Because Being Ordinary Is Boring: Runners Roost Louisville

Showing posts with label Runners Roost Louisville. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Week in Review (October 1 - October 7)

Tuesday (11,218 steps) - Random work from home day! Did a Peloton ride in the morning before getting coffee with Ariel.

Took Olive for a walk and did an upper body video (bodyweight, yet it definitely seemed like it was effective) and did another dumb thing for next year...

Went to 4 Noses for a beer and started trivia, but once again, we just aren't that good at it, so we left and had dinner at home and watched "Only Murders in the Building."

Wednesday (16,079 steps) - Took Olive for a walk before going to work. Drove home after work to grab Olive and headed to Louisville run club. Apparently the run was offsite at a tap & garden and we barely got there before it started.

We didn't know where to run and started to follow a trail but Olive did not like the gravel, so we moved onto the roads. That was better until Olive almost got attacked by a loose dog!

Somehow I've managed to get Ben to watch scary movies! We watched the 2018 version of Halloween.

Thursday (11,068 steps) - Work from home. Finished my packing for the weekend. Yes, all this fits in a personal item size bag for Frontier.

Took Olive for a walk at lunch, used the rower (and finally finished the stupid movie I only watch when I'm rowing) and did a Peloton ride. I discovered that if I do a "just ride" I can actually link my Kindle directly to the screen. That was fun to discover. Went to Torchy's for dinner, like usual.

Watched another Halloween movie, "Halloween Kills."

Friday (14,909 steps) - Walked Olive before driving to Denver to leave my car at my office and take the train to the airport. I didn't especially want to spend the money on food at the airport, so I stopped at a little shop on the way and got a breakfast sandwich. It was ok, but somehow cost $1 more than on the menu, which was irritating. Train ride was fine. I got almost all my steps in by the time I got to my gate, which was about as far away from security as possible. It's always exciting to do an outside boarding in Denver!

It was a much larger plane than I expected and initially there were three of us in the row, but the flight attendant told us that the flight was not full and people could move around if they wanted to. The guy in the middle moved, so I had plenty of room. Flight was pretty quick, and I spent the time reading my book. As expected, Cedar Rapids is NOT a large airport.

There was no line at Hertz to get my rental car. I was given a Camry(?) or maybe a Corolla, don't even remember at this point. I mapped to the hotel first and it was going to be a little over an hour to get there. With the time change and travel, I knew I would need to eat something even though I figured I was going to be eating an early dinner. I stopped at a Casey's and had a random chicken sandwich. Wasn't too exciting, but better than being hungry! Normally I can go right to my room, but when I booked the reservation it was under a credit card that expired before I arrived and although I updated my account, it did NOT update the reservation. I quickly unpacked and got my one drop bag ready. It wasn't going to be a long drive to packet pickup, but I wanted to stop at the store to get all my things for morning so I wouldn't have to do it later. Stopped at Hy-Vee and got breakfast, coffee, water, and a dessert. Then I remembered I was going to be out and about for a few hours and also bought some ice so nothing would spoil in the heat.

Arrived with minor complications to the start/finish area where I picked up my bib and swag bag. I had purposely arrived shortly before the mandatory meeting and walked over. I am not entirely sure why it was mandatory, as I feel everything that was discussed could have been sent in an email. I met up with Megan and we walked over to Maria's down the street for dinner. I wish we would have been warned about the gigantic portion sizes. I hate wasting food and I had to trash more than half of this!

Properly stuffed, we parted ways and I went back to my hotel. I really wanted to just sit and relax in the amazing air conditioning and go to bed early. I had hoped the "Halloween" marathon was still happening, but by the time I got back they were showing "Nightmare on Elm Street." I briefly talked to Ben and had a little bit of my dessert. I thought I had picked up a salted caramel brownie, but it turned out to be cake, which wasn't as appetizing for me :( Probably for the best because I was so full from dinner anyway.

I managed to get lights out just before 9 and probably fell asleep within 20 minutes.

Saturday (138,701 steps) - Hennepin 100.

Sunday (80,482 steps) - Hennepin 100.

Decided it was finally time to start the drive back to Cedar Rapids. I should have taken a nap before leaving, as I only made it maybe 10 miles down the road before I had to pull over and take a quick power nap. I was craving Dairy Queen again and stopped at the "world's biggest truck stop" off I-80 and got a blizzard there. The lot was confusing and big and I got lost inside and finding my car again (made harder by not really remembering what my car looked like).

Remembered that I still had to get my bag packed to get through the airport (or at least out of the car without having to loosely carry a bunch of stuff), so I spent some time in the high winds in the parking lot getting things sorted. Headed back out, although I had to pull over one additional time to nap before getting to Cedar Rapids. I arrived pretty early for my flight, but 1). I was tired and 2). I didn't want to be paying extra money for my rental. Not too long after arriving I got a text that my already late flight was going to be delayed at least an hour. WAH.

