Hello! I'm back from an awesome vacation in Colorado. I have a lot of photos to share and will be doing posts this week. For now, here's a quick recap of how I did with training.
- I met my goal of running three times while in Colorado. My fall-back goal was to run once.
- The altitude didn't really affect my running. I ran twice in Estes Park, where the elevation is about 7,000 feet above sea level. The third was in Denver, which (obvs) is a mile above sea level. 5,000-7,000 feet is considered a moderate altitude. The only time I really felt the altitude was on hills, even small ones. Otherwise I didn't have a problem.
- Mornings were cold! Absolutely loved running in the cold. (I'll talk more about the weather in my next posts. The weather ranged from 80, sunny, and hot to 33 and sleet!)
- After a very active week mostly on my feet and doing lots of uphill hikes, I started getting major heel pain on Friday. It's the other foot, not the one that hurt earlier this summer. I didn't really have anything to ice it with either. Now that I'm back I've been icing it and stretching it and will continue that (and foam rolling) in hopes that it goes away quickly.
- Total running miles: 19.25
- Total hiking and walking miles: 22.05+ (I'm not counting all the walking in Denver Thursday and Friday since I didn't track the miles.)
- Total overall miles: 41+ (including running and hiking)
Sunday
Run: 41:48; 3.75 miles; 11:08 pace
My training weeks start on Monday, but I'm counting Sunday for just this week since it was in Colorado. It was 39 degrees when I went out in the morning to run. But it felt a lot warmer, probably because of the sun. I had on tights and a long-sleeve half-zip and would have been fine in a tank and crops. I ran on the trail around Lake Estes, which was beautiful.
At one point where the trail goes through a meadow, a herd of about five or six elk were right in the middle of the trail! I didn't want to get too close because there were signs posted about aggressive elk. I took this shot from pretty far away--you can just see the one on the trail. Then I just ran through the meadow to get around them.
The trail around the lake is 3.75 miles and very scenic.
Hike: 5.9 miles
After my run, we did a hike in Estes Park, the majority of which is in Rocky Mountain National Park. (Estes Park is a gateway to RMNP and very close to the park.) From the house we rented, the trailhead was only a half-mile away. Maybe there are other types of hikes in RMNP, but all the hikes we did were hiking up a mountain and then back down again. After the hike, we relaxed in our hot tub, ate dinner, then drove back out to another short trail for an evening stroll around a pretty lake.
Monday
Hike: 6.1 miles
Tuesday
Walk around Lake Estes: 3.75 miles
Wednesday
Run: 29:42, 2.5 miles, 11:53 pace
Instead of doing the trail around Lake Estes again, I decided just to run on the road by our rental house. Well...the road was very hilly, so this was a tough run for me. All the pics of me I took are lots of squinting into the sun. This is a shot of the road leading up to our rental house. There was a lot of fog early on, as you can see by the rocks at the end of the street.
Hike: 6.3 miles
Thursday
Walk: 3 hours
We left Estes Park (so sad!) and drove to Denver. We got there early and had to wait until we could get into the carriage house we rented in one of Denver's neighborhood. So we walked to Downtown Denver and through a bit of it then back.
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| Standing at the step that marks one mile above sea level. |
Friday
Run: 43:34, 4 miles, 10:53 pace
On Thursday night, Denver's news stations were predicting snow, which would have been the third earliest snowfall in Denver's history! Knowing that it was only 33 degrees and could possibly snow Friday morning, I did not want to get out of bed. But I told myself to just do one mile, and if it was that bad I could stop. I saw on my map that there was park a half-mile from where we were staying. So I ran there, to Washington Park, and was delighted to find a large, gorgeous park! There was a dirt trail for runners, a road for bikers, and even other smaller trails. There were lots of people out running, and I could see why. It was a perfect park for running. I was so glad I went out. Plus, it felt much warmer than 33 degrees.
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| Big flower garden and one of the smaller dirt trails behind me. |
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| There was a big lake plus this smaller pond. |
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Washington Park was surrounded by homes. These homes are bigger than most Denver
homes, which are pretty small. |
Walk: 4 hours
We spent our last day walking around and exploring Denver.
We left Denver late Saturday morning. We had a direct flight, which is always nice. Shortly after we got home we drove out to Greensburg to pick up Django, where he'd spent the week with my friend and her two greyhounds (Django's buddies). Django had his own little vacation and had a blast! My friend texted me pics of him all week. He was having so much fun, I was worried he wouldn't want to come back home with us!
Sunday
Run: 1:44, 9 miles, 11:36 pace
I had planned to do my long run either today or tomorrow, since I'm still on vacation. But this morning I wanted to get it done so I didn't have to worry about it. I'm not sure if it's because I ran after a full day of travel after a week on vacation, but this was my toughest run yet. Even though I slept in and started late, the weather was perfect--not even 60, no humidity, no rain, and pleasant (not brutal) sun. I should have loved this run, but it was tough. I couldn't find my breathing pattern and struggled with breathing the entire run. The best thing about this run is that it wasn't race day, or I'd have been in trouble.
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Yikes! Crazy sweat patches! I'm not sure what I was thinking with putting on
a long-sleeve top, but I took it off pretty quickly. |
In the afternoon we took Django to Schenley Park since it was such a nice day.
The cats have been stuck to me like glue since I got home! Django got to be around his buddies all week, but my cats pretty much don't like anyone but me and didn't want to have anything to do with our petsitter. (She texted me photos of each of them hiding under various furniture).
This week I'll be doing a bunch of posts--hiking recaps, what-I-wore recap, and some fitness clothes reviews--and getting caught up with all the blogs I love reading. I loved vacation, but it's good to be back and to get into my routine again! Happy running and working out this week!Labels: Colorado, django, vacation, weekend running, weekly recap
