Week in Review (February 7 - February 13)

Tuesday (10,436 steps) - Work in the office. Today was a very exciting day - after well over a year - the newly remodeled gym in our building is finally open!! Never thought I was going to see the day! It was a little weird because ZERO people were actually using the gym, but lots of people were wandering in and out to "look" at it. I got in an hour of cross training (legs, upper body and core). Woo! 

Took Olive for a walk when I got home. Nothing else?

Wednesday (19,067 steps) - Work in the office. Went for a walk at lunch. After work I headed up to Boulder. I had hill repeats I had to do and the trails have been absolute garbage lately (mud), so I picked a route that would give me a good warmup before doing the repeats. (Of note, I completely messed up my watch and forgot to give a buffer between warm up and repeats, so some of them are off).

So I had two longer repeats (that were on flats) that had to be two minutes each. Those were obviously pretty hard, but I was definitely happy to see a sub 9 pace. Then, I had the actually 30 second sprints. As I said, the first one is off because I didn't realize it was going right from a recover into the first repeat, I think I had a lap button press, but anyway.

I am 99% sure I have never seen a pace that started with a 6 in my life. Those were fun, and honestly, not as hard as I feared.

Met Ben at Southern Sun for Stout Month. They are back to taking cash/check only, so we went to Under the Sun instead (same franchise, but they "have" to take cards since they do online orders. Also, they do charge a surcharge, which I find enraging, but I didn't pay, so...)

Thursday (32,199 steps) - Work from home. Logged in early since I had another full day of stuff to do. Took Olive for a walk, confirmed the trails are still not great. Figured I would do another big neighborhood loop to avoid the mud. I saw this pretty cool sight when I was running past the lake.

Most of the run felt pretty good, but was definitely feeling tired by the time I was finishing up. Took Olive to run club after work. Unfortunately, Paula and Maya weren't there, which meant I wasn't sure what to do. We ended up running with the other dogs (Bagel/Erica and Hailey/Ruth). This was Olive's longest run, she did great!

Definitely hadn't planned on quite so much "real" running for the day. Oof.

Friday (16,281 steps) - Wash Park and coffee before work. Went for a walk at lunch. Took Olive for a walk when I got home.

Met Ariel for her next adventure of an industrial piercing with Aliya.

Met Ben at Luki for a beer on the way home.

Saturday (38,182 steps) - Was really unsure what I wanted to do for the day. I had a double digit run on schedule. I had debated on doing a paved route, but when I checked and saw Dirty Biz wasn't closed for mud, I figured I would give that a shot. But first, I took Olive with me to the school to watch A's first time trials for the track season. It was a really nice morning!

A ran the 400 open (and I think won her heat, now that it's been a weak, maybe she got second, I can't remember) and the 800 in the mixed medley. I headed home to change for my run. I had a goal to keep the pace easy and to run as much as possible. Spoiler - I ended up running a route PR. I only walked two sections of the loop - one was at the top of the powerline climb (but I probably made it up 2/3 of it) and the second was on the north side of the loop because it got REALLY slick and muddy and I was just trying to stay upright.

I started with my Patagonia Airshed, but got warm and took it off after using the bathroom a few miles in. There were really not that many people out, which I found pretty surprising for such a nice day!

UGHHHHH

Pace wasn't that impressive, but I felt good almost the whole time, and only 7 minutes of walking for 3 hours of trail running is pretty fantastic, especially for me! Headed home so I could shower and... my new shoes arrived! I've been getting targeted ads for these for a while, and they had a sale...

Met Ben at the Colorado Tap House, then we went to Malone's for dinner. I had a burger with a side of mac n' cheese and it was delicious!!

Sunday (29,508 steps) - Last long run before first race of the year. Ben picked me up and we headed to Waterton, where I figured about 10 miles would be good. The run "felt" hard, but I think that's because even when Ben runs easy, I'm a half a stride behind and always feel like I'm trying to catch up.

We did see a sheep really close to the road though! He actually ran across and almost ran directly into a group of bikes. He did not look happy.

My run stats actually show my heart beat being relatively low, so I guess I wasn't working as hard as I thought I was. We went to Bacon Social House for breakfast. I was excited to get the pancake flight. Carrot Cake was still a pleaser, and the S'mores was WAY better than I expected. I was a bit disappointed with the chocolate/bacon one. 

