Because Being Ordinary Is Boring

Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Week in Review (August 13 - August 19)

Tuesday (16,023 steps) - Row and dog walk before work. Went to the gym at lunch.

Rushed home after work to take Olive for a walk. We got caught in the rain about halfway through the walk. Olive was basically a drowned rat and definitely upset about being wet.

Wednesday (14,447 steps) - Quick Peloton ride and walked Olive before going to work. Erica brought one of her dogs in, I should have brought Olive in as well, but it was too late by the time she had told me.

Went to the gym at lunch and did all my strength training.

Thursday (20,269 steps) - Work from home. I had grand plans to do my tempo run early in the morning, but a crisis had me dealing with work stuff until it was hot out. My tempo run at the track was incredibly awful. It's been a while since I've had a run that bad. Took Olive for a walk afterward. Met Ben at Parry's - got the salad for the first time in ages and it was delicious.

Friday (18,468 steps) - Wash Park! Olive came to work again. She noticed the escalators for the first time and was very intrigued.

Drove for a bit and then Ben and I went to Torchy's for dinner.

Saturday (14,765 steps) - Slept in. Decided we would head up to Leadville late morning even though Liz had already texted that she was going to be dropping. I took Olive for a long walk while Ben did things around the house. By the time we got up to the mountains (traffic was bad), Liz was already down in Copper near her condo. We met up with them at a taproom and had some beers and walked around.

Liz offered to let us stay at her place, although we had to segregate Olive from her dog. Olive apparently cries if we leave her in a strange place :(

Sunday (21,292 steps) - Slept HORRIBLE. Headed up to Leadville around 8 so that we could hang out at the finish line. Saw quite a few people finish. Decided we would try to head down and miss some traffic, but leaving just before 11 was already too late so we stopped in Breckenridge and decided to hike/run near Rainbow Lake and then take the trail up for a bit.

People kept telling us to watch out for a moose, but we never saw it. Olive had a few minutes of fun play time in the lake with some other dogs before we went down to Frisco. We picked up a snack at Whole Foods and then went to Outer Range. By the time we left traffic wasn't that horrible. We went to 4 Noses - taco food truck!

Monday (17,556 steps) - Actually got up to do my run before work. A bit shorter than I should have done and my heart rate was a bit high for easy pace, but at least it wasn't a zillion degrees.

Hurried home to shower and work for a bit before going to Golden to pick up A for a first day of school coffee date! We did some first day pictures - and one of her dorm friends told us that Blaster was out, so we had to get some shots with him as well.

Back home for more work and an Olive walk. Went to Torchy's for lunch. I planned to drive after work but all the offers were horrible and then it started to POUR and I rushed home since I had left the windows open on accident. Had a decent amount of water I had to clean up and then I met Ben at 4 Noses. We decided to play trivia and we didn't even end up last. I always struggle with any music rounds - this was no exception.

Stats:

122,820 steps
17.84 miles run
19.2 miles walked
53 minutes of cardio
60 minutes of strength

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Week in Review (August 6 - August 12)

Tuesday (14,345 steps) - Used the rower before going to work in the office. Cross training at lunch, including the newest addition to my regular weekly workouts - the StairMaster :(

Did some driving after work.

Wednesday (15,296 steps) - Work in the office. Day two of cross training for the week included more weights at lunch and a 30 minute ride. More driving after work.

Thursday (17,403 steps) - Work from home. Waited too long to do my run and it was pretty humid by the time I headed out, but overall it wasn't that bad. Took Olive for a long walk. Did some driving after work.

Friday (15,502 steps) - Wash Park. Work in the office. "Farewell" Torchy's dinner.

Saturday (14.739 steps) - Ben and I went up to Boulder for the Dirt Circus. We opted to do the run solo. Planned on at least 6, but it was muddy and humid so we just did our small loop.

We both "won" raffles, but I didn't claim mine (don't need a Hoka water bottle) and Ben won socks, but the only ones in his size were a funky pattern he won't wear. We watched the men's Olympic marathon and I think all of us fell asleep on the couch at some point. Ben and I went to 4 Noses since A had plans with her friends.

Sunday (22,238 steps) - Ben and I went for a short run and then I took Olive for a walk while Ben and Ariel loaded up the truck. I cannot believe that A is going to COLLEGE. Mines has an amazing network of students that help with the movie, and I'm not even exaggerating when I say that we had everything up to her room in less than 10 minutes! We "helped" A unpack a bit, but at one point we left to take out recycling and walked around a bit to give her some space. She lucked out and got a GREAT room.

We left A to do more unpacking and went into town for a snack and a beer. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home to get A some snacks for her room. We attended the convocation, which was actually a lot of fun - we just were REALLY thirsty and forgot our water bottles :( Then we went to the family BBQ. So excited we got to meet the mascot, Blaster the Burro.

We walked around campus for a bit with Ariel until it was time for her to go to her building meeting and we had to say goodbye. (I really really cannot believe she is in college. Where did the time go??) We headed up to pick up Olive and tried to go to 4 Noses for a sad beer. It WAS sad, mainly because it was like zillion mile per hour winds, so we grabbed a 4 pack and went home. Watched "most" of the women's Olympic marathon. What a finish!!

