Week in Review (March 25 - March 31)

Tuesday (16,750 steps) - Peloton and Olive walk before going to work. Gym at lunch - stairmaster and strength training. 

Walked Olive after work. So I had discovered, unfortunately one day too late for REI member coupons, that the pack I planned to use for my race was NOT going to work??? Like putting the mandatory gear in was leaving me with only room for about an extra liter of water. So, I ordered a ridiculously expensive pack from REI (think fastpack meets hiking pack).

Wednesday (18,900 steps) - Olive walk before work. I had a workout to do at lunch and planned my run so that I would end up near REI to pick up the pack I ordered and then would be able to WEAR said pack for my cool down jog back to the office. First, still not 100%. Yes, it's been two weeks of feeling pretty cruddy. My workout was 5 sets of 2x easy/medium/fast paces. The first two sets were "fine" and I did not take any walk breaks. By the third set I walked the first minute of the easy pace to get my heartrate down and get my breathing under control. Overall, this went relatively well, all things considered.

Ran into REI and got the pack. It seemed fine while I was running the mile-ish back to my office. A much more feminine color than I would normally get, but it was the only color option that was in stock. I spent most of the run back messing with the billions of straps.

Took Olive for a walk when I got home, and then met Ben at 4 Noses. Since the weather was nice I brought Olive with me and we sat on the patio.

Thursday (19,575 steps) - Peloton ride before logging in for work. Took Ariel to get coffee and then had to stop at FedEx on the way home so I could drop off her laptop to send back to Lenovo. Thank goodness for that warranty!!! Took Olive for a long walk.

Went for my run, and it was warm, but at least overcast.

Finally got my first "heat acclimation" score of the season from Garmin. Wooo! Took Olive for a walk, then we actually sat out on the patio for a bit since the weather was so nice!

Friday (13,472 steps) - Wash Park! I hadn't been in over a month, so it was nice to see everyone. Headed into work with Olive.

Saturday (25,339 steps) - Dressed Goosie up in her new spring/summer outfit.

I had loaded up my new pack and planned to test it out on a longer trail run. The weather started out really nice, almost a bit warm.

Once the clouds rolled in it was pretty pleasant.

I really should have run with a full pack prior to this activity. First off, the pack felt EXTREMELY heavy. I only carried 2L of water and my mandatory gear and it felt like I was a sherpa carrying gear for 10 people. By the time we finished the run I told Ben I wanted to go to REI and see if I could exchange for the 20L version of the pack. Unfortunately, the smaller pack was not in stock at any locations. We still went to REI in Boulder to see if we could find any other options. I wore my pack in to see if I could load up something else. Unfortunately, it was a bust. I finally decided to just order the smaller pack off Amazon and hope for the best. Texted Larry and Terri and met up with them at Murphy's for a snack and quick beer. Stopped at 4 Noses for one beer and it started POURING rain. At the risk of being cliche - we need the moisture! Watched a movie that was kinda blah, I don't even remember what it was.

Sunday (15,782 steps) - Finally laid out all my gear with drop bag locations. Ben helped me to pack everything up. Getting real!

Still somewhat undecided on what/how I'm packing what I'm starting with, so currently most of that is sitting on the kitchen table.

I had a "hike" on schedule, but with getting 12 hours of rain (that switched over to snow overnight), the trails weren't going to be an option. We decided to talk Olive for a long walk (on pavement) and then went to a new brunch place near the house. It was delicious! And popular. There was about a 40 minute wait to be seated, but we squeezed in for bar seating without having to wait that long.

I headed out to try and do some deliveries, but as has been the case lately, nothing going on. Picked up some stuff from Target and headed back home. My new pack showed up and is almost identical, just smaller frame and capacity. Did realize that one of the side pockets is no longer zippered (why??) so we ended up on a mission to find some sort of small bag that I would be able to attach to the waist strap. We went a few places and struck out, so we ordered something off Amazon that would hopefully work. Trip to 4 Noses and then home for the night. Watched "The Order," which was ok, but not overly exciting.

Monday (16,291 steps) - Since Ben had sprayed weed killer all over the yard I took Olive for a walk before logging on for the day. I only had a very short run on schedule, so I went out and did that before taking Olive for her walk. We went by the lake and it was muddy, but not as bad as I feared, which was nice. I took my laptop and went to Big O to get my tires rotated, which thankfully there was virtually no wait for. Finished up the work day while getting my gear finalized and gathered some of my non-running stuff that I'll need to take with me. Went out to drive and actually got an order. Home for dinner. Started watching the show "Dark Matter." Exciting thing of the evening... I had noticed a funky smell ever since dinner and assumed it was the new cleaning product we got to soak pans before washing them. When I was taking Olive out for bed I noticed it still smelled awful and commented the same to Ben. Headed to bed. Ben asks me to come back downstairs and he noticed that when the stove got "turned off" that the knob had pulled out and while it LOOKED off, the actual knob had not shut off, so we had been having gas coming out for over FOUR HOURS. Thank goodness I had SAID something to Ben and that he figured it out, I don't know that I would have. So....we are here to live another day. We had to open the back door and all the windows to air out the house and were able to get it shut off safely. Scary stuff.

Stats:

• 126,109 steps
• 21.09 miles run
• 19.69 miles walked
• 55 minutes of cardio
• 20 minutes of strength