I sat outside security for at least an hour re-organizing my bag and charging my phone and watch before deciding I wanted to get a beer. There was only one restaurant/bar and thankfully they had a decent beer on tap.

Initially I didn't think I was going to get something to eat, but when the bartender let me know that they were going to be closing up before our flight was scheduled to leave, I panicked and got a grilled cheese and fries.

Our flight was even later than expected, and I don't think we left until almost 10 pm. I read my book until takeoff and closed my eyes for a minute - and apparently for the 12th time in my life I actually slept on the plane, not waking up until they were announcing the descent into Denver. Ben was picking me up and even with my super slow, crippled walk, I was in the truck probably less than a half hour after landing. I still had to drive my car home from the office and discovered the way I normally go home is closed and we had to detour around. Not fun at midnight. Still hungry when I got home, so ate a piece of pizza and then finally crashed.

Monday (10,566 steps) - So tired. Work from home, thankfully. Work ended up being pretty busy, which I guess was nice. Did laundry and cleaned up a bit and took Olive for a walk at lunch.

I think she REALLY missed me...

Met Ben at Parry's after work from a celebratory dinner.

Continued our Halloween evening with "Halloween Ends." Supposedly this could be the last one. If they managed to make a sequel, I'd be pretty impressed.

Stats:

283,023 steps
103.96 miles run
12.41 miles walked
50 minutes of cardio
10 minutes of strength

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Week in Review (July 16 - July 22)

Tuesday (14,124) - Peloton before work, although only a short ride. I was coming up on a milestone strength class, so I actually signed up to do live classes. Unfortunately, it SUCKED. For whatever reason, it kept freezing and losing sound and I probably was only able to do about 15 minutes of 30 minutes total. SO IRRITATING, especially since I had full bars! Ugh!! After work Ben and I met at 4 Noses, then we went to Costco to pick up groceries and last minute stuff for our race.

Wednesday (14,165 steps) - Work in the office. Stopped at home to pick up Olive before going to Louisville for run club. We only did a two mile walk, yay taper! Since Larry didn't show up we decided to do something different and go to 4 Noses for our beers. Leftover pizza for dinner.

Thursday (12,746 steps) - Work from home. It wasn't crazy hot so I didn't have to rush to walk Olive. I spent most of the day gathering all the gear that I need for Summit and preparing my drop bags.

We went to Torchy's for dinner.

Friday (12,743 steps) - Brought Olive with me to Wash Park for the walk. Worked in the office in the morning to take care of all the work I needed to get done for Joyce and went home at lunch.

Took Olive for another walk.

Saturday (10,281 steps) - Finalized all our packing. We had plans to pick up CJ and Nico at the airport and were monitoring CJ's flight. We took Olive for a walk and then went to Parry's for a quick lunch. We were able to find them both without any issues. There was a decent amount of traffic on the way up to the mountains and we stopped at Outer Range and had Paul and Ana meet us there before going to the condo that Paul had rented for everyone.

We were really surprised to be given the master bedroom! Went for a walk to make sure I got all my steps in.

Later, we all went to get Thai food for dinner. We met up with some other runners, which was fun.

Sunday (12,404 steps) - I had not slept well. It was really hot and stuffy in the bedroom and we couldn't open the window. That was frustrating. We met a bunch of people in the morning for coffee. The day ended up just disappearing when we realized that Jillian (Paul's pacer) and Nico didn't really have all the gear they probably needed. Stops at Sierra and the outlets and a quick beer at the Thirsty Pika!

Then we headed to the condo to grab our stuff so we could go to packet pick up. It ended up pouring rain for that, which was fun since it was outside.

Photo: Jason Peters

Ben, me, Niko, CJ, Jillian, Ana, Paul

We ended up getting a pizza at Whole Foods and grabbing another beer at Outer Range. Suddenly it was time to finish our packing (since we weren't coming back to the bnb) and try to get some sleep.

Monday (108,138 steps) - Summit 200

Stats:

184,601 steps
50ish miles run
17.19 miles walked
15 minutes of cardio
30 minutes of strength

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Week in Review (July 9 - July 15)

Tuesday (11,560 steps) - Peloton before going to work in the office. Cross training at lunch.

Wednesday (17,583 steps) - Headed up to Lousiville after work. I had a workout to do, so I went out solo even though I saw Tyler as I was getting ready to head out. Even though it was over 90, with the cloud cover it didn't feel nearly that hot. I had planned a route that I expected to be around 6 miles. Most of my walking/breaks (lights) were on the climb up McCaslin.

Definitely was taking it easy. There was a guy walking really fast with his dog and I think I leapfrogged with him for a few miles (eyeroll). At one point I decided I really didn't want to do the out/back I had originally planned, so I pulled out my phone to run with the map.

I even got to see chickens, so that was fun.

