Week in Review (January 30 - February 5)

Tuesday (15,873 steps) - Peloton before work. I took a short lunch break to do my strength training because I had another mandatory lunch meeting. Ugh - at least we got "free" food. I guess that's it?

Wednesday (29,278 steps) - Treadmill desk during work. Had a workout to do and since I didn't think anyone was going to run club I figured I'd just do it on Big Dry Creek. I was not optimistic for this at all since I've been tired all week. The warm up was super slow, but I got really close to my goal paces. PLUS, I saw a couple owls and coyotes AND there was a really pretty sunset!

If you can't tell, that's an owl

Also an owl - he seems really big!

Thursday (22,128 steps) - Work from home. Olive has started lying on the coffee table. I should probably not let her do that, but she just looks so adorable!

Ariel and I went to Dutch Bros. for coffee - and we have started bringing Olive with us because she really enjoys the pup cups. She has to eat them before getting back in the car though, because she is a slob.

The weather was really nice again, and I got to wear shorts and short sleeves AGAIN. It was almost "warm" when I was running in the sun, but I was conscious to not complain about it because I know we have winter coming back again.

Took Olive for a walk at lunch. The trails were "almost" free of mud. She really enjoys the longer walks at the lake, but I really hate being out there when it is muddy.

Olive continued to work with me in the afternoon. (Seriously, isn't she just so cute??)

Friday (17,731 steps) - Wash Park! We had a big group and a pretty nice sunrise (and it wasn't freezing!)

Work in the office, no recollection of anything else.

Saturday (11,294 steps) - Up early to go to Boulder for the group run. I showed up late because the group was leaving right as I got there. Luckily, I know where I'm going and headed out for the road 5k route. It was raining pretty steadily and I was wearing my "new" Rabbit rain jacket, which is sadly not waterproof either. I feel like no jackets are :(

Then it was time for a quick snack and watching the marathon Olympic Trials. The store even made fun shirts for the occasion. 

It's a bit interesting to me that I actually enjoy watching running on TV, but I do. It was pretty "exciting" to watch, and fun that the girl that won was running her first marathon! Ben and I decided to go to Southern Sun for Stout Month even though it was already snowing pretty hard. The beer wasn't new and/or great, so we headed out after just one. I was supposed to go to Amy's grandson's baby shower, but with the weather taking a turn for the worst, we decided to just head towards home. We ended up getting lunch at Salsa's. Yum.

Took Olive for a walk - she just loooooves the snow.

She does NOT enjoy having snowball leg warmers though

We ended up getting about a foot of snow by the end of the evening. Pretty crazy.

Sunday (28,106 steps) - Took Olive for a walk. The bike path had been plowed, but a lot of the sidewalks were still covered in snow, so it was a bit slow going.

Since we had skipped the long run because it was raining/snowing, we went to Clear Creek in hopes of doing 12-14 miles. While the path had been plowed, there was a decent amount of ice and standing water. It was not the most fun long run, but we saw a few coyotes!

Warm enough for shorts weather, which I like. We went to Parry's for beer and a snack before heading home for the day. Watched "Skyscraper" - which was a pretty good movie.  Bah, weekend over too soon.

Monday (19,011 steps) - Work from home. I had a "longish" run to do and figured that since the snow had stopped Saturday night that the trails would be packed down. I also thought that it wouldn't be muddy yet if I went earlier in the morning. I was pretty surprised to find that when I got to the lake area that VERY few people had been out. By the time I got further on the south side of the lake I was post holing and couldn't even run. I was NOT happy.

Warm enough for shorts, but not happy about having soaking wet feet!

I had plans to jump back on the road to run home, but the side I like to run on without all the road crossings was completely covered with snow from the plows. the other side was mostly plowed, but also icy and LOTS of very wet water crossings. NOT happy about this run. Ariel and I went to Costco to pick up some groceries and get lunch (pizza, and have you HAD the new fresh chocolate chip cookies??). Took Olive for a walk after that. Met Ben at Parry's for a beer and burgers for dinner.

