Week in Review (November 9 - November 15)

Tuesday (6,141 steps) - Work in the office. Did an upper body video at lunch and a 45 minute Peloton ride when I got home.

Wednesday (10,518 steps) - Work in the office. Drove up to Boulder after work for my power hike. It was my first headlamp activity of the season :( I actually saw a few other people on the trail that had no lights. Crazy. And I was only hiking, not running. 

After, there was an event at the store with Amanda Basham, a Rabbit trail elite athlete. We were treated to a light dinner from RAD, watched Amanda's new movie "Relentless," and then had a Q&A after. Fun (but late) night!

Thursday (10,868 steps) - Work from home. An incredibly windy walk with Pika at lunch.

Can't really tell, but that's a bald eagle battling the wind

Friday (18,452 steps) - Steph had given me an hour long "fitness test" - basically as "fast" as I could maintain for an hour. Well, it was finally a nice, cool morning, and I was cautiously optimistic this would go well. The first couple miles were fine, I didn't look at my watch and things went well. Then I started to get pretty tired and things definitely got hard. I took a couple walk breaks, but I guess all things considered, maintaining a 10:30ish pace for an hours is pretty fast these days.

Things aren't 100% dead yet

First frozen hair of the  year

Went to Stella's for a delicious latte after. I even got a chocolate croissant to eat when I got to work. After work Ben and I quickly wrapped Ariel's birthday presents - due to her plans for her big day we were going to give her stuff early. Found more fun wrapping paper this year!

Not pictured are the half dozen pairs of funky socks she got. Her other "big" present is her upcoming trip to Arizona with cross country team.

Saturday (24,930 steps) - Ben and I were up before sunrise to head up to Boulder for a loop at Walker Ranch. I had two hours on schedule and figured that an "easy" loop would take about that long. It was another insanely windy morning, but like I hoped, once we went down the trail we were pretty protected from the elements. The air temperature was actually a lot warmer than expected and I was borderline hot in my thin long sleeve and Rabbit flannel.

Turns out, I was right. This took almost exactly two hours. We had realized on our drive up that neither of us remembered our wallets, and we had to stop and pick up some food for Paula's baby shower. Luckily, Ben has Apple Pay and I have the My Colorado app on my phone that stores my driver's license - we were even able to buy beer. Thanks, Whole Foods! Got home with a few minutes to shower and then out the door to go to the baby shower. Ariel drove Ben's truck all the way there (and back!) - it's crazy that something like 12 miles away takes almost 45 minutes to get to. The baby shower was a BLAST - it was so fun seeing people I don't get to see often anymore. Plus, Brittney has BUNNIES - an they were SO CUTE.

We had a small window of time once we got home to take Pika for a walk, then to go out and pick up stuff for Ariel's birthday "party." She invited a few friends over for the night to play video games and have pizza, ice cream cake and mini Oreo cheesecakes. We also invited Tyler over for the evening. It was a great night!

The girls went home after 10, so it was a late night for us.

Sunday (15,950 steps) - Slept in!! I had 1:15 on schedule, so I thought a loop in Boulder might be good. We weren't in any rush since it looked like the weather was going to be pretty nice all day. Picked up coffee, then all of a sudden the wind picked up. AGAIN. Still planned on the same route, although neither Ben nor I was especially looking forward to it. The first mile was BRUTAL - running into a really strong headwind. Not fun.

Thankfully, once we got to Doudy Draw the trees protected us a bit, and that section was really enjoyable. Ironically, even the section I like "least" on this route, the cow path, was pretty good since we had a bit of a tail wind.

Honestly, one of the better runs I have had in a VERY long time - it's fun when that happens when you aren't looking forward to being out at all. We stopped at 4 Noses for a beer on the way home. 

By the time we got home we showered and then played video games for a bit until her friend came over to join us for the birthday adventure of the evening - an escape room! We had high hopes, but we had picked the hardest rated room and barely got through half the clues before we ran out of time. Thankfully I'd purchased the experience with a groupon and hadn't spent a ton. 

We went next door to Kokopelli for fancy pizza and a beer. I just can't get behind their beer though, it's just not great compared to the other local breweries. The food is top notch, however, and I love supporting a woman-owned business!

