Week in Review (November 12 - November 18)

Tuesday (11,818 steps) - Olive walk before work. Went to the gym at lunch. Ambitiously thought I could climb the tallest building in Dubai on the StairMaster, but quit after a half hour because it was going to take me longer than my whole lunch hour. 

Did some strength training. Arranged all my new ducks - pretty soon there will not be any more room for people to put stuff on my ledge.

Walked Olive again when I got home from work.

Wednesday (15,704 steps) - Peloton and Olive walk before going to work. Cross training again at lunch since the run I had on schedule needed to be hilly, which I don't have in the city. Olive walk when I got home.

Thursday (19,775 steps) - Work from home. Since it was Ariel's birthday I went down to Golden to take her out for coffee. I stopped on the drive home to do my hill repeats near the NAAC. Normally I do these at Dino Ridge, but I gave this a chance since it was on my drive home anyway. Turned out to be a good location for it and there was not a lot of people on the bike path. 

Took Olive for a slow walk when I got home. Did some driving and then we went to Torchy's for our weekly dinner.

Friday (12,032 steps) - Olive had been limping (again, but this time her back paw), so we skipped the Wash Park walk. I still took her to work though, which she finds boring.

After work did some driving and then Ben and I met at Salsa's for dinner.

Ted Lasso! This is such a great show, we are really enjoying it.

Saturday (29,459 steps) - Drove down to Lakewood for the Runners Edge winter kickoff. I had 2.5 hours on schedule and planned to do 10 miles as a compromise.

I feel like every time I run in Lakewood I am bamboozled by how hilly it feels. We saw the scariest 12 foot skeleton dressed up like a pilgrim.

While we knew quite a few people out running, we ended up doing all the miles by ourselves. The run was... fine, but it definitely seemed like too much work for the mileage/pace.

We had plans to stick around the store and shop when we got done, but there were no shoes Ben was interested in, and no apparel I wanted. Plus, everyone we knew had seemingly already left! We stopped at Parry's on the way home for a drink (NA beer for me) and a snack.

Took Olive for a long walk when we got back. They appear to be doing something with the degrading dock...

Went to 4 Noses for Ben, although he bribed me with a Ziggi's coffee. AND! Olive's new outfit came, and she looks so adorable in it!

Ted Lasso!

Sunday (10,526 steps) - I was supposed to "bag a peak," per my training. I didn't get up early enough to go anywhere, so Ben and I just took Olive for a long walk.

We drove into Golden and picked up Ariel to take her to breakfast at the Golden Diner for her birthday. 

She wanted to come back to the house to spend the day/night. She opened up all her presents, and then Ariel and I went to Target to walk around. We stopped at Torchy's on the way back to eat some queso and say hi to Amanda. Ben and I went to 4 Noses so Ariel could shower and get some studying done. We made alfredo for dinner and watched a movie. It was nice!

Monday (16,126 steps) - Work from home before taking Ariel to get coffee and taking her back to school. The weather had seemed glorious when we left, but it seemed to get cloudy on my drive back. I opted to walk Olive first while deciding what clothes would be best for my run. Unfortunately, by the time I did my run the clouds had taken over and it got WINDY. (Yes, I realize the picture below doesn't appear like bad weather, but I was running west, TOWARDS the weather).

Run was NOT good, and it was a lot more work than it should have been. I went to Tokyo Joe's for my free "half birthday" entrée and it was delicious!

Did some driving and Ben picked up pizza for dinner. More Ted Lasso!

