Rainy Weather Won't Ruin Our Fun!

Just some random thoughts to begin the post: 

• Less than 2 weeks until the Bolder Boulder 10k and 2 months from today is the Evergreen Sprint Tri! 
• Training has been going great (with its ups and downs) and I really think keeping this blog has given me extra motivation, as well as self reflection on the experience. I've enjoyed searching for other blogs and am reading tons (and need to start commenting more). 
• I honestly look forward to working out (most days). My workouts during the day at work are a needed break from my cubicle life! I am really lucky to be able to get outside and run and take advantage of our beautiful weather. 
• On weekends, I love that Aaron and I can take advantage of our area and try to be active. A co-worker commented today how we even get in exercise and stay active over the weekend - I love it! 
• My swimming overall has improved (starting from no where) and am anxious to see how the open water swims + 5k go (start in 3 weeks every Thursday). 
• The biking has been fun but I want to try and do some bigger hill climbs still to get more comfortable for what I am in store with on the race. 
• I have tried to refocus my eating habits to make sure that I am allowing my body to be fueled, to be able to recover and also take advantage of all this training. Over the past week I have seen positive results and so much of that is watching what I eat. It all boils down to calories in versus calories out! 
• Taking one day at a time is more manageable and I love tracking my workouts on mapmyrun.com as well as my little sheet at my desk :-) Having a few races to train for have definitely helped to set goals and keep up with my training. 
• Training can definitely be time consuming and may take precedence over other activities. As long as I am able to keep a balance of work, working out, and everything else - I can see this continuing to work. It is important to also have fun activities planned, down time, and some days without any plans too :-) 
• I wrote these while at work today - I get held up a bit, then I had a flat tire and walked my bike home and the last thing I wanted to do was swim! But after just relaxing for a minute I mustered up the energy! It is funny how quickly it can change one minute to the next

It was hard planning over the weekend since the forecast looked so crummy! That is NOT normal for Denver. The entire weekend called for rain and thunderstorms. Friday night Aaron and I decided to postpone the hike scheduled for Saturday to possibly Sunday if the weather looked OK. 

Saturday  

Long run - 6 miles (slow)  

Stretching!

Aaron and I woke up to an overcast, dreary day - but no rain! So we ventured off for a long run! We decided to do an 'adventure' run meaning it wasn't the normal Wash Park loop :-) I mapped out a 6.5 mile run around the South Platte trail - since it is close to the house. Aaron was going to stay with me so decided to take some action shots of me since otherwise he'd be much further ahead! 

Along South Platte

South Platte River trail

Random Playground on top of Ruby Hill!

You can see from the map - we took a tiny detour near the golf course, but made for a nice picture. I was not feeling too strong and was running rather slow compared to my 'faster' runs earlier in the week. All in all we ended running more than 6 miles, and then course total was about 6.7 

Sunday  

Hiking Beaver Brook Trail 

9.5 miles 3,400 ft elevation gain 

Hiking time - 4.5 hours, total time 5 hours, 11 minutes 

Beaver Brook Trail near Lookout Mountain

Aaron and the pups...Scarlet, Ellie and Henry

We made plans with Kelsey to meet up at 9:30 at the bottom of Lookout Mountain since we had planned to do Beaver Brook trail which is a one way hike of 8.5 miles. Even though the forecast did not look great, we hoped that we would get lucky - and we did! Aaron had done the hike before, but it was the first for Kelsey and I. I had read it was one of the best to get views of the Front Range - and they were right! The first 3 miles are by far the most difficult of the hike. The steepest section is over 1 mile with 1200 ft elevation gain. After that part, there is still considerable gain. Apparently this is also a popular trail run - kudos for those of you who can do that! We stopped a little before 3 miles for a snack at an overlook. It was a simple one-way trail so it would seem there was no way to get lost. Aaron cautiously mentioned he thought the trail looked familiar - but none of us could imagine we went back the same way! The trail is marked every .5 miles - so after two signs we realized we were headed back the way we came. Whoops! This added a nice extra 400 feet of elevation gain and an additional mile. The trail was gorgeous and it was a great day to be out hiking. The weather must have scared off a lot of people as we only passed a few people. Aaron spotted four elk above the trail around mile 6 so Kels and I grabbed the pups but missed seeing them :-( The dogs did great, but we were all exhausted after the hike! Great day out on the trail. We are planning our first 14er of the season the weekend after the Bolder Boulder, so this was some good conditioning. 

Aaron and I!!!

Kels and I

Group shot!

Before getting lost...

Elevation Gain

Finished!

Monday 

Bike intervals - 15 min (3 min cycling, 2 min harder and standing) then repeat

20 minutes of pushups/abs/free weights

After the exercise intensive weekend I wanted to take it light and repeated the same workout as the previous Friday

Tuesday 

AM - 4 mile course at work 1.5/1/1 

Beat last weeks best by over a minute! 

I averaged 9:43ish for the first 2.5 miles and 9:31 for the last mile!!! 

Check out my paces below - I am thrilled getting all 3.5 miles under 10 minutes! I think the scaled back workout Monday helped since my legs were really tired yesterday It was a beautiful day to be running and I really was pushing it and trying to keep a steady pace. 

Pace for run - laps 3 and 5 are walking...

PM - Swim

3 sets of 18 lengths = 54

longest to date

I was tired! I never really got in to a rhythm - but I am glad I was able to get in the distance!

Tomorrow I am biking to work!