Week in Review (June 10 - June 16)

Tuesday (11,399 steps) - Peloton and walked Olive before heading to the Jefferson County court house. I had to be there at 7:45 and traffic wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I had remembered to charge my Kindle and then promptly forgot to bring it with me. I ended up spending a few hours in the morning reading my my book on my phone and surfing the net. I did not get called in the first set of people. HOWEVER, I was called FOURTH in the second set of people of which 110 total people were given numbers. 

The 110 of us were then separated into groups, and since I was one of the lower numbers, I actually had to sit in the jury box for the first round of questioning and disqualifications. We were given a long lunch, and since I hadn't really planned on actually being called, I hadn't brought my water bottle (because I wasn't sure I could even bring through security) and I didn't have much to eat for lunch. I knew Ariel was working, so I stopped by to say hi before walking to Target to grab some shelf stable food and a bottle of water. 

Blue-C and Lucy being adorable together

I went back to Cheesecake for a quick lunch. It was expensive, but tasty.

I got back to the court house with a little bit of extra time, so I did a quick walk around the back of the building to get some extra steps in. I had no idea there were gardens back there!

The afternoon round of jury selection did not get me eliminated either, so I was going to have to plan on at least another day of jury duty. Ugh. Ariel came by after work. We took Olive for a walk and saw that one of the houses up the street had added some painted rocks to the base of their tree - which was cute!

We had not come up with a great plan for dinner, so Ben went to Costco to pick up a pizza. Ariel hung out with us for a bit before leaving to visit with a friend. Lioness.

Wednesday (15,228 steps) - Thanks to jury duty, I had to get up extra early to do my workout. Greg had scheduled me for 14x70s, which I have done a few times. I decided I would just run north to the bike path and do repeats back and forth so I didn't get too far from home  AND so I would have access to a bathroom. It was a good plan, since I had to stop after my second repeat. Over all I just felt really tired during these and walked almost all the recoveries. 

By the time I got home I had enough time to shower and barely enough time to take Olive for a short walk. Ariel had spent the night and said she could walk Olive at lunch. Court, day 2. This time it was even more jury selection. By lunch I found out that I would actually be serving on a criminal trial - FOR THREE WEEKS. I brought my lunch this time at least, and walked back into the garden area and read my book in the shade. Long day. I think we did a "just fend for yourself" for dinner since I was starving by the time I got home. Ran to the grocery store to find some food to take for lunch while I'm in jury duty that won't require a microwave. Lioness?

Thursday (17,860 steps) - Up early AGAIN to get my workouts in. I did a Peloton arms and shoulders class, but I still had to get a run in also. (Technically, I was supposed to do an hour of cross training, but I figured that twenty minutes was probably plenty).

Yes, it was a pretty morning, no, I was not happy to be out. I had planned on running to the lower pavilion and than cutting along the trail to get back. There has been so much rain that the grass and weeds have taken over and that section of trail is completely gone! I had to wander up the hill to find the higher up trail to run back down the way I wanted to go. Rushed home for a shower and then took Olive for a walk before going back to court, day 3. On my lunch hour I took a longer walk to see where all the bike paths connected and once again ate my lunch on a bench.

I will say, at least where I've been on my lunch hour, it's pretty. After work I went home to let Olive out before Ben and I went to Torchy's for dinner. We both took Olive for a walk when we got home. Lioness.

Friday (13,160 steps) - With it being a rest day, I just got up a little bit earlier so that I could take Olive for a longer walk, out to the lake. It was a beautiful morning and there were tons of people out.

Court, day 4. Same deal, walked around during lunch and had my lunch, this time at a picnic table and read my book on my phone. 

We unfortunately did not get released on time, which was my first BIG annoyance of the day. Then, I walked out to my car and noticed that my tired looked flat. Sure enough, when I turned my car on the front passenger tire was completely flat! Thankfully, I still drive with run flat tires, so I was able to go home. It looked MUCH worse by the time I got there.

Ben brought home sandwiches from Taste of Philly. Lioness.