Took Olive for a walk when I got home.

A had her own plans for the Super Bowl, so I met Ben at the Keg House to watch. We actually managed to get a seat, which was nice. I wish it wouldn't have been quite so loud so we could have heard the commercials better. Anyone else tear up at this one??

We got dinner nearby since the keg house weirdly didn't have food. Went home right after the game ended and watched an episode of Lost before bed.

Monday (22,914 steps) - Sigh. Monday already. Today was a scheduled rest day, but it was supposed to be so nice that I switched my days around. Went for my easy 4ish mile run - like seriously, one of my best runs in ages. Then I took Olive for a walk. I managed to slip in some mud and took a pretty hard fall. Have I mentioned I hate winter??

Did a lot of laundry today. Batman goes absolutely bonkers when I change the sheets. This picture makes me laugh. Picked up some essentials from Costco. 

Took Olive to Petco for her dog training, but after a half hour it was suggested that we leave because Olive is too nervous to even try and won't take treats when she gets too scared. Going to work on stuff again this week, but if it's bad again next week the gal will refund us. Sigh. She is soooo much better, but she still gets really freaked out :(

Made dinner, then had to run to the Dollar Tree because I forgot that I was supposed to buy a festive headband for work for Valentine's Day. Ugh. A had homework to do, so I watched an episode of Lost before bed.

Stats:

• 168,587 steps
• 45.06 miles run
• 0 minutes of cardio
• 50 minutes of strength training

Week in Review (January 10 - January 16)

Tuesday (11,447 steps) - Work in the office. Got the email that I'm back on the Runners Roost team for another year, wooo!

Spent most of the day at work researching dog walkers for Olive. I found a guy that seemed like he was going to work great and he was willing to work with Olive's "insecure" behavior. Went for a walk at lunch. Took Olive for a walk as soon as I got home. Then, I did a 30 minute Peloton ride and 30 minutes of cross training (upper body and core). I was cleaning the carpet in the office where Olive has peed a few times and she went downstairs and peed by the front door (which is the other place in the house she has had accidents). Ugh with these issues with her peeing in the house. UGH.

Wednesday (19,597 steps) - Put a call out on Facebook for help with Olive's bathroom issues. the overwhelming suggestion was to crate her and "re potty train" her. Thankfully, I have amazing friends, and I had multiple people that were willing to let me have/use a crate (thank you, Paula!). Meanwhile, the guy that I hired to walk Olive was a dramatic no show!! I messaged him at 2:30 since I had scheduled the walk for 12:30 and I hadn't heard anything. I didn't hear a word until 3:15 when he said he had to Uber to the house because he was in a car accident? Whether that is true or not, why would he have not responded to my message from 45 minutes earlier? Luckily, Ariel was home and told him that she had already let Olive out and his services were not needed. What a disaster. 

Headed up to Boulder after work for my hill workout. After last weeks "success" I was fairly optimistic. I really shouldn't have been. It was a MESS on the trails. With the warmer weather, the lower trails were crazy muddy and all the upper trails were a skating rink. Thankfully, I remembered traction again.

It was also VERY foggy, which made it super hard to focus on the trails. Thankfully, I had also packed extra batteries in my pack, because I ended up having to swap them out mid run. This was really not my favorite workout.

Went back to the Roost to socialize for a few minutes, but I didn't stay long.

Thursday (13,875 steps) - Work from home. Did a Peloton ride in the morning. Took Olive for a walk at lunch. Also did an upper body workout and core. After work I headed down to Lakewood for Belmar run club! I haven't been there in YEARS - maybe not since before Covid?? 

I was a bit nervous for how Olive would do with all the people and dogs, but other than being shy and nervous, she actually did really well! I was wearing jeans and lots of layers because I planned on walking, but Olive had other ideas and we ended up hanging out with Paula doing C25K training. 

It was actually really fun, and Maya decided she can put up with Olive!

Friday (10,180 steps) - Wash Park! Almost everyone came this week. Pete's dog, Rocket, crossed the rainbow bridge earlier in the week and Rocket had joined us for almost all our walks for the last few years. He will be missed. Look at the amazing cookies that Kristin made to honor him! Looks just like him.

