Week in Review (October 29 - November 4)

Tuesday (13,378 steps) - Olive walk before going to work in the office. Quick StairMaster, climbing Big Ben.

Also did a full body workout and stretching. Apparently today was National Candy Corn Day. Unknowingly, I wore my candy cane shorts.

Took Olive for a walk when I got home from work. Enjoying fall and daylight while it is still around :(

Made burrito bowls for dinner and watched Murders - sadly, it was the season finale!

Wednesday (14,346 steps) - Olive walk before going to work. Strength training and stretching at lunch. Pretty sure we watched one of the last Friday the 13th movies, but won't get them all done before Halloween.

Thursday (18,260 steps) - Work from home. Went for my run and it seemed really sunny and hot. Felt pretty good though.

Temperatures were a bit cooler for Olive's walk. Since it was Halloween, she wore her costume.

We went to Kristin's for dinner and Trick or Shot. It was pretty chilly after the sun set and I had to convince Ben to get out of there around 7:45. It was nice sitting on the couch and watching another Friday the 13th.

Friday (14,669 steps) - Wash Park with Olive and the gang! Chilly, but a nice sunrise. I wore my new North Face puffer mittens and my hands didn't get crazy cold. (Of course winter isn't actually HERE yet, either).

When I got to the office, I set up my winter lights. NO, they are not CHRISTMAS lights. Backstory - I bought Ariel lights to decorate her door and dorm room for Halloween and was jealous, so I got some fun lights for my desk.

Meanwhile, Olive had to suffer through another boring day at work.

We went to Torchy's for dinner since we missed our standing Thursday visit because of Halloween. There was not a taco of the month so I tried the quesadilla plate, which was decent.

Took Olive for a walk when we got home. Sad to see the Halloween decorations are coming down so soon.

Saturday (39,769 steps) - Backcountry Wilderness half marathon, recap to come.

Took Olive for a walk when I got home while Ben went to the library to vote. (Long story, but our mail carrier didn't deliver his ballot, and apparently election mail cannot be forwarded, so he had to vote in person). Olive had her grooming appointment, so we had lunch next door at Four Noses while we waited for her to be finished. The BBQ was a new-to-us food truck and it was delicious!

Olive's haircut turned out great!

Maybe this was the night we started the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series?

Sunday (13,838 steps) - Stupid time change. We were up before our alarms. Got ready and headed out to get coffee and pick Ariel up. We headed over to Runners Roost in Golden for our end-of-year race team gettogether. 

I had promised no running (not that I wanted to anyway), so we planned on a walk/hike. Jeannene and Ollie joined us for a loop up/around South Table. 

There was coffee and snacks at the store, we planned to go out to breakfast so we only had the coffee. After the "party" was done we went to Table Mountain Inn for food. Thankfully they had an enclosed patio that Olive was allowed on.

Breakfast was DELICIOUS, and the portions were HUGE.

We dropped Ariel off at home and then headed back north. Ben went out to run some errands and I took Olive for a walk and then did some driving. Another Nightmare on Elm Street.

Monday (15,829 steps) - Work from home. It was CHILLY since we had received a small amount of snow overnight. I needed to run and walk Olive and put it off ALL MORNING. By the time I braved walking Olive it was nearly 11:30 and it was overcast and brisk. I got dressed for my run and nearly headed out completely overdressed. The sun came out and it wasn't bad at all. 

It seems the new trailhead at the library is nearly complete! I haven't run by here in a bit.

Planned to do some driving after work but only got one offer so I met Ben at Parry's for dinner.

We took Olive for a quick walk when we got home. Can definitely feel the cold weather rolling in, this was chilly! We watched "Nightmare on Elm Street 3" and I fell asleep at the end. Bed just after 9 pm?? I don't remember the time change affecting me so badly in years past.

Stats:

• 130,089 steps
• 23.34 miles run
• 18.67 miles walked
• 8 minutes of cardio
• 80 minutes of strength

Week in Review (February 6 - February 12)

Tuesday (19,459 steps) - Peloton before work in the office. Cross training at lunch. Took Olive for a walk when I got home.

Three years of showing up at least once a week for cross training!