Saturday (28,572 steps) - Took Olive for a long walk to the lake and got all my gear packed up for our afternoon adventure of course sweeping for Aravaipa at Barr Lake trail races. First, we had to drive to Big O so I could drop my car off for the new tire. Then, we drove up to Brighton. It was at least 85 degrees when we arrived - with full sun. We had been asked to arrive at 11:30, but they were not ready for us to start sweeping until closer to noon. We saw the last runner go by the start/finish of the 9ish mile loop we would be sweeping with another guy, Jay. For a loop course, I was really surprised by the amount of flagging and signage. There was really only about a mile long section that had a lot of trash, and that was near the boat ramp area. Most of that was not race-related trash, but I felt like we should collect it anyway. My pockets definitely got really gross and sticky. We passed the water only aid station that was the 5k turn around and the first real aid station was at about mile 3 - where we arrived right as the runner left. I suggested that we wait at LEAST 5 minutes for her to get a head start on us. I had some watermelon and coke with ice. By now, it had to be pushing 90 degrees. Thankfully, Ben still had his quiver on his pack, which turned out to be the perfect way to carry all the pin flags!

We were able to see the runner, who was now accompanied by the bike medic when we were still probably 1.5 miles away from the aid station. Jay thought she might want company, but I thought we should hang back, at least for a bit. As someone that has spent some time with sweepers, a lot of the time I do NOT enjoy the company.

The next aid station was another 3.5 miles away, so maybe around 6.5 miles into the loop. We arrived right after the runner, and I could tell just by how she reacted to the few things that were said to her that she was not in the mood to hang out with sweepers. We stayed much longer at this aid station, and learned the girl captaining the aid station was going to be running Ouray 100 as her first 100, and her and Ben had some animated conversations about the race. We assumed we only had about 2.5 miles to go and headed out. Definitely getting REALLY hot now. The runner was definitely slowing down, and at this point in the course there were a LOT more signs that had to be pulled. We also saw some deer!

Some clouds finally came out with maybe 2/3 of a mile to go. This was a blessing and a curse. A blessing since it finally seemed to cool things down, and a curse because every mosquito in the country swarmed us in this section. Even though we had applied a bug spray multiple times - it did not matter. These were murder mosquitos. I probably got at least 20 bites in maybe 6-7 minutes. We were all really happy to cross the finish line.

There was a taco truck at the finish line, and as volunteers, we were able to get a free plate. They were so good! Unfortunately, the mosquitos had followed us. We put on even MORE bug spray, but this was not a lot of fun.

We stuck around to help tear down the finish line and aid station for about 30 minutes before we had to leave and go pick up my car. When I dropped off the car, we picked up Olive and went to 4 Noses. Dinner was leftovers from Taste of Philly. Lioness.

Sunday (24,827 steps) - Tried to sleep in and failed. Took Olive for a walk relatively early and let Ben know it was already feeling insanely hot so we should head out for our workout ASAP. I had 3,000' of vert to do, and since we had made plans to have lunch with Ariel in Golden, I suggested going to the Quarry road at North Table to do repeats. Of course I "forgot" that there is basically no shade. Even on the first repeat, there were only a few tiny patches of shade, and those were probably only a tenth of a mile from the top. We grinded out the first three fairly quickly.

There were NO clouds and it was HOT. Like really hot. Ben does not do as well in the heat as I do and I think on the 4th repeat he stayed at the top to lower his heart rate while I ran down and came back up. He ran down with me, but chose to stop after that one. So, I had two more to do, alone.

I had multiple people ask me how many repeats I was doing and they were telling me I was "awesome." More like stupid. We should not have started this so late in the day!!

The last one was a struggle and I stopped multiple times on the way up and thought very hard about not finishing, but of course I did. When I got back down I took off my back and went into the bathroom to rinse all the dead bugs of my arms and face. Thankfully, the bathroom has very cold water. It was refreshing!! We headed into Golden and got on the wait list for Woody's. By the time Ariel arrived our table was ready. Unfortunately, we had asked for "first available" - which was outside. SO HOT! The food was good, and it was great (like always) to see Ariel. After lunch we walked around on the bike path. She had to go home to get ready for work, so we also went home. We both showered and then grabbed Olive and went up to 4 Noses. We ended up sitting there for a bit and got food from the food truck (Georgia Brothers) to take home for dinner. Lioness. Also, the shortest and hottest weekend ever.

Monday (20,272 steps) - UGH. Normally a work from home day for me and a day I usually sleep until after 7. NOPE. I had to get up early to get my run in. I was definitely sore and tired from the repeats and this was a struggle.