Stats:

• 143,421 steps
• 32.39 miles run
• 40 minutes of cardio
• 30 minutes of strength

Week in Review (January 23 - January 29)

Tuesday (18,113 steps) - Work in the office. Lots of treadmill desk. Got to finish setting up my new file area since our physical file room is being demolished!! Hard to believe file rooms have become a thing of the past! At least for everyone except my estate attorney...

Took Olive for a walk when I got home.

Wednesday (20,801 steps) - Work in the office. Treadmill desk miles and did a Peloton ride at lunch. I wasn't planning on working hard, so I hadn't even changed into athletic clothes. Kinda backfired as I got really sweaty. Heather was still in town for work, so we met up for a quick beer before she had to head to the airport. 

Thursday (16,475 steps) - Work from home. Did an easy run with strides. I say "easy" because I took it pretty easy. Also, it was warm and I was happy to wear shorts! Took Olive for a walk at lunch, skipping the lake area because I knew it would be muddy.

Friday (19,643 steps) - Actually went to Wash Park and Stella's for the first time in a while and we had a big group - even though it was snowing. Treadmill desk and a busy day at work. Took Olive for a walk when we got home from happy hour.

Saturday (31,999 steps) - Had a long run to do but wanted to be done early and couldn't think of somewhere "fun" to go. We ended up going to Central Park so that we could run with Runners Edge. I've done this route before and it's not amazing. Still not amazing, but it was nice to run with friends. Plus, we also saw a pterodactyl nest:

And a weird painted sculpture. 

We went to Panera with Janet and Pete to get some food. I got the grilled cheese like I've always gotten in the past and was really disappointed with the size and taste. Just not the same as it used to be. Headed down the street to Station 26 for a beer and to register for Ghost Train! 

We both were able to get registered before it sold out - which happened in less than 45 minutes - pretty crazy. The beer wasn't very good, so we left to go home and walk Olive and then went to 4 Noses.

Sunday (15,327 steps) - Slept in a bit. Took Olive for a walk at the lake - the weather was sooo nice!

Had an hour run on schedule, and we couldn't decide where to go. Finally picked Rocky Flats, but on the drive there, I wondered if we could find the trail head Ariel has run from before. We managed to find it without too much trouble. WOW IS THIS SECTION SO MUCH HILLIER AND TECHNICAL! The north side you MAYBE get 100' of gain, whereas the south side we were about 400! Lots more walking than planned, some of these hills were really steep and rocky!

With that said, in the event we need to train for a race in Arizona again, we have the perfect rocky place to train. We went to 4 Noses, then spent the evening wondering where the weekend went. Watched a movie and look how close Olive and Batman got!

Monday (23,197 steps) - Having slept horribly, again, I was not amused to be up early for my annual obgyn appointment. Then, the coffee maker broke, so I had to go to Dunkin to get caffeinated. I had a run on schedule and hoped with the warmer temperatures for dry trails. The south side was fine, until I got closer to the hill. I turned around about 1/3 of the way up because I didn't want to do strides in the mud. Run overall was ok, but running fast seemed hard.

Took Olive for a walk (on the mud route), and then another walk after I got off work. Read my book while Ben worked on fixing the coffee maker (which he did!)

Stats:

• 145,555 steps
• 27.02 miles run
• 30 minutes of cardio
• 0 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..

Week in Review (January 16 - January 22)

Tuesday (14,326 steps) - Work in the office. Technically a rest day, so only did the treadmill desk. I got home from work and there was a lot of activity happening around the couch. Turns out Batman and Robin found (yet another) mouse! Ben wasn't home yet so it was either trust the cats wouldn't "lose" this one, or take care of it myself. I managed to trap it under a plastic container, then slid a piece of cardboard under and took it outside. Dumb mice :(

Took Olive for a walk.

Wednesday (17,452 steps) - Work in the office and treadmill desk. Headed home after work and picked up Olive so we could go to Roost Boulder run club. We did an easy road run - Olive really enjoyed diving in the snow.