Monday (21,919 steps) - Work from home. Went for my run pretty early since the hot temperatures are back. I didn't feel too bad on the run but Strava said this was a harder effort than usual, all while stealing about 10 degrees of my heat acclimation.

Took Olive for a long walk (first one in a week?).

Torchy's for lunch. After work I did some driving and picked up my grocery order. Went to 4 Noses and picked up dinner there since the Korean food truck we like was there again. Spicy pork for the win!

Even though the Olympics are officially over, we watched women's platform diving. Might as well since we had to subscribe to Peacock just to watch everything.

Stats:

121,442 steps
19.43 miles run
17.5 miles walked
65 minutes of cardio
65 minutes of strength

Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Week in Review (July 30 - August 5)

Tuesday (11,287 steps) - Work in the office. Did cross training at lunch. Took Olive for a walk after work. I guess nothing else?

Wednesday (12,103 steps) - Work in the office. Did pilates at lunch. 4 Noses after work. Ariel met us for dinner at Hoffbrau for dinner. I was excited about a steak salad but the meat was greasy and it wasn't very good. :(

Thursday (13,007 steps) - Work from home. Did another short run that wasn't as bad as Mondays, but still not amazing.

Took Olive for a longer walk. Went to Torchy's for dinner. Olympics?

Friday (13,904 steps) - Work in the office. Did more strength training at lunch. Considering adding more of this to my training as I have been feeling much weaker lately! After work we met Terri for a beer at 4 Noses. Torchy's for dinner again.

Saturday (26,035 steps) - Up EARLY to go to Leadville to meet Liz for a Hope Pass jaunt. For some reason we were both confused on how long it would take to get up there. We left later than I planned and we still got there almost a half hour early. Started just after 8 and warned Liz that Olive might be slow and that we had ZERO desire to go to Winfield.

I'd like to think that I had felt recovered from Summit when we started, but this definitely seemed tough to me. (Yet another reason I want to do more strength training - my glutes are WEAK). Olive actually did REALLY well!

We did not need to start moving over for people until we were relatively close to the top, maybe .75 or so - and even then, everyone was just fast hiking anyway.

Looking back towards Twin Lakes

We managed to do the whole climb without using poles, yay! Liz had made sandwiches, so we took off our packs to eat and then took summit pictures. There was actually a gal at the top that had on a race tee from Transylvania, which was neat!

Someone is very happy to have climbed all the way up!

Liz originally was going to go to Winfield but decided that she was going to go back down with us. We did some jogging on the way down (and saw David Roche RUNNING up the Hope side), but as I expected, Olive was a bit lethargic on the way back down.

Saw quite a few marmots and pikas on the way down. Once we finally got back to the car we sat by the river and had a beer before deciding to go into Frisco for a visit to Outer Range. I had suggested that Ben give Lee a call and see if he could join us (since we never did get him a beer for rescuing us off the Summit course). I dozed off on the drive and we had a good time at the brewery, including getting lunch.

I managed to sleep a bit on the rest of the drive and we headed home to watch Olympics track.

Sunday (14,683 steps) - With another stupidly hot day in town, we had plans to go back to the mountains for a run/hike. Neither of us had been to Silver Dollar Lake, so late morning we drove up. We had to go waaaay up to the end of the road to find somewhere to park because it was so crowded.

Since there were so many people I kept Olive on leash. It looked like it might get stormy later, but we were really happy for it to not be a zillion degrees.

We saw a TON of little critters on this hike, including what we think was a marten - he was too fast to get a picture though. Surprised to find that there was a small amount of snow on the trail - Olive was really happy for that.

TONS of wildflowers still, although they never photograph well. It had just started drizzling a bit when we got to the lower lake.

Sky was a bit dark, but we still went to the second lake.

Sat down long enough to have a snack before we got a bit worried about thunder and lightning. By now there was barely anyone out, so I let Olive stay off leash as she moves a bit faster without it.

We saw a few pikas really close to the trail so Ben stopped for a photo shoot.

I kept heading down with Olive so she could get a few more minutes in the snowfield.

We spent a good portion of the hike back trying to get our bearings and see if we could figure out where we were in relation to the Summit course.

Made it back to the truck and just as we were pulling out chairs to sit for a few we decided to head down as the mosquitos were really thick. We didn't get too far before it started pouring rain. It ended up raining most of the drive from Georgetown and traffic was horrible, one of the worst times I can remember in recent history. It took us 2.5 hours to get from Georgetown to Arvada! We were starving by this time, so we went to Parry's for a burger.

Home for more Olympics!

Monday (23,329 steps) - Work from home. I should have gotten up early to run, but I didn't. After Ariel and I went to Dutch Bros. I finally decided it was time to just get it done. Sure, when it's over 90 degrees and full sun. The first 3 miles or so were bearable, but it just got really hot and I walked a lot more than I wanted to, but got it done.

Took a bit to cool down after I got home. Took Olive for a shorter walk. Went to Torchy's for lunch and then picked up dinner at Costco. Did some driving after work and it was actually pretty busy! After dinner we watched the end of the women's gymnastics event finals.

Stats: