Week in Review (February 17 - February 23)

Tuesday (12,980 steps) - Peloton ride and Olive walk before going to work. Went to the gym at lunch for a short StairMaster session, strength training and some walking at incline. 

We had to go to Costco to pick up groceries. Took Olive for a walk when we got home, then sauna. Pizza for dinner, then we watched men's Big Air finals on the Olympics before more Beast in Me.

Wednesday (17,748 steps) - Olive walk before going to work. Had a crazy morning and took my lunch early when I got a break to ensure I could get my workout in. Had the same ladder speed work that I did a few weeks ago. I felt really good the whole time and when I compared the workouts I was a little bit faster and my heart rate was a little lower - hope that means I finally starting to improve my fitness a bit! 

After work I was heading out to walk Olive when Ben got home, so he joined us. Dinner and watched some of the dual moguls before finishing up Beast in Me. Bummer that it was such a short series, it was really good! We started a new Netflix limited series, "His & Hers" - not sure we love it just yet.

Thursday (16,761 steps) - Work from home. Took Olive for her walk a little early since it was supposed to get cloudy and windy. It wasn't bad! Of course by the time I changed and went for my run about 10 minutes after getting back, it was miserably cold and windy. 

Perfect opportunity to wear my sweet Thai 300 jacket!

Did my strength workouts and a quick sauna session. One delivery on the way to meet Ben at Torchy's for dinner. Took Olive for a short walk around the block. Skipped watching Olympics and went straight for more His & Hers, which is getting a bit more interesting, but also, we are almost done!!

Friday (11,977 steps) - Took Olive for a walk shortly after getting up BEFORE showering since the cold front had come through and I didn't want to walk with wet hair. Took her to work with me. Finally got caught up on a bunch of pending things. 

Took Olive for our regular "longer" walk at lunch and was FREEZING. Really wished I had remembered to bring something to cover my ears. If it's gonna be this cold, I wish we would at least get some moisture. It is SO dry. Ben left work early and finished his day at 4 Noses. I told him I would just meet him at home, so skipped happy hour. Took Olive for a walk. Watched Olympics women's halfpipe qualifications and finished His & Hers. Kind of a crazy show.

Saturday (37,399 steps) - Up early since we were planning on going to Chatfield for the Roxborough free race. Christina texted me to let me know she wasn't going to be able to attend after all, boooo! Took Olive for a walk before we drove down. Got there with just enough time to get my bib and use the bathroom. Had some time to fangirl over Allie Ostrander showing up to do a tune up before she runs the half marathon National Championships. Anyway... I was thinking I may or may not be overdressed, but decided to leave all my layers on and adjust if necessary. Ben signed up for the 5 miler and I was in for the 15 miler, so off we went.

Last time we raced out here there was a ton of snow on the ground, but it was bone dry for this one. I let Ben set the pace for this one, and arguably, we headed out a bit faster paced than I wanted to (between 11 & 11:30 pace, if I recall). I was maintaining ok though, so went with it. It was a really nice day out!

Ben turned around at the top of the hill and I figured I would try to maintain the pace as long as I could.  threw in my headphones, and since I had long sleeves on, I was not watching my pace. I was only checking when a mile clicked, which was working out nice. I was surprised to see how much of this was wide bike path - last year with the snow I thought this was all single track trail. I was following and older lady pretty closely because her pace seemed good.

She turned around for the 10 mile distance and I was left to chase a gal in front of me. I stopped to use the first open bathroom I saw and she got pretty far away from me. We had a loop to do at the end of our out and back and this WAS single track. I slowed the pace just a bit since it was sort of steep. No walking though, so I was proud of that. 

Moved off the single track and onto some rutted black top before getting back on the nice, smooth bike path. I was still just a minute or two behind the same woman. She FINALLY took a walk break with about five miles to go and I was able to nudge past her. I think I unintentionally picked up the pace a bit. and it started to bite me in the ass when I got closer to the finish. With only about a mile left I took my first walk break - still happy I made it over 14 miles in before I needed to walk! The last mile lasted absolutely forever. I am surprised Ben got a decent picture of me crossing.

I thought I was going to pass out and sat down for a few minutes - mostly so I could catch my breath AND have a cough attack at the same time. Sadly, there were no burritos left :(

I was hungry though, so Ben suggested we go to Bluegrass for a snack. They were still serving brunch, so I got some underwhelming french toast and eggs. I also got a latte, that was NOT underwhelming.