We stuck around for a film - "Dreama Team" - it was pretty good! (Although it does drive me nuts when really talented athletes pen themselves as "hobby" runners - eyeroll). I won the first raffle, which was a pair of Hokas. Unfortunately 1). they were not the Techtons that I hoped to get for Ben and 2). they were actually demo shoes, not new ones. Well, maybe he will wear them, maybe not.

Thursday (12,116 steps) - Had to go into the office because we had a mandatory staff meeting. At least I got my steps in on the treadmill desk. Headed out after the meeting and had to go directly to Big O because I have YET ANOTHER TIRE LIGHT ON. They got me in pretty quick and it thankfully was not actually another flat. Took Olive for a walk after I got off work. Finished my packing and was able to once again fit everything in my tiny backpack. 

Friday (12,205 steps) - Took the day off since Ariel and I were going to be leaving. I got me and Ben Dunkin Donuts and took Olive for a longer walk.

Our flight was at 2:30, so Ben drove us to the airport around noon. There was no line at security, so we were pretty early. Ariel and I walked around and I took her outside to the patio since she had never been there. Our flight was delayed, but we made up most of the time and landed only about 10 minutes late. Lisa picked us up and we went to her house - isn't it cute with the blue door?

Lisa had picked up free food from leftovers at work, so we made our own plates of nachos. Delicious!

We decided to watch a scary movie and settled on "It Comes at Night." It seemed like it was a little slow and then it just... ended. Time we will never get back.

Ariel petting Sven's paws

Had trouble falling asleep :(

Saturday (10,372 steps) - Didn't really sleep in, but it wasn't as early as I feared. Had a few cups of coffee and put off doing my shakeout run. Finally figured I would head out and get maybe 20 minutes of running in. It was colder than I expected and I was definitely cold! Lisa suggested I do loops around the pond by her house. The neighborhood is so new that most of the trails aren't finished. I enjoyed running through both Travis and Burnet counties - and was a little surprised of 1). running "fast" and 2). there being actual ICE on the sidewalk.

Since I was going to be going to Heather's house anyway, we made plans to go to Bastrop to walk around town. Per Heather's recommendation, we went to the bakery. So much sugar!!

We went into a bunch of shops, but nothing really sparked my interest. I'm glad we got this picture though.

Me and Lisa

Lisa drove me to Heather's so we could get to the expo before it closed. We cut it a little close, arriving just before 4:30, with it closing at 5. At least it wasn't busy. The below picture is maybe one of two dozen o me and Heather even though we have been friends for nearly 20 years...

The swag bags for 3M are nuts. It was definitely going to be a challenge figuring out how to fit all of it in my tiny bag.

Even with my run in the morning and walking around town, I still was a little short on my steps, so I spent part of the evening trying to play with Stallone. He was confused as to what I was doing.

Sunday (30,046 steps) - Austin 3M half marathon, recap to follow.

The girls picked a restaurant for brunch. I finally warmed up after a few cups of coffee and very spicy (shocking to me) Caliente Biscuit breakfast.

We got dropped off at Heather's car and basically by the time we got back to her house I was getting a message that Lisa and Ariel would be there shortly to pick me up. We went to get more Mexican food (a delicious plate of enchiladas from Guadalajara).

Since I'd already had a margarita at brunch, I figured I might as well get a beer on my way to the airport. We wanted to hit up the brewery, but the road was closed, so we went to a small "watering hole." 

We were flying out of the south terminal, which only has a few gates, so we didn't need to get there quickly. The flight was not full and we had to board outside (hence the selfie - it's not often we board outside).

The flight was uneventful and I read the whole flight since for some reason Netflix won't let me download anything to my phone??

Monday (10,132 steps) - Work from home. Ariel and I got Dunkin for breakfast. I did laundry and otherwise, a boring day. Took Olive for a walk to the lake and it was more muddy than I would have liked.

Met Ben at Parry's and Ariel came down after she got out of practice to join us for pizza. Ben and I took Olive for a walk when we got back because I hadn't hit my steps yet. Rest days (especially when I am at home) are hard sometimes to get that pesky 10,000.

Stats:

• 106,649 steps
• 17.32 miles run
• 0 minutes of cardio
• 0 minutes on strength