Stats:

• 115,440 steps
• 22.08 miles run
• 15.56 miles walked
• 41 minutes of cardio
• 70 minutes of strength

Week in Review (February 20 - February 26)

Tuesday (16,065 steps) - Recovery week, so I didn't get up early to do a Peloton ride. Work in the office. Most exciting part of the day was I had to order food in from Heidi's for a deposition and I got to get lunch too. I finally got irritated with how little progress has been made on Ariel's bathroom since Ben did the demo back in mid-July. I made a post on Nextdoor and asked who would be willing to do the work for us. We had had one guy look at weeks ago and the quote had a bunch of items on it that we didn't need, and nothing was itemized. We never got a revised quote and I want this done! Before photo:

Wednesday (12,183 steps) - Work in the office. Walked on the treadmill. Went to the gym at lunch and did a short ride and some lifting (mainly just to keep my Peloton streak active. Met Ben at Parry's for happy hour and dinner.

Thursday (11,046 steps) - Work from home. Took Olive for a long walk at lunch. After work went up to Terri's house for a fun night of Stout tastings and snacking. Home way too late.

Friday (21,534 steps) - Wash Park and coffee!

Did some UberEats driving in an effort to make some money. The guy that we are going to have do the work in our bathroom is "cash only" so I need as much as possible! 

Saturday (25,381 steps) - Ben and I went to Runners Edge since it was just down the street. It was ok, but not great.

Stuck around Panera a bit to have coffee and socialize with Jeramiah and Alison. (And someone else but I can't remember who). Took Olive for a walk.

Did some more driving before we went to Floor & Decor so we could get samples of all our tiles to see how they will look in the space.

Sunday (13,755 steps) - Didn't have many miles on schedule, so Ben and I went for a run with Olive. The first part of the run wasn't great. Olive kept looking over her shoulder at Ben and I kept tripping over her. After she pooped around the halfway point she got motivated to get back home and the back half was a lot better. We went to lunch at Parry's.

We went back to Floor & Decor and actually bought all the tile and grout. Did some deliveries on the way home and then took Olive for another walk.

Went to 4 Noses after that. Goodbye, weekend!

Monday (19,748 steps) - Work from home. Shawn, our bathroom guy, started bringing over all his supplies to start work on the bathroom.

First step was to cut holes in the cement so that the cast iron pipe for the toilet could be replaced.

Discovered that the pipe for the shower was also cracked at the threads AND was connected via a flange to the toilet, so a bigger hole in the cement had to be cut open so that other pipe could also be replaced. 

Isn't home ownership fun? Took Olive for a walk, and also had a run to do at lunch. For some reason I ran to the north side of the lake. It was not a good run. Why do I run that route? I know I wanted to run dirt and the south side was too muddy (based on Sunday's run with Ben and Olive). Ugh - I need to remember in the future how much I dislike that part of the trails. Did some driving after I got off work.

Stats:

• 119,712 steps
• 14.49 miles run
• 5 minutes of cardio
• 18 minutes of strength

Week in Review (June 7 - June 13)

Tuesday - Peloton stack to start the day:

Work in the office. Went for a walk at lunch. After work I headed to my second job. Home in time to eat and go to bed...

Wednesday - Out the door early for what was supposed to be an easy 4 mile run. It FELT easy, but my heart rate was pretty high. Ugh - I don't know why that is. Either way, I was able to do the ENTIRE run without a walk break, and only a brief stop at a light. Woo!!

30 minute Peloton ride before heading to work. Another walk at lunch, and then back to job number two... 

Thursday - Short(ish) tempo run before work. The only reason I got up as early as I did was because I had to take A to practice. After how well running has been going for me lately, I told Greg I was ready to incorporate some speed work back in. The last time I tried to do this tempo run I majorly blew up and I swore of speed work again. Anyway, it was HARD, but manageable, especially since I did end up walking part of the recovery.

W/U, 5 easy, 10 tempo, 5 easy, 10 tempo, C/D

I'm fully aware that this isn't fast, by any stretch of the imagination, but just being able to run 10 minutes straight at a faster clip is a huge win for me. With the way I have the rest of the year laid out, I hope to get those tempo paces into the 9's! 

Work from home, took Pika for a walk at lunch. After work, on to the second job. It was a pretty busy night, and time flew by!