Took Olive for a walk when we got back, thankfully, she chose the neighborhood walk and NOT the longer walk. Sauna, shower, and then we settled in for the night. Watched men's halfpipe finals and Sirens

Sunday (18,060 steps) - Up early again since we had to head down to Denver for the annual kick off for the Runners Roost race team. We walked with Maureen and Colfax - it was a fairly chilly morning!

Everything took longer than usual, and by the time we visited with everyone, picked up our kits and shopped, it was already lunch time. We stopped at home for a snack and then went up to Boulder for a modified vert day. It was really nice weather, but definitely got cold towards the end because of cloud cover.

Stopped at Rails End and then picked up Panda for dinner on the way home. 

Watched women's halfpipe finals and Sirens

Monday (21,451 steps) - Work from home, thankfully. Had slept terrible because Robin seemingly was screaming all night long. Felt like I was just on the brink of falling asleep and never got any rest. Ben brought me a surprise Dutch Bros. because he had accidentally left his laptop at home and had to come back to get it anyway, so that was nice. Took Olive for a walk and then headed out for my run. Was supposed to be warm, but felt chilly because of the stupid wind. Overall, the run was fine.

Clocked out a few minutes early since I had to go to my annual gyno appointment, woo. Walked Olive when I got home and Ben brought home pizza for dinner. We finished Sirens (this was also a sorta crazy show) and started The Good Wife. If nothing else, we are excited to watch a show that has more than one season.

Stats:

• 136,376 steps
• 34.02 miles run
• 15.26 miles walked
• 45 minutes of cardio
• 60 minutes of strength
• 105 minutes of sauna

Week in Review (January 6 - January 12)

Tuesday (12,910 steps) - Peloton ride and Olive walk before going to work. Did a Pilates class and treadmill at 8.5% during lunch. Took Olive for a walk when I got home and sauna time! More Following.

Wednesday (12,596 steps) - Olive walk before going to work in the office. Really busy day and I squeezed in another walk on the treadmill just to get steps in. Walked Olive after work, did some stretching and of course sauna time! Dinner and more Following. 

Thursday (12,657 steps) - Work from home! Cleaned and finalized my packing. Took Olive for a long walk since I didn't have a run on schedule. It snowed the whole time - very wet snow, so I was drenched by the time I got home. 

Finished up the work day and sauna. Ben and I went to Torchy's for the first time in many weeks because of all the holidays. 

When we got home I took Olive for another walk. More Following.

Friday (12,810 steps) - Woke up to find it snowing pretty hard! Thankfully, by the time I was ready to take Olive for a walk it had stopped. Her fur is long enough that she was stopped frequently to chew at the snowballs, so I decided to leave her home instead of taking her to work. 

Went to the gym at lunch to walk on the treadmill again. After work I met Ben at 4 Noses for “happy hour.” Since we don’t have a ton of food we got burgers from the food truck. Went home after to walk Olive and sauna. More Following.

Saturday (21,489 steps) - I set an alarm but I woke up well before it went off. Had coffee with Ben while planning my morning. Finally decided to go for a short run - my first one in a bit, and it was good! Then I took Olive for a long walk to the lake while Ben and Ariel picked up Dutch Bros.

Unfortunately, her fur is getting so long again that she got a lot of snow and mud balls and by the time we got home she was limping a bit :( Took a shower and finalized the rest of my packing. Ariel ran to the bank to get me some cash so I could exchange when I got to Thailand. Ben and I went to Parry’s for a lunch, although neither of us was very hungry. 

I had wanted to get to the airport extra early since I was not able to get checked in online. Ben even came in with me to help with bags, which helped a ton. There was zero wait to check the bag and basically no line at security either, so I was there WAY too early. Gave me a chance to wander around and get my steps - I even set outside since the weather was so nice to read. Our plane was scheduled to leave just after 5 pm and we ended up leaving a few minutes early. I got an aisle seat and my seat mates were normal-sized and never got up. I read some of my book and watched Gossip Girl before watching Elf (kinda been obsessed with watching it again ever since I realized not one of our streaming services offered it for free). I had a long layover in Seattle, so I picked up some food as soon as I got to the right gate and then spent some time on the phone with Ben. 

When I discovered that my seat (on a 13 hour flight) was going to be dead middle, Ben offered to pay to upgrade me. I ended up in an emergency row with a ton of space, but it was kind of annoying because I couldn’t keep my bag with me. 

