Trying a (longer) Triathlon in Colorado!: Easy Week for Recovery

I wanted to take it easier this week to let my body take a break and recover from the race on Sunday.

Workouts:
Monday - ab/arm exercies + 15 min on elliptical
Tuesday - 30 min on bike
Wed - intervals for 2.5 miles & ab/arms
Thursday - 30 min elliptical

Saturday - 5ish mile hike

I was pretty happy with taking it easy, and only really felt sore on Monday!
Since I wasn't able to give blood last time at work because of training, I gave blood at REI on Thursday night after work. This is the first time I have given there but was happy with my experience - even though it was on the mobile blood bus! It took 5 minutes flat to draw the blood! I think that is a new PR for me - can't wait to try and beat it :-) In high school and most of college I was scared to give blood, mostly because I heard a few horror stories. I volunteered to sit at the table in college to register people to give blood. This is exactly what I needed to build up the nerve (after a few hours) to donate. I try and give as often as I can now. I hope more people try this. The lady told me during the holidays is very important because a lot of people get procedures done to get them in before year-end and it is a harder time to do blood drives so go give!

I didn't feel great Thursday night and was still feeling it Friday (did not work out), but felt good for the hike today!

AA and I ventured just south of Nederland to Rollinsville. We were aiming to do Heart Lake in James Peak Wilderness. The drive is about 1 hr, 40 min from Denver. The weather was supposed to be high 30s and partly sunny. We got to the lot around 10:30 and took a while getting ready since it was SO windy out. We had the dogs with us too. I had 5 or 6 layers on....it looked cold!

Once we got going though, we were out of the wind and it cleared right up!

I was surprised at how much snow there already was! At the beginning of the hike there was 6-8" and over a foot in some areas! It was an 8 mile round trip hike up to Heart Lake, a high alpine lake. I forgot my GPS watch so I am not too sure how far we made it, probably only did about 5 or 6 miles round trip. It was a nice day but we weren't up for the whole hike and it was really hard to follow the trail and were not really even sure if we were headed up to Heart Lake. It was a great day and felt great to be outside and in the snow! We were at an altitude of about 9,200'-11,000'. Came home to a home cooked meal all ready in the crockpot :-)

Still excited for the possibility for AA and I to sign up for the Canyonland 1/2 Marathon in March :-) Hope to get in some good runs this week plus some cross training!

Plus the Broncos game tomorrow! Gooooo Broncos!