Week in Review (May 13 - May 19)

Tuesday (14,258 steps) - Peloton and Olive walk before going to work. StairMaster and strength training at lunch.

Walked Olive after I got off work. Torchy's? Handmaid's Tale!

Wednesday (16,411 steps) - Olive walk before going to work. I had a workout at lunch. Unfortunately, my stomach was off basically from the beginning. I had to walk a bunch and the trail was also torn up on one side, so.... other than getting miles in - it was a bust.

I did see baby geese though!

No idea what happened after I got home.

Thursday (12,184 steps) - Work from home. Took Olive for a long walk, then Ariel and I went to Torchy's to pick up lunch and watched an episode of "You." Strength training and squeezed in a Peloton ride to get all my cross training done for the day. Criminal Minds!

Friday (13,316 steps) - Wash Park with Olive and the gang. Uneventful day at work. My Mother's Day flowers were looking quite lovely!!

Stuff. Things? 

Saturday (34,922 steps) - Planned to meet Terri at 7:30 at the free lot in Boulder so we could carpool to the trail head. Unbelievable that the trail head was already full??! Last time we ran from there we parked at 8:15... I thought for sure that 7:30 would be early enough, but no, we had to park on the road which was going to add nearly a mile to our day. None of us were excited about going up Shadow, but I felt really good right up until we started the climb. Once we got into the canyon I just kind of felt clammy and nauseous, so it just took forever (for all of us, I think I was the biggest whiner though).

No need for us to tag South Boulder or Bear peak, we have all done that plenty of times. We did stop for a snack at the saddle and chatted for a few minutes with a few gals that were out pacing at Cocodona this year.

We finally started the descent, and happily we had almost all the vert done. Of course then we have the technical downhill, which we don't like either. It was also getting chilly, so I had to put my jacket on.

Just before the route finally leveled out, I slid down a section and managed to gash open my left palm and pinky pretty good. Thankfully, after Terri's fall last week, I actually had some supplies in my pack to clean it up and got bandaged up.

We managed to get caught in a short rain storm, which wasn't fun on the chunky rocky section and I couldn't seem to stay on my feet. Was becoming very frustrating!! Not to mention, none of us could remember how far it was to get back to the car.

We finally got close and realized it was going to be very close to 13 miles, so I opted to round up to a half marathon distance (and only had to go about .06 out of the way). Terri dropped me and Ben off at the truck and we met up at Murphy's for lunch and a beer. 

We decided to head home and grab Olive before heading to 4 Noses for one more beer. Leftovers? Who can remember.

Sunday (14,326 steps) - Happy birthday to me:

We had plans to for brunch around 11:45, and I suggested we head to Green Mountain to do a few hill repeats before meeting Ariel.

This sign always makes me smile

It was pretty warm and sunny, and unfortunately, my hair tie broke so my hair was flinging around, making me even hotter.

We managed to get two full repeats done, yay!! My watch apparently thought I was cheating because when I saved the activity it asked if I wanted to add an e-bike. Uh, no. We drove over to the Cheesecake Factory and got seated right away. Got an eggroll sampler and I picked a delicious breakfast sandwich for my entree.

Obviously, we got cheesecake! I got Key Lime for my special birthday slice, plus we got a few other slices to go.

We decided to walk around the mall a bit - I don't think I had been there since before Covid? Or maybe even before the hail storm that totaled my car ruined the roof of the building? All I got was a new jibbitz for my crocs (yes, I am just THAT COOL). Spent the rest of the day at home. Took a nap, read some of my book, and all of us watched a really cheesy movie "Significant Other."

Monday (13,359 steps) - Work from home. I took Olive to the dog park again to combine a run/walk since I also had a dentist appointment later in the afternoon. Saw the first snake of the season:

Olive had a great time running in and out of the "river" in the dog park. So many well-behaved dogs out there and they had so much fun chasing each other. Olive definitely gets a surge of energy any time she can get wet or roll around in snow.

After her swimming break we still had a couple of miles to get back to the car, but she did a great job of running it in. Finished out my work day and hoped to get some driving in, but I didn't get any good offers, unfortunately. Picked up pizza for dinner. We planned on watching tv but Aliya and Ariel showed up and we spent the evening going over details for our upcoming vacation. 