Sunday (276 steps) - We left Seattle just after midnight. With the time change, literally my whole “day” was on the plane. I was RIGHT by the bathroom, so the only time I got up was to use it and I probably only got about 30 steps each time. 

I watched “I Am Legend” while waiting for dinner to be served. 

First meal was shortly after we took off

I SOMEHOW EVEN NAPPED FOR OVER 4 HOURS, which is really unheard of for me. I read more of my book, watched “It Ends With Us” and breakfast was served while I was watching “The Bucket List.” 

"Breakfast" was a few hours before we landed.

Monday (18,128 steps) - Technically my day started on the plane, but I’ll count it when I got off since that’s when my step count re-set. Since I had a very long layover in Taipei, I had done some research and found out I would be able to leave the airport and take the train into the city and do a bit of sight seeing. What I did not plan on was ending up in a terminal at 5 something in the morning with seemingly no exit. At 6 when the info desk finally opened I was directed to an area to exit, but where I was told to go was barricaded off. I found another help desk and was told the same location and she insisted I could just walk around the barricade. I did that and ended up on the other side of a small security area. The guys there seemingly had no idea what I was asking for, but finally I got in the correct area. I had to do a Taiwan Visa and go through immigration. Then I had to wait for the ticket booth that took credit cards to open at 7 before I could get my train tokens. Finally, I caught the 7:13 train to Taipei main station, which took somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes, but at least I got a seat. Once I got off at the station I found a locker to check my bag and then thankfully my maps worked and I headed towards Liberty Square. Holy cow was this confusing. So many signs and different directions to go. I didn’t really get LOST, but I did end up in a construction zone (no one said anything).

It was lightly drizzling on my walk there/back, but I’m glad I got out there and walked around. It was only $10ish for the round-trip train ticket and then a little over a dollar for the locker. 

Even more miraculously, I found my way BACK and didn’t even have problems finding my bag. Phew. By this time, I was starving so I went to pretty much the first place I saw. Spent way too much money on sub-par food - although the pumpkin soup and chocolate cake were divine. 

Finally found a place where I could get my devices charged. LONG day so far. Finally, it was time for the last leg to Chiang Mai. I had another aisle seat thankfully, but this flight wasn’t that long (comparatively). 

I kept dozing off, which made the flight go by quicker. Tried to watch “The Long Walk” but the WiFi kept cutting out, so never actually finished it (which was fine since I have already seen it). I had emailed the hotel I had booked asking for a shuttle, and imagine my surprise when I collected my bag and there was someone waiting for me when I exited baggage claim. It was a short drive to the location and I was REALLY excited to put my stuff down and relax. 

I took a shower and intended to just lie down for a nap and ended up completely passing out for the rest of the night - not a surprise considering how long I had been awake.

Stats:

• 90,866 steps
• 1.61 miles run
• 16.05 miles walked
• 15 minutes of cardio
• 31 minutes of strength (10:01planks)
• 115 minutes of sauna

Week in Review (September 30 - October 6)

Tuesday (14,328 steps) - Peloton ride and Olive walk before going to work in the office. I was on the fence as to whether I wanted to run or just do inside gym stuff. Ended up doing a brisk few miles on the treadmill (walking, not running) and some weights. After work went home to let Olive out before meeting Ben at Costco for a long overdue grocery trip. Dinner and Wednesday! Dressed Goosie up for Halloween, isn't she adorable??

Wednesday (17,446 steps) - Up early and walked Olive before going to work. Went for a run at lunch, doing intervals. 

Stopped at REI mid run to check out the dry bags that I might use for my next race. Spoiler: they are going to NOT work at all. I'll have to return. Ben and I took Olive for a walk. Only Murders in the Building

Thursday  (17,299 steps) - Work from home. Ariel called to let me know that her tire light is on (AGAIN) so I met her down at Big O. We ventured to get "coffee" from Ziggi's since we both had coupons and took Olive for a walk while we were waiting for her car to be done (it was just the sensor, but we didn't feel the need to spend $90 on a new one).

Did my run at interval run at lunch, it wasn't bad, but another activity where I'm ever so grateful for the bathroom at the trailhead! Took Olive for an afternoon walk and then met Ben at Torchy's for dinner.

More Murders!

Friday (16,711 steps) - Wash Park with the gang! I wasn't sure if I was going to go because I've been really tired and lethargic all week, but since I woke up before my alarm, off we went. I was glad to see everyone. Skipped Stella's so I could get to the office a bit earlier. Olive and I walked to REI at lunch to return the dry bag I had bought earlier in the week. It was hot hot hot, unseasonably warm, nearly hitting 90 degrees today!