Wednesday (28,102 steps) - Work in the office. Lots of miles on the treadmill desk and then headed to Green Mountain after work. I was really surprised that the Lakewood didn't close the trails. The bottom section was wet and muddy. As I got higher up the fire road it was slushy.

Getting to the top ridge line and it was narrow, packed down ice. It was a gorgeous night, but I didn't want to roll an ankle and it was slow going. It also got pretty windy.

Met Ben at Parry's for happy hour.

Thursday (22,942 steps) - Work from home. Took Olive for a walk at lunch on the mud route before going for my run. It was windy, but another day of being able to wear shorts! Met Ben at Parry's for dinner.

Friday (23,310 steps) I haven't been sleeping well so I skipped the morning walk. Work was crazy busy and I didn't get to sneak out early like I usually try to do. Ben was at Big O getting his new wheels and tires, so met up at Parry's. Again.

Saturday (24,634 steps) - Tried to sleep in and failed. It snowed overnight again, so we weren't sure what we were going to be able to do. We decided to go to North Table because we figured at least there wouldn't be any bikes if the weather wasn't amazing. There were a surprising number of cars in the lot and we headed up the fire road. It was snowy and felt much steeper than I remember.

We saw a gal at the top of the fire road snapping on a snowboard and also saw some people with a sled. SNOWED ON US THE WHOLE TIME. Because the snow is so wet, there were areas that were slushy, but a lot of the trail was just... snow.

Needless to say we didn't do a ton of running because we weren't sure what we were stepping on. Pretty though!

Took Olive for a walk - she loves this weather!

Sunday (10,440 steps) - We had to be up early to go to Runner's Roost in Denver for the team kickoff. After a few years off, Ben is back on the team. We took Olive with us and had plans to run with Maureen. The streets were really icy after all the snow, and I wasn't feeling great, so a 5k at dog pace was fine with me.

As always, great to see all our teammates! We went to Parry's on the way home for a quick snack. Then it was time to shower and go to Ben's house for his 50th birthday party / Super Bowl party. We didn't stay too long and then headed over to 4 Noses to watch the rest of the game. Looooong night.
Monday (18,560 steps) - Work from home. SUPER busy since I am on a short (maybe longer) term coverage assignment. I was slammed most of the day. Barely had time to take Olive for a short walk and I had to cut my run a bit short because I didn't get out until later in the afternoon. Ben and I went to Salsa's for dinner and then we watched a movie. Finally got in bed early for once.

Stats:

• 147,447 steps
• 27.28 miles run
• 45 minutes of cardio
• 60 minutes of strength

Austin 3M Half Marathon (Race Recap)

Austin, TX

Sunday, January 21

Half Marathon #195

Weather - Cold!

Months ago, I saw that a few of my Texas friends (from running Banff) were running the 3M half marathon. I ran back in 2011 and didn't remember hating it. I checked to see if Ariel wanted to join for a weekend, and once she said yes, I registered and booked flights. I had stayed at Heather's house the night before and we had plans to leave around 5:30 am so we could stop to get coffee at Dunkin.

Alarm was set for 5:10 am. I hadn't slept wonderfully, but I'd had the sense to lay everything out the night before so I was ready to go on time. Sadly, Dunkin wasn't open, but McDonald's was, so we got coffee there. We stopped to pick up Heather's friend Rachel on the way to the start line - and she brought breakfast burritos! Even though I had already eaten my waffle, a burrito sounded good, so I ate that too.

We parked at the Sam's Club nearby and sat in the car until maybe 6:40? 6:45? We had just enough time to go through the (incredibly organized) bathroom line, and then it was basically time to jump into the corral. My last road half marathon was Space Coast in 2021(??) so I had no idea what pace I'd be capable of. 

For whatever reason, the winter is hitting me harder this year, and I bailed on almost all of my speed work, so I was VERY optimistic when I jumped in around 2:15 pace group. I was planning on listening to the Eras Tour setlist, and got my headphones ready. One quick picture of the start line, and off we went!