Stats:

• 118,776 steps
• 26.34 miles run
• 11.64 miles walked
• 55 minutes of cardio
• 50 minutes of strength

Week in Review (May 6-12)

Tuesday (13,943 steps) - Peloton and Olive walk before going to work. StairMaster and strength training at lunch.

Another walk with Olive after work. Handmaid's Tale.

Wednesday (21,715 steps) - With Olive being home and it raining I opted to skip walking Olive before going to work. After work I headed to Dinosaur Ridge since I had a hill workout to do and all the trails were too saturated to run on. I walked for probably the first 15 minutes of my warm up and ran the rest. Might have been the first time I've ever run up the full Rooney Road side of the road! Was pretty happy about that. 

Took Olive for a short walk after getting home. Parks and Rec?

Thursday (11,633 steps) - Work from home. Did a Peloton ride and then took Olive for a long walk. Ariel had a dentist appointment and wanted me to go with her. I was easily convinced since there is a Ziggi's in the parking lot and I got my free birthday drink!

Pilates video and some driving after work. Took Olive for a walk after all that.

Criminal Minds!

Friday (17,536 steps) - Walked Olive before going to work. Ariel was supposed to be home during the day and then going to work in the evening, but she got called in so I had to rush home right after I got off to walk Olive. We are still in need of new things to watch so we found a movie, "Wild Robot" - and we both really liked it.

Saturday (27,803 steps) - Drove up to Louisville to meet Terri at her house so we could carpool to Bobcat for our long run. I had a vert goal of at least 2000' of gain, and this was Terri's suggestion for a way to get it. We planned out a longer loop than the last time we were in the area, and going in the reverse direction. The first few miles were ALL up and it was pretty warm and sunny.

When we finally got to the top of the ridge and the below sign, we stopped for a brief snack break.

Once we were more on the saddle/ridge it was more runnable. We were blessed to have a slight breeze and we were all in a great mood at this point (especially since we had done so much of the climbing already).

We came to a trail junction and going one way had all sorts of signage (that I can't believe I didn't get a picture of) that suggested imminent death, so of course we opted to go the more tame way. Not more than a few minutes down the trail and Terri had a decently bad fall, ripping up her left knee pretty badly.

Once we got to the split at the Power Line trail, she opted to go back to the car so that she could get cleaned up. Larry, Ben and I kept going. It was quite a nice descent down some fairly smooth switchbacks, before we ended up on the lower loop trail. Larry had us convinced it was going to be a 13 mile loop, so Ben and I were super happy when we got closer to the car and it was only about 11 miles. I hadn't quite hit my vert, so I went back up the way we started until I hit my number (and happened to run into Terri, who was passing time waiting for us). We of course went to Berthoud Brewing after (since Larry and Terri are in the mug club AND they have delicious pizza).

After lunch we headed back towards the city, dropping of Larry and then a quick stop at Crystal Springs for their anniversary party before heading home. 

Sunday (18,151 steps) - Originally Terri had plans to join us for our morning run, but she canceled last minute. We got out of the house a bit later than planned for our run in Boulder. There were a zillion people out and we got one of the last parking spots at the trail head we like. Pretty early on we both realized that we didn't feel great (sore and tired from the Bobcat run) and this was going to be a long morning. 

Lots of pretty flowers out, including TONS of irises, which I don't ever remember seeing on this trail before.

I thought the run was going to be about 8 miles, so we were INCREDIBLY happy that it ended up being less than 7. I was just NOT into this one at all. Let Ariel know that we were finished and headed to 4 Noses. We had one beer before carpooling to Deidre's house for Mother's Day breakfast burritos. Always good to see them! Headed back to 4 Noses for the succulent workshop - I think I did great (with lots of help from Ariel and the lady hosted the workshop).

And the pretty flowers that Ariel got me:

Nice, quiet evening at home.  We sat on the front patio and had some pasta for dinner. Parks & Rec?