I turned around on a similar path to the one I "lost" the previous week, thinking that there would be a feeder trail up to the higher path. Once again, I couldn't find it, so I had to trek up the hill again.

Super happy to have this one done. Ben had gone to Dutch Bros. and got me a coffee while I was out running, which was so appreciated! Took Olive for a walk and had to rush out the door for jury duty, day 6. Long day, again. Once again, I took a long walk around the building before settling on a bench and having my lunch while reading my book. We got out late, again. Ben was able to let Olive out, so at least I wasn't stressed about that. Goosie's newest outfit came in the mail! I love her hat.

We had to go to Costco, but as we normally do, we picked up a pizza on our way out for dinner. Lioness.

Stats:

• 131,318 steps
• 29.3 miles run
• 14.17 miles walked
• 25 minutes of cardio
• 20 minutes of strength

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 (September 24 - September 30)

Tuesday (11,670 steps) - Row and walked Olive before work. StairMaster at lunch, doing the Eiffel Tower again.

Took Olive for a walk when I got home from work.l

Wednesday (21,325 steps) - Walked Olive before work. Did my run/workout at lunch. Due to the closure that I'd experienced last week, I went the other direction on the path and it was disgusting. Saw multiple dead and partly decomposed rats on the trail. There were also dozens and dozens of homeless people and lots of garbage. Not my favorite.

Ben and I met up at Parry's for a happy hour beer and then we went out to eat at the sushi restaurant down the street for our (4th) wedding anniversary.

We planned to watch Independence Day 2, but we both fell asleep. We are old people.

Thursday (10,571 steps) - Work from home and Peloton ride before taking Olive for a walk at lunch. Saw a random post from New Terrain on Facebook that indicated they were releasing a special beer for Colorado School of Mines and Blaster.  Of course that meant I had to go... I worked from the brewery from 3 until I got off at 4:30. It was insanely hot.

Ben met me after work, but we didn't stay long since it was hot AND there was going to be a band (which we don't care for). Torchy's for dinner and finished watching Independence Day.

Friday (15,179 steps) - Wash Park with Olive and the gang!

Olive went to work with me, met Joyce, and even got to go into a signing. Exciting day for her. After work we rushed home since we still had to pack for our weekend getaway. Took Olive for a walk while Ben was packing. 

Unfortunately, unlike last weekend, it was not an easy drive up to the mountains. We did not want to run into the same issues of nothing being open for food, so I was checking what was dog-friendly in Idaho Springs and found out Tommyknocker is! I haven't been there in ages. They have completely revamped their menu (smaller, probably more expensive, still good).

Not only are they dog friendly, they treat dogs like VIPs! They bring out dog bowls with ice water and even beds for them to be comfortable on the floor AND a special dog menu. 

We had enough time to grab a beer out Outer Range before checking into our hotel.

Saturday (31,550 steps) - Took Olive for a quick walk near our place, it was shaping up to be a beautiful morning!

Ben decided to get breakfast out instead of at the hotel. French toast, bacon and eggs. Yum.

Ben had planned a route for us that he indicated would be a decent amount of climbing, but mostly on single track. We did get a late start, so we had to work a bit to find parking, but it worked out. We also didn't expect to have so little phone service at the start, so it was a bit challenging getting the route put on our watches, but I was able to get it done before we headed up.

The lower road had a decent amount of water access for at least a half mile, which was good news for Olive! Probably a little over a mile up we arrived at this mine and passed a big group of people to head up on some single track.

It was hot, so it was nice to have shade in the trees for a bit. Most of the climbing was on fire roads, so it didn't feel as bad as single track. I'm not really sure why that is though. We had a great view most of the way up. Super pretty with the mountain peaks and fall colors.

Once we got above tree line, I was wondering where on earth we were actually going. Ben was insistent we were NOT going to the top of Baldy, just that we were going to some parking lot. 

I was definitely getting tired and not sure how much more I wanted to do, and based on the route on my watch, it seemed like we still had a lot to do. Ben insisted it was a quarter mile to where he wanted to go and it turns out he was right. We sat on a log and had a snack before heading back down. We had routed an alternative route (to cut back mileage a bit) and I'm glad we had the map, because not sure that we would have found the right trails! There was at least a mile of bigger, loose rocks that neither Olive nor I super loved.

We came upon an opening in the trail with a bench and sat for a minute. Olive enjoyed the break too.