Mile 1 was consumed with the fact that my headphones were encountering MAJOR interference. I have never had this happen that I can remember, so maybe this is just the biggest road race I have done and someone else's Bluetooth was somehow messing with it. IT WAS SUPER ANNOYING, but I dealt with it and after maybe 10 minutes it went away. In that time I also tossed the long sleeve throwaway Heather had given me - it lasted all of 7-8 minutes. I was very glad I had worn thin long sleeves and gloves, although I did play the "I'm hot, wait, no, I'm cold" game quite a bit.

This course boasts "Downhill to Downtown" - yet I hadn't remembered that from when I ran before. I had looked at the elevation profile from my Garmin and I thought it had much more gain, and couldn't remember any of it once I started running, except for mile 12 being the hilliest.

I literally didn't look at any race information, but I assumed there would be aid stations every few miles, and I planned on walking through all of them. The second aid station ran in front of Austin Beerworks, which I doubt existed 13 years ago.

I took electrolyte (was it Nuun? I have no idea) at every stop, and sometimes water. I was running a lot faster than I expected, but I was zoning out to Taylor Swift and trying to keep an eye out for Mel, Crystal and anyone else I might know. I almost forgot I had even brought nutrition, but then I saw a girl next to me take a gel, so I decided to eat my applesauce. Yay, fuel. I ended up taking a gel at mile 7ish (ewwww, cold salted watermelon GU). Actually, I think I only ate half of it, then I had a gag reflex to thankfully there was water after. Mistake on my part. I don't know why I still think I can eat those. I remembered the liquor table from the last time, and sure enough, they were back! I can't remember what mile this was, maybe 8? I took the one next to the tequila, because I definitely did NOT want that. Turns out I grabbed bourbon. Which wasn't much better, but I didn't throw up, so that was good.

I was still feeling surprisingly good, and my overall pace was still under 10 minutes! (Which is INSANE). I definitely was zoning out and mainly just trying not to trip over curbs, but overall their roads are in much better shape than Denver's. Before I knew it, we were on the UT campus, which meant we were close!

I was consistently about a tenth of a mile over on my watch, but I pushed the last few miles and had enough oomph left to get up the hills, which a LOT of people did not! I cruised through the uphill finish with my best time since 2018! (And I probably top 20-25% EVER), so I was VERY pleased.

Official Time - 2:10:48

Official 5k - 30:50

Official 10k - 101:50

Official 15k - 1:33:24

Overall Place - 2727/4720

Division Place - 147/303 (top half, wooo!

Garmin Time - 2:10:51

Garmin Distance - 13:22

Garmin Pace - 9:54

Mile 1 - 10:07

Mile 2 - 9:47

Mile 3 - 9:43

Mile 4 - 9:48

Mile 5 - 9:55

Mile 6 - 9:49

Mile 7 - 10:04

Mile 8 - 10:03

Mile 9 - 10:03

Mile 10 - 10:07

Mile 11 - 9:58

Mile 12 - 9:42

Mile 13 - 9:42

Mile 13.1 - 9:11 pace

I did a quick selfie trying to get my full outfit. In retrospect, should've just asked someone to take my picture, but oh well.

Since I've only had Strava since 2014 (?) - it's pretty impressive that in TEN YEARS, this was my second fastest half!!

Can you find my name?

I followed the signage to get my drop bag. I was already getting cold since I sweat so much. I had last minute thrown my R1 in my bag so that I would have a long sleeve top, jacket AND joggers in my bag. I walked over near the capital to add my layers.

I figured I would hang out in the beer garden to wait for Heather and Rachel. There was only ONE heater in the whole area and I have to say that my layers basically did NOTHING. By the time Mel texted to find out where I was, I was soooo cold. I felt really badly for people that hadn't brought enough clothes!

I ran over to the finish line so that we could watch them finish. Once they crossed we were out of there pretty quickly.

Thoughts:

• VERY chilly for Texas. but that meant perfect running weather for me! I was still sweating even though it was in the 30's. 
• Medal is awesome!! 30 spins and so does the star in the center! 
• Race was relatively expensive (I paid $140), but they were doing registration at the expo for only $79, which is pretty good for a city race that's point to point and requires a lot of police and road closures.
• I didn't like the shirt and gave it away, but with the 3M sponsorship, the rest of the swag is fun.
• Would I run again? Sure, it's not too much money since I have friends/family..