Pitiful attempts at playing "classic" Donkey Kong and Mario on A's new game system. I promise I used to be good at these things!

Monday (9,088 steps) - Work from home. Took Pika for a walk at lunch - shockingly, it was WINDY AGAIN. Grrrrrr. Did a 45 minute Peloton ride. After work we went to Ariel's cross country end of year banquet. It was a fun (but long) evening. I hadn't been in the middle school since pre-Covid and finally got to see A's name on the wall for setting the girl's school record in the 3000m when she was an 8th grader.

She's famous!

Girl's Varsity

Second year lettering in cross country

Her silly "paper plate" award

Stats:

• 95,957 steps
• 23.32 miles run
• 90 minutes of cardio
• 20 minutes of strength training

Week in Review (October 20 - October 26)

Tuesday (9,752 steps) - Work in the office. Headed straight to A's "not award" ceremony for cross country at the local park. Happy to report that she was one of the kids the lettered as a freshman! Go A!

The "Little Mermaid" award (whatever that means)

And for fun, a picture of Pika with a leaf on her head.

After the ceremony, I took Pika for a walk on the path while A played on the playground with her friend. Unfortunately, Pika KNEW A was nearby and almost ripped my arm off trying to get back to where she was.

Wednesday (12,459 steps) - Work from home. Batman got to go on another walk since the weather was nice! The newest fire in the area made the air super smoky (but pretty):

Thursday (8,960 steps) - Work in the office. That's it?

Friday (11,852 steps) - Work from home. Nothing else?

Saturday (22,210 steps) - Up not too early to drive to Hildebrand Ranch. Like last year, I was going to be running the Two Brands trail race. Unlike last year, I would only be running five miles instead of ten. This was also going to be my first post-Moab run!

I arrived only ten minutes before the start and barely had time to get my bib and use the bathroom before we started. Only running for an hour meant I didn't have to carry any water, which was nice. Because of COVID there were no water stations, but I knew I'd be find for five miles.

My goal was under an hour. I thought in my head that I had run just under two hours last year for ten, so it seemed like a good starting point. I didn't feel too terrible, outside of my normal struggles with breathing and tightness. I walked a decent amount in the early miles and I'm sure I irritated the ladies near me that I kept passing and then slowing down again.

The forecast was finally for warmer weather, although you wouldn't know it by how people were dressed, lol. I was wearing one of my thin Columbia shirts and had to roll up my sleeves by the time we were maybe 2 miles in.

This was the course I had fallen on last year and hurt my rib. Wondering exactly what rock I tripped over last year occupied most of my thoughts between miles 3 and 4. Thankfully, the entire last mile is alllll downhill, and I was able to run in pretty strong for finish.

With the course being a tad long, I didn't "quite" get under two hours, but I figure I was close enough:

Garmin time - 1:00:26

Garmin distance - 5.21

Garmin pace - 11:36

Elevation gain - 472'

Mile 1 - 12:14

Mile 2 - 11:44

Mile 3 - 12:27

Mile 4 - 12:17

Mile 5 - 9:59

Mile 5.2 - 8:26 (whoop whoop!)

Post-race with Jandy (who paced me a BUNCH at Moab!)

Jandy and I stuck around to watch other people finish and chat for a bit. Finally, I figured it was time to head out, so I grabbed my free burrito and Gatorade.

Ariel had made plans to go to the skate park while the weather was nice. Ben and I dropped her off and then took Pika for a walk before going to Denver Beer. 

THEN, we had to go look at two different houses - and we didn't like either of them. Super cold evening walking Pika.

Sunday (7,866 steps) - THE COLDEST DAY. (Well, the coldest day so far this winter). Mountain breakfast!

Really no recollection of the afternoon, other than we took Pika for a walk, and it was freaking cold.

Monday (12,802 steps) - Work from home.  Even colder. SO COLD WALKING PIKA. Need to find my mittens that I took with me to Moab.

Ben picked up pho for dinner and we watched "It" (Chapter 1). I am really enjoying post-Moab recovery!

Stats:

• 85,901 steps
• 5.2 miles run :)
• No cross training