I was one of the last people back to the store but arrived in time to win one of the raffle prizes. We all went to Murphy's after.

Thursday (21,294 steps) - Work from home. I should have gotten up early to do my hill repeats, but I didn't, so I found myself doing them in the heat of the day. All things considered, it wasn't that bad, other than feeling like I was going to pass out (although Garmin disagreed):

The first few repeats went great, but once I got lightheaded, I took some short walk breaks.

Took Olive for a walk, then went with Ariel to the bank and got slushies for 711 day.

Have I mentioned it's been unbearably hot?

Friday (15,484 steps) - Wash Park and Stella's. Went to 4 Noses after work (and driving) and they have a new collaboration with Outer Range, and it's tasty!

Saturday (46,685 steps) - Adventure Day! Fellow Summit 200 runner Ana was in town for the race, so we invited her to join us for a loop of (mostly) the course. Tyler, Terri and Larry met us up there, although we would only end up spending the first maybe 4-5 miles together before they all took off. The route was the same one we attempted back in May (when Olive escaped out of the camper).

I didn't take any pictures of the dirt road after Rainbow Lake. Last time we were up there it was FEET of snow, and I was surprised at how rocky it was. When we got to the campground/parking lot junction, we went onto trail (basically where we turned around last time) and it was gorgeous!

We did encounter some downed trees, but they didn't really slow us down.

We really enjoyed the shade and there were numerous places to filter water, which was helpful to see ahead of race day.

The section of the course that we were on was going to top at at one of the highest elevations that we would encounter, so it was somewhat comforting to see how I was going to feel at 12,700ish feet up. It was really pretty! Somewhat shocking to see so many bikes, but it IS summer...

Ben was very excited to arrive at this section, what he says is one of his favorite views in the whole area. I agree, it was lovely!

Finally we were at the saddle between Peaks 5 and 6. There were a decent number of bikes here and a huge group of hikers. The summit area was a bit rocky, but it was nice to move faster and get a bit of running in.

These were some of my favorite views in Summit, and we have been up here a LOT.

We seemed to descent a lot quicker than we had climbed, and we were back in the woods a bit and a lot more flowers.

More access to fresh water, and it was also getting sunnier and hotter!

I knew the last "few" miles were going to be on the bike path. What none of us realized was that it was going to be on the Triple Bypass course. Oooops.

None of us especially love the paved part. It was a LOT hotter, there were a TON of bikes. We actually ran into our friend Lee (who was racing) a few miles before we got to the truck. Thankfully the bike path is really wide, so even being on the course wasn't THAT bad. We did run/walk intervals and arrived at the lot within minutes of when the others had gotten done. It was somewhat comforting to do this at a good clip, although obviously we won't be that "fast" race day. We went to Outer Range afterwards for a beer and to chat.

We decided to head down to Parry's for dinner. I got the mac and cheese and it was delicious!

Sunday (16,465 steps) - Another adventure day. With forecasts still over 100 degrees, we went back up to Guanella to take Olive back to Square Top Lakes.

Even though it was later in the morning, we were able to get a spot in the lot. It was definitely warmer than the last time we were up. Olive did move a bit quicker this time as well.

I remember there being a lot of wildflowers, but it seemed like they exploded overnight! They never photograph well, but there were so many of them.

It was pretty disheartening that the lower snowfields were completely melted. Olive had some muscle memory and kept trying to walk over to it, but it was bone dry! Luckily the other snowfield by the upper lake was still there. She played quite a bit.

We sat and had a snack at the lake, but didn't stick around too long because the sky over Bierstadt looked a little sketchy.

We still gave Olive a few minutes to play in the snow before we started down the mountain.

I had seen so many pictures of mountain goats across the road that I talked Ben into walking over there to head partially up to see if we could see any. The sky got pretty dark, however, and we opted to turn around when we got to the lake.

We got rained on the last few minutes back to the car. We sat in the cab of the truck people watching until we finally decided to head down. We stopped at Cabin Creek for a snack. A table of people had an unruly dog that actually lunged at a server and bit him! They didn't even get kicked out. Crazy. We were irritated with the whole experience and went down to Parry's for a pizza. ANOTHER dog incident - a couple of women showed up with a dog and then were complaining that they couldn't see the tv because they wanted to watch some game and left the dog alone outside. After maybe 10 minutes they came out, got the dog and brought it inside. AND NO ONE SAID ANYTHING?!? wtf?? There are no dogs allowed inside restaurants - apparently another set of regulars told them it was fine and they did. Management has NO backbone, and we have created a society where people think they can do whatever they want or I'LL SUE FOR DISCRIMINATION. So irritating. Goodbye, weekend.

Monday (10,637 steps) - Work from home. Officially tapering, so I didn't have a run. It was going to be another very hot day, so I walked Olive early. We got lunch at Torchy's.