After work we met up with Ben at 4 Noses for happy hour. I had their new NA beer and it was not the best, so we left pretty soon after that. 

Saturday (19,369 steps) - Up early to take Olive for a quick walk - although we ended up doing a bit longer than usual since the sunrise looked like it was going to be extra pretty, we headed east instead of our normal west route.

We headed over to Golden so that we could run the Homecoming (Blaster) 5k! Last year we didn't register in time and missed it, so I was much more on top of it this year. We found everything pretty easily and had plenty of time to use the bathroom before starting. We found Ariel and her friend/roommate Margaret before the start and got this picture with adorable Blaster! 

Could Blaster BE any cuter??? Wearing the race shirt and his own bib!!!

I had told Ben we should do our own thing for the run, so I had one earbud in so I could listen to music. I knew the course was going to be relatively hilly and I had a (lame) soft goal of sub 35 minutes. Well, the course starts as an uphill and I took my first walk break like a half mile in. There was some crowding on the bike path and this stupid woman was running with her two kids, holding at least on of their hands and taking up most of the trail with zero situational awareness. Second break maybe 1.5 miles in, shortly after I saw Blaster (yes, he ran the whole 5k!!) and Ben. Ariel and Margaret caught up to me and we walked together for a minute. I started to run again around 2 miles in and did pretty well until the last hill up to the finish - what a cruel finish!! Official splits 11:04/11:01/11:41/10:21 for a 34:39 finish. 

Finisher pic with Blaster!

That felt stupidly hard. Trying to give myself a break since I haven't done speed work in AGES and I have been sick for a week or longer. Anyway. Ariel and Margaret finished just a few minutes after me. We got a sno cone and a burrito to take home for later. Ariel had to head out for additional Homecoming activities, and we had to head home as well. Did some reading while Ben took a nap and then took Olive for a long walk before we headed down to Bear Creek for our volunteering shift at the Bear Chase races! Bear Chase was my first 50 miler in 2011 (!!!!) and I ran varying distances there for years up until Covid - this was my first time back since! We arrived right on time at 1:00. The weather seemed to already be rolling in and it was cloudy and windy when we arrived. Stella was volunteering, as was Jim. Well, it was quite an adventure out there. The wind only got worse as time went on. We ended up having to tape everything down because full containers of food would blow off the table. We even got some rain and I wished I had brought more clothes!!

By mid afternoon the wind had gotten exponentially worse - to the point where all four of us were hanging on the canopy to keep it from blowing away. 

We were able to head out shortly after the last runner at 8:45 pm. I cannot believe how exhausting this was! Had hoped to get food on the way home and we were way too tired. Ate some leftovers and sat on the couch for a few minutes before bed. What a long day.

Sunday (22,920 steps) - Definitely exhausted when I woke up. Crazy how much volunteering takes out of me! Took Olive for a walk and then we headed up to Louisville for our long run. I didn't look until after we got back home, but it was my longest training run in MONTHS. 

Apparently the only picture I took all run

Pretty sad that I haven't run double digits outside of a race in who knows how long. Guess this means I need to get back to work on base building, as 9 miles seemed REALLY tough towards the end. I had worn long sleeves for this since it seemed chilly when we left the house. It was partially perfect, but any time the sun came out it felt really warm. On the way home we stopped at Torchy's for lunch/snack. Went home and took a shower, read for a bit and then went out to do some driving. By the time I got back it was raining so Olive did not get an afternoon walk. Ben had Panda delivered (YUM) and we started "No Time to Die" but between Ariel showing up for a surprise visit and the length of the movie, we weren't able to finish it. Goodbye weekend?

Monday (18,227 steps) - Work from home. I had to run to the obgyn to get my IUD replaced, fun times. Picked up a coffee from Dunkin' as a reward. Took Olive for a walk before taking her to get groomed. I went for my run on the US36 bike path. Really not bad at all! I also had to wear tights and long sleeves as it was pretty chilly. Never gonna survive winter!! After work I did a few deliveries and then took Olive for a walk before dinner. Ben ordered Domino's, which we haven't had in ages. Finished "No Time to Die."

Stats:

• 126,300 steps
• 25.95 miles run
• 16.43 miles walked
• 15 minutes of cardio
• 5 minutes of strength