Week in Review (June 14 - June 20)

Tuesday (10,346 steps) - Peloton, barre and core before working in the office. Worked at second job after. Long day.

Wednesday (20,396 steps) - Opted to do my run in the morning before work. (With my attorney out of the country, Nicole said it was fine if I had a work from home day!) I had a "baby pyramid" on schedule. Decided to go to the south side of the lake to get a bit of a hill for warmup and then there are some decent flat areas for the tempo sections. I hit all the paces I wanted for the tempo, but I was not able to jog the recovery sections because I thought I was going to die.

Little did I know wearing the WSER limited edition top would be a bad omen

Took Pika for a walk at lunch - there were baby geese!

Spent a lot of the day finishing up packing - wooo! Ended up working second job too.

Thursday (16,500 steps) - My flight wasn't until the afternoon, so I took Pika for a short walk before I left. The plan was to head down to my office so I could park my car there and then take the train from Union Station to the airport. I finally got sick of waiting around so I went a bit earlier than I planned. Everything worked out fine - the train works so nicely! Security was a breeze. I had a big beer before heading to my gate. I ended up being seated in the first row behind first class - and no one was in the seat next to me! So luxurious, I couldn't even reach the seat in front of me!!

I watched a few episodes of NCIS, and didn't mind at all that we had to wear a mask on the flight. I approved, actually, people are still disgusting and I don't want to get sick.

Flight was a breeze - REALLY fast. And getting through the airport in Calgary was soooo fast and easy - I really couldn't believe it!

I sent Heather a text to let her know I had landed, and they arrived shortly to pick me up. The only plan for the evening was to go to a Harry Potter themed bar, "The Potion Room." It was quite the experience. Very dark and mood lit inside and a different movie showing on every tv. Every drink that was ordered had a "show" that went alongside it. I was the only one who hadn't eaten, so I got some sliders that were delicious. 

Once we were heading back to the hotel I definitely wanted to get some beer for the night, and we also needed some general stuff like water. Heather and I decided to walk to the closest convenience/liquor store we could find. It wasn't THAT far from the hotel, but a case of water weighs a LOT after you've been carrying it for longer than a few minutes. 

Shortly after I took the above picture at Central Memorial Park near our hotel we noticed the emergency crews we had seen earlier were still there. AND WE SAW A DEAD BODY. NOT EVEN KIDDING. We tried to look later to see what may have happened but never came across a news story. We stayed up late watching Netflix, I think I was the last to go to sleep.

Friday (11,012 steps) - Up way earlier than we needed to be. We didn't have anything planned for the day other than driving to Banff and going to the expo. I figured we would just be getting breakfast at the hotel, but once we walked to the lobby and they were out of coffee, everyone decided to go to the adjacent diner. I can't say I was upset about that. The food was phenomenal!

We checked out and started the drive to Banff. The highway seemed soooo empty compared to what I'm used to! It was a really pretty drive. When we got to town we parked in the big, free lot. Of course we had to do the touristy thing and get our picture taken at the town sign:

We had lunch reservations and decided it was worth it to walk along the river to get there. 

We did a little shopping in town (and by we, I mean, everyone BUT me) and then got to the Park Distillery just in time for our 1 pm lunch reservation. Summer bought a vodka flight and I slammed the chili one - which was DELICIOUS.

The food was amazing, the beer was just ok. 

And of course a s'mores thingy for dessert that was tasty!

Left to right: Jen, Summer, Cooter, Crystal, me, Heather, Melanie, Michelle, Christian

The expo was really close, so we headed over to that after stopping by a local tavern. The expo was nothing special, just a couple tents set up with some merchandise from previous years. Of course we had to do a million pictures with our bibs. I got a pretty "elite" number - 8.

Finally we headed back down towards Canmore where we were staying. The house they booked was HUGE. Heather and I shared a room - and each bedroom had a huge private bathroom. Luxurious!

I have no recollection what we ended up doing for dinner, but we did go to the grocery store. 

Saturday (17,969 steps) - Up early (because the sun rises at some ridiculous hour) for a shakeout run. I had just a couple miles on schedule and we figured we could just do an out and back on the bike path. I actually picked heading away from downtown, but that ended up not being the best plan because the path ended and we had to do some running up some gravel, but it was fine.

These gals are big on celebrating runs!

Our plan for the day was to go to Yoho National Park. It was another really pretty drive. I especially enjoyed the wildlife bridges! You can read more about them here - I didn't get any good pictures of them.

I had no idea we were crossing borders into British Columbia - so that was a fun treat!

We arrived at our final destination - Emerald Lake. We thought there was a restaurant/bar right at the parking lot, but it was closed for a wedding. 

We did find a restaurant further in and got some snacks and drink. Yum!

We decided that we would go for a "recovery walk" around the lake. The guy at the front desk said that there was a "little mud" and that it was beautiful out. It was certainly pretty!

We set out and quickly realized that it was going to be MUCH muddier than we thought. It was a fun adventure, and I spent the hike/walk with Jen, Summer and her husband. 

Yikes to all this mud - and this wasn't even the worst of it

We headed back into Banff for dinner. Delicious!

Sunday (53,681 steps)  - Banff marathon!

I really can't think of anything else we did besides run. I don't even remember what we had for dinner. Crazy.

Monday (22,003 steps) - So Greg gave me a run to do! I had 4 miles of recovery running and Heather offered to join me. I didn't know how I was going to feel, plus I knew Heather would want to do intervals, so we planned on 60/60 intervals. I had not mapped anything out, but figured that we could take the bike path in the other direction and see where we ended up. Our run was lovely! The first part was on the bike path, a little bit in town, through a neighborhood, and then we FOUND A LOVELY TRAIL. Seriously, this was great!

The route did end up being longer than expected (this was not intentional, I just didn't know how to get us back without it being longer, so once we hit the 4 miles we switched to just walking. Stopped at the local coffee shop and got a delicious latte.

And mimosas again because that's what they do

Our plan for the day was to go up the gondola in Banff, then have lunch at the top. I rode in a car with Heather and Crystal - neither of them especially enjoy heights, so this was fun.

Lunch was a buffet, and it was delicious. I couldn't even eat half of what I got. At least the macaroni & cheese was subpar, it gave me room for a ton of different dessert options.

It looked like it might rain out, but we decided to do the hike up to the top of Sulphur mountain. Lots of stairs and a really pretty view! Tons of people out though.

We decided that we had time to go to the hot springs at the base of the gondola. It was a fairly small pool area, and there were areas that were shallow enough that you could sit with your legs stretched out and not be totally submerged, so that was nice. 

We were supposed to go on a beer cruise, but the day got away from us and by the time we got to the shuttle we missed our departure time. We walked around and took pictures and confirmed that we could do it another day.

So instead... we went back into town for drinks and dinner. 

Stats:

• 151,907 steps
• 35.45 miles run
• 30 minutes of cardio
• 30 minutes of strength training