Finally, we got off the garbage loose rock section and moved onto what was my favorite part of the route. And somehow, we did not see ANY bikes or other hikers. Truly bizarre!

The True Romance overlook was really pretty as well.

We were all pretty happy to be done! Olive's longest activity at just over 11 miles. Go, Olive! We met Lee at Outer Range for a beer. We decided to pick up Chinese food at J J's and then decided to bring it over to Syndicate, the newest brewery in Dillon.

We unfortunately got bamboozled. Their menu had a bunch of IPAs on tap, but then we got there and there was only one, and it was marginal. Seems they are primarily German beers, which aren't our favorites :(

It WAS dog friendly, so that was nice. We went to the hotel and watched Step Brothers and some of the Halloween movies. I must say that I must never have watched Halloween 3, because it made ZERO sense.

Sunday (20,141 steps) - Took Olive for a quick walk and had breakfast at the hotel. We packed everything up and headed up to Vail. We had plans to hike Booth Falls. Unfortunately, you can no longer park at the trail head OR the lower lot by the road. We were told to take the shuttle in. Ben was not crazy about that day, but I said we should just do it. We had to park at the transit center in Vail, which was a nightmare anyway because of the farmer's market in town. We got all the way to the bus station only to be told that they don't allow dogs on the buses. So FYI, if you want to do that hike with a dog, it's basically impossible without a person that is NOT going that can drop you off. Really sad that people ruined this for everyone.

To  make the best of it, we walked through the village and decided to hike up Berry Picker. We did this once a few years ago and I remember it being tough. We confirmed that we would be able to take the gondola down with Olive and off we went. It may not have been what we wanted to do, but it was GORGEOUS!!!

The lower section is hard and hot and exposed (seriously, it was supposedly like 60 and felt 20 degrees hotter.

It was interesting to me how many people we saw hiking down. We did not encounter nearly as many people hiking up - but that's probably because it's a ton of vert going up a ski slope. 

It was basically a struggle for all of us after yesterday's big day, so we just took a ton of pictures. I think the ones I am sharing are less than half of the ones we took.

An unintentional/intentional selfie with Olive. Best we can do with her!

She actually has a leaf on the top of her head in this one

And here I have a leaf that blew into my front pocket

Finally arrived at the top. There were a zillion people. I had to look it up later, but people pay FIFTY-NINE DOLLARS to ride the gondola up. $59!!!!! Lunacy. They had food and a bar at the top and we had a beer and enjoyed the scenery before Olive's first gondola ride!

She was a little spooked, but did good!

Went into the village and got lunch at Garfiinkle's. View beautiful, beer and food was meh.

We had been watching the traffic all afternoon and it still seemed like it was going to take a long time to get home, so we opted to go to Outer Range for a bit and see if it calmed down. Finally at maybe 7, with the maps saying it was going to take an hour longer than usual, I suggested that we just get the drive over with. We started to head out and about 4 miles before the tunnel we hit gridlock. Time kept going up on our arrival. Suddenly, it jumped up over another HOUR after we got through the tunnel. Some quick digging showed that there was an accident that closed all but one lane of the highway. Ben thought we should just turn around and get a hotel in Dillon for the night, which is what we did. We turned around and got to the hotel at 8:20 and were told we would need to hurry because the onsite restaurant closed at 9 pm. We were able to get food, and it was "good," but incredibly pricey for what it was.

Monday (11,856 steps) - Had to get up by 4:15 so that we would have time to drive home and both of us get ready for work. I showered and took Olive for a walk and headed in. I don't normal work in the office on Mondays, but with it being Nicole's last day a bunch of us were going to go out to lunch. They picked Cheesecake Factory, which I haven't been to in years. Sad to report that they don't have the grilled cheese anymore. This turkey club was pretty good though.

Even though we went insanely early, it took forever and I think our lunch ended up being almost two hours. THEN, we had a "party" with cake later. After work I headed home to walk Olive. Since I'm starting sober October again, we went to 4 Noses for beer and Korean BBQ. We started playing trivia, but we are just terrible, so we left in the middle of it.

We were home early and Ben picked "Night Swim" for our movie. Fairly terrible.

Stats:

• 122,292 steps
• 20.42 miles run
• 14.94 miles walked
• 61 minutes of cardio
• 30 minutes of strength