Denver - Hot Chocolate, Hot Tub, Cold Hike, Cold Beer

I am back down to a normal elevation.  Get ready for a lot of pictures from Denver!

Friday evening we went downtown to explore 16th street, which is an outdoor pedestrian mall, blocked off to all traffic except free buses and pedicabs.  Chicago would be a much greater place if Michigan Ave was for solely for pedestrians and FREE buses.  We went in a few cliche souvenir shops, but unfortunately did not buy anything.

We had dinner reservations at a Mexican restaurant called Rio Grande, known for their margaritas.  Anne and I got frozen mixed strawberry and mango - on the receipt that comes up as "Manberry."

For my meal, I had tequila shrimp tacos, which were good, but a little too spicy for me.  We were super tired and had big plans for the rest of the weekend, so we called it a night after 2 margaritas and A LOT of chips and salsa.

First up for Saturday was the Celestial Seasonings tea factory.  We didn't take the tour, but we took advantage of all the free tea samples.  I think I tried 4 different kinds, and then we bought a few boxes from the gift shop.

The main event on Saturday though was our hike!!

Anne and I met up with her friend Darja (who also went to UD!) and set out to climb Bear Peak in Boulder.  The beginning was a little bit of both up and down as we made our way up and around the mountain.

Then it started to get steeper the further we got and was more like climbing than just hiking along a trail.  It also got a lot colder the higher we went!  At one point we made quick conversation with a couple on their way down and they warned us of the cold and wind that we would be approaching soon.  I didn't really believe that it could be such a drastic change in conditions, but it was!  I couldn't take any more pictures because my fingers were numb.  But 2.5 hours after starting, we finally made it to the top!

We quickly turned to head back down since it was so cold up there.  One of my favorite signs along the route warned hikers about bears and mountain lions and one tip said, "If attacked, fight back."

The return trip only took 1.5 hours, which was good since we were all a little cold by this point and darkness was approaching.  We headed to a pizza place in Boulder and then to a coffee shop for a toasty cup of hot chocolate.

 

Despite being so cold, we talked an awful lot about ice cream and made a fro yo trip in the evening.  But before the fro yo, we sat in the hot tub outside for awhile, which was perfect on a cold night, until it started raining a little.

My flight home was not until Sunday evening (luckily, or else I probably wouldn't have made it back to Chicago until super late due to the bad storms yesterday), which meant we had another full day of activity on the schedule.

First up was a trail run!  Anne, her friend Jodie, and I set out on our run and I really didn't know what to expect or how far we were going to g.

It was still hard to breathe in the higher altitude and after just a little while I was really hurting going up, up, up.  But they were powering through so I just followed along!  We made it to the top in about 35 minutes, and then back downhill (not the same way, it was a loop), for a total time of 59 minutes.  It was super hard, but surprisingly went by really fast.  Running for an hour here in Chicago seems like forever, probably because I am usually alone and bored, and Anne said it goeso by faster when you're concentrating on where to put your foot next, going up or down hill, making sure you don't fall, etc.  I wish I could do runs like this all the time, but I sure am sore today!

To re-fuel after the run, we went to a restaurant in Golden, CO that had an awesome salad and pizza buffet.  I had to take a picture of my salad (one of them, you can't have just one when it's a buffet), because it had the very secret ingredient that makes all salads a million times better.

GOLDFISH!!  There's also some pepperoni in there, I wasn't a huge fan of that.  Save the pepperoni for the pizza.  I think the only other place that has had goldfish at a salad bar has been my beloved Pennellwood.

After salad and pizza, it was time for beer!  (Actually, Justin and I each had a beer with lunch too.)  We headed to the Coors Brewery and learned all sorts of great stuff about how the beer was made.  Adolf Coors started the brewery when he was 26 years old...makes me think I need to do something more meaningful/awesome with my life.

The end of the tour meant it was time for sampling.  I had a Blue Moon and a Colorado Native.  Hoppy, hoppy, hoppy.  I learned what hops are, not that I needed to go to a brewery to do so in our age of Wikipedia.  Anne and Justin had been on this tour multiple times, so I'm glad they were willing to go again with me!

I would like to go back to Denver soon, but I'll at least wait until winter is over because now they are going to start getting snow!  I do not like winter.

What is your favorite type of margarita?  Favorite type of beer? 

How long was your longest hike?

Christmas Music in the Summer?

Since I had a guest post yesterday instead of giving you my usual run-down (pun intended...I crack myself up), here's the scoop on the runs I did this weekend and a few other noteworthy activities.

Yesterday morning I ran 13 miles at an average 7:56 pace.  My fastest mile was 7:42 and slowest was 8:05.  The rest were all fairly consistent at right under 8 minute pace.  Since I've been doing my last couple long runs on my own, I decided to meet up with the Coach Brendan Running group at 6am.  It was still dark out when I woke up.  That shouldn't happen on the weekends.  I actually ended up running by myself the whole time instead of with anyone from the group, so I was glad I brought my iPod.

I made a new running mix that has quite the variety of songs.  Life is a little weird when you go from a rap song straight into a church song.  I'm a fan of everything.  Here were some of the songs I recall particularly enjoying on the run:

• You Make My Dreams - Daryl Hall - Thanks to Grace for sending me this song recently.  If you don't have Spotify, you need it.  And then you need to send me some of your favorite songs.
• Kanye's New Workout Plan - Kanye West
• Drunk Last Night - Eli Young Band - I think this is my favorite song right now.
• Wired to the T - Dorrough - If this song doesn't just get you pumped while running (or whenever), I don't know what would.
• Hell on the Heart - Eric Church
• You Are Holy - Michael W. Smith
• Red - Taylor Swift

I'd like to thank my friend Carly for inspiring me to listen to rap while running.  It really does work nicely.  Carly is also training for the Chicago Marathon and always posts on Facebook with her motivating running song of the day...and it's almost always rap, so I decided to go for it.