Friday - Wash Park and coffee with the gang. Work in the office. After work I headed home for a quick dinner of Qdoba - then it was back downtown for the NKOTB concert!!! Hard to believe it's been three years since we last saw them. Once again, parked at my office (just about a mile away) because I'm too cheap to spend $30 on parking. I was really pleased with the seats I picked, and we had a GREAT time.

Left - 2009 and now - same shirt!

I've said it before - I absolutely LOVE how they format the mixtape shows. It was three hours of nonstop music. NKOTB still puts on an awesome show. Salt n' Pepa and En Vogue were good, and Rick Astley was a treat! We didn't get out of there until 11 pm, and then still had to walk back to the car. A still needed some night driving, so I had her drive home - she wasn't overly impressed with downtown on a Friday night.

Saturday - I didn't have a ton of miles on schedule, and since it was a free day with Runner's Edge, I decided to get up (on just a few hours of sleep) and head downtown (again) to REI for the run. Now that Alex has taken over, he was able to secure REI as a sponsor!!

It had seemed like the route was mostly going to be flat, but there was definitely a climb heading out to Sloan's Lake. I ended up doing most of the run by myself, as I was seemingly between other people's paces. I did run with Kristin and Lisa for a bit towards the time I was getting ready to turn around. We would find out later that someone stole the entire aid station we were all expecting around 4 miles in. I ended up having to go over an hour without water, which isn't my favorite thing, especially when it's hot outside. At least the last mile or so was a nice downhill. Got my 8 miles in and felt great! 

At 9 REI opened up one of the upstairs event rooms for us. They provided Nuun, coffee and Santiago's breakfast burritos! I didn't win the raffle (sniff sniff), but spent some time chatting with Alison, Sheila, Kevin and Susan - people I don't get to see much anymore. Headed home for a quick shower before A and I headed out to see the new Jurassic World movie. It had a bit of a slow start, but we enjoyed it. Turned our phones on to an alert that our AC wasn't cooling the house and it was 86 in there! Rushed h home to find out we had left windows open (oops). Took A to work and I took Pika with me to the Roost team party in Golden.

Had some food and chatted (mostly with Jandy, Christine and Maureen). There wasn't a big turnout, but it was a lot of fun. Once everything started to wind down, Maureen, Jandy and I walked Colfax and Pika to the creek to cool down. We hit 100 degrees today - and Pika really appreciated getting her belly wet.

It was after 8 before I got home. Ugh.

Sunday - Even though I really only had a 4 mile easy run on schedule, I agreed to get up early and go meet friends at Waterton Canyon. I haven't been running with people much at all, so I was pretty apprehensive about this - even though things have been going better for me lately. About a half mile in we saw a hot air balloon - REALLY close to us!!

I was running with Jandy, Lisa and Maureen, and we had decided on 6 easy (and slow) miles. It wasn't as slow as I probably would have gone. For the most part, I held my own, but it was not as "easy" as I would have hoped. Didn't see any sheep, but we did see a half dozen deer, which was fun.

Me,  Nikki, Maureen, Jandy, Lisa & Christine

Mo's emergency jell-o shots "just in case"

We stayed in the parking lot for a bit chatting - I've missed seeing people!! Got home in time to take A to work. Did some laundry and had lunch. Met up with Ben at Westminster Brewing before going to pick up A from work.

We got pizza for dinner and watched some of the older Jurassic World movies. Where did the weekend go?

Monday - FINALLY, after more than a week, I didn't have to get out of bed crazy early, although I of course was still up before 7. Work from home. Took Pika for her walk earlier than normal since it was supposed to be close to 100 degrees again.

Right after the walk I got on the Peloton for a 30 minute ride. Finished job one and headed to job two. This ended up being a busy and fun shift and I got off work about 45 minutes earlier than I usually do, so that was nice. I actually had time to relax a bit after dinner. As much as I thought I would hate having this job, it's actually not bad, and I'm enjoying the extra money.

Stats:

• 21.82 miles run
• 80 minutes of cardio
• 40 minutes of strength training