Monday (23,274 steps) - Work from home. Went for my run pretty early since it was supposed to be really hot. Normally, I turn my watch on to connect to gps before I leave the house so as soon as I leave the driveway I start my run. I missed a step on this one and accidentally didn't start my watch until I was almost to the park. Ugh. I had 75 minutes on schedule and since it's been so hot I ran the south side of the lake. Run itself wasn't bad. I did walk up the last part of the big hill, but otherwise ran the whole time - a big step up from how awful running had been on Sunday. Did some work and some laundry. After the second load of laundry we had some excitement. The basin wasn't draining. Ariel and I tried to do some troubleshooting, but basically we had to drain using the emergency water release, which the first time I did that water sprayed out pretty far, Ariel figured out how to release the water more slowly. Ugh. Took Olive for her walk. They are finally closing the lower single track after all the damage people have done to it since Covid. (Personally, I think this should have been done ages ago).

Did some driving after work. Pizza for dinner?

Stats:

• 134,055 steps
• 29.93 miles run
• 18.62 miles walked
• 55 minutes of cardio
• 50 minutes of strength

Week in Review (April 29 - May 5)

Tuesday (15,232 steps) - Peloton and Olive walk before going to work. Gym session during lunch. Back to the grind on the StairMaster.

Walked Olive after work and then Ben and I went to a new sushi restaurant in town. Unlimited sushi meant that we were both STUFFED afterwards.

Criminal Minds!

Wednesday (23,066 steps) - Walked Olive before going to work. Went for my run at lunch, first workout since Monster. It went pretty well and the weather was good. Torchy's for dinner and more Criminal Minds.

Thursday (10,948 steps) - Work from home. Long walk with Olive on the bike path since I figured the trails would be soggy. Peloton ride and some cross training. Met Ben at Costco so we could pick up some groceries. By the time we got done we decided to just grab a pizza because we didn't feel like cooking. 

Friday (13,731 steps) - Wash Park with the gang. Fairly uninteresting day at work, as you can tell by this picture of Olive.

Olive and I met Ben at 4 Noses for happy hour.

We felt like a burger for dinner and found out that Hops n' Drops recently closed. Wth! Ended up taking Olive home and going to Hoffbrau. The food is ok, but the restaurant is a little too "much" for us (loud and lots of people). Criminal Minds!

Saturday (26,078 steps) - Took Olive for a walk and then we headed to Golden to meet up with Larry. We picked Apex since none of us had been there in a while. The lot was crazy full, although we did start relatively late. We went up Argos side (to get more miles/vert).

Universally we decided to skip going to the "trail head" at Lookout and just headed straight for Enchanted. 

Not nearly as many people on this segment and still very grateful that we have alternating use days on this part so we don't have to worry about getting hit by a mountain biker.

Went to Parry's afterwards for a beer and snack before heading home to walk Olive. 

Spent some time working in the yard before making dinner. Finished the newest Handmaid's Tale and watched G-20, which was decent.

Sunday (12,215 steps) - Weren't sure if we needed to help A out with moving so we headed up to Boulder early for our activity of the day - Mount Sanitas! Olive did very well for her first summit.

The more technical part of the descent wasn't super fun with lots of people and Olive not navigating the best but things improved a bit when we got to the road.

She wasn't super interested in running, so it took longer than we hoped. I was supposed to hit 1,500' of climbing for the day so we started to head back up to hit my vert goal.

Discovered that Vision Quest was dog friendly (even inside!) so we headed there for a beer.

No food nearby so we went to Twisted Pine. The food was good, the beer was ok and the service was... meh. I think it was just the one guy working at the bar and he also had to put in all the food orders, so he was a little grumpy.

No real recollection of what we did when we got home. At some point we made dinner and then watched The Last Breath, also good. Apparently I've also never watched Parks and Recreation, so we started that, getting through the first episode.

Monday (17,295 steps) - Work from home. Rain was in the forecast so I got my run out of the way mid morning. 

Took Olive for a walk. After lunch I drove down to Big O to get my tire looked at. It's been a while, but my rear passenger tire has been losing air. They were able to get me in right away and were able to get it patched. Did some deliveries after work before meeting Ben at Torchy's for a Cinco de Mayo dinner of queso and a taco bowl. More Parks & Rec.

Stats:

• 118,565 steps
• 21.35 miles run
• 18.4 miles walked
• 50 minutes of cardio
• 50 minutes of strength