And since we are already talking about music, I have to disclose that I listened to Christmas music last week.  Catherine made me a CD for my birthday, which included some Christmas songs because she knows I love them.  I will say though that I only listened to a few songs one day because I don't want to get Christmas music burnout before the Christmas season and I obviously had to listen to the CD she made me.  It'd be rude not to.  It is fun to be driving down the highway and know that all the other drivers have no idea I'm listening to Christmas music right now in August.  But now that I got that little bit in, I'll wait another few weeks before listening again.

Also related to music, here's a little tidbit I got from a Dove chocolate yesterday:

I always am, Dove, I always am.

After yesterday's long run, I went to Jim and Christina's new apartment.  They have a pool at their building, so Christina and I laid out there for a few hours.  I wore sunscreen this time, but I had my head turned to the side the whole time as we talked, so half of my neck got a little red.  Jim was doing manly handyman tasks around the apartment, but he was kind enough to take a break and bring us some Lime-A-Ritas (and UD coozies).

This morning I met up with my friend Christopher who I had not seen since I left my old job in May, so it was great to catch up!  We had been talking for like a year about running on this dirt trail that goes through Wicker Park and we finally did it.  It was basically old train tracks that are no longer in use and have overgrown with dirt and grass...a little sketchy though, so probably not somewhere I'd run alone.  But in the middle of the day with a friend was a great time to try it!

What are some of your favorite running songs or genres?

Have you ever listened to Christmas music not during the Christmas season?

Do you like to go explore new places to run?

The Past Few Days - Birthday Celebrating!

I have been so busy the past few days and completely failing to post things here.  So here is my recap of exciting things and running things over the past few days.

On Wednesday, Katie and I had big plans of rollerblading and sitting out at her pool. The weather killed those plans though. Instead, we went to Joann Fabric, looked up some ideas on Pinterest, and had craft time. We made these little rings:

I decided to stick with the Pinterest theme for the day and cook a new recipe for the padres and Kyle. I made these spinach, feta, mozzarella croissants (without olives). Kyle took a look at the mixture before it was done and decided there were not enough red pepper flakes,  dumped way too much in, and made them a little too spicy. They were still good though.

On Thursday, I suffered through terrible traffic and met Mac at the track, but we did a normal run instead of a track workout.  My legs have been really feeling last weekend's long run.  We ended up on a trail in the forest and of course, it wouldn't be a trail run without falling at least once...and hitting a tree with my shoulder on the way down.  I had to take a picture of the scrap on my knee.  It is actually a very small injury and is done hurting now, just 3 days later.  Despite the fall, I'll still call it a good run since it was cool to run on the trails!  We probably did about 5 miles, but who's counting?

After getting all the mud off, we went to a concert!  It was the CMA Songwriter's Concert Series at Joe's bar so it was awesome to hear a bunch of country songs performed by the people who wrote them.

 

Friday wasn't anything too exciting except for some cleaning, some errands, some chatting on the phone, and a 5 mile run on the lake.  But I did get THIS AWESOME PLANT DELIVERED from Grace for my birthday!!!  So that made the day extra good and not boring :)  I will water it and let it bloom and be excited that I now have some real flowers instead of all the fake flower decorations in my ultra girly bedroom.

 

The big day of fun was Saturday!  Angela and I went for an 8 mile run in the morning (I failed to get any pictures.)  We were both just not feeling a long run, and this was nice to just run and chat and enjoy the BEAUTIFUL weather.  Then, to continue enjoying the weather, we went to the pool for a few hours with her sisters and Kevin and then took a walk along the beach.  I got a little burnt.

Saturday night was my birthday party!  I was so glad so many people were able to come!!  Plenty of friends, cousins, and family were all there and then met up with a few more when we went out to the bar.  Even a few UD friends that I haven't seen in forever were able to come over!  We went to Bub City, which is a newer country bar in River North and it was a lot of fun!  The line took forever to get in and I attempted to get the bouncers to let us in early since it is my birthday, but they would not and it was a nice night out so that was OK to stand out there and chat.  Once we got in, we were lucky to get a little table to stand at and there was a live band.  Unfortunately, people were not really dancing and were more just standing watching the band.  But we had an enjoyable time anyway!  Some pictures from the night:

Angela and Christina are now real DOCTORS of Physical Therapy!!

And then today was Grandma's 80th birthday party.  I don't have any pictures from that uploaded yet, so I will paint you a visual picture.  We sat outside, enjoyed a bunch of snacks and appetizers, chatted, sang Sweet Caroline to Grandma because she loves that song (I hope a lot of people will sing Teenage Dream to me tomorrow?), had some lunch including Portillo's salad, and then started the REAL birthday festivities.  And by that I mean we sang a song about Grandma that we made up, read a poem about her, opened gifts, and had dessert (including a cake with 81 candles - one for good luck).

I wish every weekend could be filled with that much excitement  :)  Basically I want it to always be my birthday.  It is the best day (or days leading up to it).  I don't understand people that don't like their birthday or don't want to celebrate it.  So if anyone wants to come to my apartment every weekend bearing gifts and to go out with me, I would love it.  Also, it would be a reason to make sure my apartment is always clean and tidy.

Have you had any bad injuries from falling while running? - My worst was the time I got hit by a biker while I was running.

How do you celebrate your birthday?