After work I headed to the High Lonesome lottery drawing that was being held a few miles from the office. It was quite the event! There was a film before the drawing and it was really good and got me pretty pumped for running this. I did not make the initial roster, but landed 4th on the waitlist, so I'm assuming I am running in July!

Saturday (39,843 steps) - LONG RUN. I had 3 hours on schedule, and due to the trail conditions I had to do it all on road. I was wearing some Smartwool capris that I had bought last year and quickly discovered that with my weight loss that I can no longer keep my phone in the pocket or they slide down. Good/bad, I guess. Thankfully, since I was planning on being out forever, I had my vest.

Clean, newish shoes and some of my favorite socks - Avo-cardio

Thankfully, it was not icy at all (or hardly at all), and I didn't really have to watch my pace since Greg had assigned Z2/Z3. I actually felt really good most of this run. AND, by the time I was getting ready to turn around it had warmed up enough that I took off my R1! Woooooo!

Strangely, even though the whole back half is uphill, I even managed negative splits. Go me. I had mapped out a route to gauge distance and it ended up working perfectly so that I finished with enough time to get in a quick shower before going to A's track meet. The meet was indoors at the Mines, and like I remembered (pre-Covid), it was crowded and chaotic. But, A ran really well for off-season and was only about 20 seconds of a PR.

I sat around watching TV since A had to go to work. I go this adorable picture of Olive and Batman getting sorta close to each other. Awww.

Even though I was really not motivated to leave the house, I went to Sully's for his Christmas/birthday party. I did not know ANYONE this time, so it was awkward just talking to him (since he is the host, I felt bad bout monopolizing him, but...). I was also not drinking, and the only other sober person was a lady that was 5 months pregnant. Needless to say, I did not stay for very long.

Sunday (33,532 steps) - I didn't set an alarm because I figured Olive would wake me up early. And she did, but then I went back to sleep and slept a bit later than planned. I had another 2 hour run on schedule, but I also had plans with Heather to meet up around lunch, so I had to get out the door. I overdressed a bit, but the run itself was actually pretty good. Quick shower, then I headed down to Denver to pick up Heather. We stopped at Tap & Burger to have lunch. I had a burger and sweet potato fries, and it was delicious. We picked up Olive and drove to Boulder. I wasn't sure how bad the Eldorado trails would be. A bit muddy, some ice, but not too bad, and Olive had a great time!

We stopped at the Roost to see if Sandy and Trish were working, but they weren't :( We still had Olive dressed in her dirt bag jacket, and my goodness, she looked so adorable!

Heather and I started to watch "Home Edit" - have you seen this show? OMG, I am addicted already. A was agreeable to join us for dinner, so we went to Salsa's. 

I took Heather home since it was getting late.

Monday (25,758 steps) - Made plans with Heather to go to Waterton. I was up early since Olive came to visit me when Ariel went to work. Isn't she adorable?!

Once again, I overdressed. I had 90 minutes "Z1/easy" on schedule.

I figured I was basically just going to be trotting to keep my HR that low. For the first mile, it worked fine. Then for WHATEVER reason, my HR was through the roof - like 160s and 170s even though my pace was crawling and it was crazy easy. Sometimes I think things just get weird in the canyon.

For the first time EVER, I actually saw otters in the water! They were so cute!

I was ready to be bummed at the lack of sheep, but there were a few only a mile from the car, so that was fun!

I gave up on trying to keep HR low, and my watch told me this when I was done:

Heather was already back at the car, and she found an amazing place to eat for brunch.

Bacon Social House! I had some delicious Carrot Cake pancakes. I'm aware that's not bacon, but they were soooo good.

We stopped at Target and somehow I ended up buying bins so that I could start cleaning/organizing the mud room. (Thanks, Home Edit!). Took Olive for a walk and then we decided to get pedicures. Ariel joined us and my toes haven't looked this great in ages.

And because Heather is an amazing friend, she assisted with cleaning and organizing. Not quite done yet, but it looks freaking amazing. 

We picked up Costco pizza for dinner and then I still had to drive Heather back to her hotel in Denver. A lot of driving this weekend, but FUN (and, strangely productive).

Stats:

• 154,232 steps
• 39.56 miles run
• 60 minutes of cardio
• 60 minutes of strength training