, go to the "summit" of Victoria, or head on to Peak One. Our decision was pretty quickly made when we started the climb up and the wind picked up. It was SO FREAKING WINDY. Ben was even talking about putting his jacket on (which seemed crazy).
The below "video" shows just how windy it was on this section!
The way down was was really an exercise in remembering how to use my poles on descents so they don't get caught on anything and I don't trip over them. Next time I may need to make them a bit shorter, I think that might be part of my problem with using them.
We both managed to get to the trail head without falling, although I had a few close calls. I will never understand how I'm still so crappy at trails when I do them a lot. We headed over to Outer Range for a beer, then grabbed a slice of pizza from Whole Foods to tide us over on the drive home.
There was an accident on the other side of the tunnel, so we unfortunately hit some traffic on the drive home. Ariel and I took Pika for a walk while Ben stayed home to make burgers for dinner. I was EXHAUSTED after the weekend, so we watched a short (and weird) movie, and were in bed well before 10:00.
(12,146 steps) - Work from home. Took Pika for a walk at lunch with Ben - and we saw all three owls for the first time this year! The baby is so photogenic!
We headed over to Berkeley Park for the VERY LAST RUN CLUB EVER :( The store is closing/relocating because the property was purchased by greedy developers. A huge showing - and it was great to chat with people that I haven't seen in a very long time.
