This year, my company declared Martin Luther King Day a holiday – so I went into Friday knowing I had a three day weekend ahead. To boost my mood even more, I took Sadie for an early morning hike up to Royal Arch – and we had an amazing time! It was an absolutely beautiful hike, and even though it was only 21°, we were both bundled up and it didn’t feel that cold. I was grateful that the cold kept other people off the trail – we had it almost all to ourselves, and saw only two other pairs the whole time.
With that lovely start to the day, my work day was fantastic. I head up the MBA recruiting for our practice, and after a week of interviews, we made a decision on our internships, and I got to call the candidates and extend their job offers! This is certainly a very tiny portion of my job, but it’s one of my favorite days of the year when I get to make these calls 🙂
My Friday night was quiet – Mom and I watched a bit of Schitt’s Creek over dinner, and then I went to bed early. I had plans for a long run Saturday, which I was really excited about!
The next morning, I got up early and tried to hustle – I wanted to be done in time for the 9am Peloton yoga class with Anna, since it was going to be my 100th yoga class! However, Sadie and I didn’t end up getting to the trailhead until 7:15, which was later than I wanted, so I spent the first few miles doing lots of calculations in my head to figure out what time I would be done if I did 10 miles as planned.
The run ended up being really lovely – we saw some cows in the first mile (which had Sadie really intrigued), the sky had all kinds of pretty clouds, and there was hardly anyone at all on the trails. Sadie was pretty good about not pulling on the leash, particularly when I tucked it under her a bit, and we got into a good rhythm.
Heading down Doudy Draw, I felt really strong, and when I got to the bottom and then started heading up the other side, the hill felt a lot easier than I remembered from other times I’ve run this. Maybe all that steep hill work on Coyote Ridge in my neighborhood is paying off!
Once we got into the trees, we saw a whole bunch of deer, which was pretty cool. Sadie’s presence scared them off, but then we turned around a corner and saw several more deer down in the field below. Sadie was so intrigued, and it was adorable! She was a good girl though, and didn’t pull or bark…. I love her 🙂
When we got back to the end of Spring Brook loop, I realized that I was going to be short on mileage and not quite at 10 miles… but that was fine with me, since it meant I would be done in time for yoga. In the last mile, we really picked up the pace, and sustained a 7:30 pace for that whole section! I was super happy, and after I was done, I noticed on Strava that I had set a bunch of segment PRs.
I got home with just a few minutes to get ready for yoga, and turned on the pre-show while I got changed and got water. Good thing I did – Anna called me out to wish me congratulations on 100 classes! The peak pose for this class was one-legged crow, which was way beyond my ability, but I was really proud of myself for how good I’m getting at regular crow.
After that class, I decided since I was still in my running gear to hop on the treadmill for a 20 minute tread class with Becs to get extra mileage in – and did 2.5 miles in that time. I then jumped into a Becs core class, which turned out to kind of be like core for runners with some glute exercises and stabilizing as well. Finally, I did Selena’s 20 minute glutes and legs strength to close out my very long morning workout. This was the best glutes and legs I have ever done, and I really liked it! And I was super proud of myself for having done over 3 hours of working out. I had caffeinated tea first thing in the morning, and I think that fueled me 🙂
I had a super late breakfast, a shower, and then lunch just two hours later – this yummy black eyed pea soup. The afternoon flew by, and before I knew it, it was time for my 5pm Beaver Creek seminar. We’ve had a lot of Zoom training classes, and this particular one focused on how to correctly assess which level a skier is so you can group them into the right lesson. It was really helpful – and got me really excited for the day of teaching I had planned on Sunday!
I woke up early on Sunday and tried to take Sadie out for a quick run as fast as possible; we did 2.5 miles around the neighborhood, which is a little bit shorter than our usual, but I was just glad to get that in! I threw a few things into the car, and then headed out to Arapahoe Basin, where I was meeting J and his friend Neil to teach them to ski. Neither of them had ever been before, and I was so excited to teach them!
I was pleasantly surprised that traffic wasn’t bad at all. I’m certainly not going to say that COVID is a good thing, but it has helped make ski traffic less terrible! I met J and Neil at the rental shop in Silverthorne, and we all grabbed breakfast burritos next door at Blue Moon Bakery before heading over to A-Basin to ski. If you are in Colorado and looking to learn to ski, lift tickets for the bunny slopes at A-Basin are only $40 for the day! It’s a great deal if you aren’t planning to hit any of the more advanced terrain.
The guys picked things up pretty quickly, and before lunch we progressed from the flat terrain through the second level of magic carpet. Next up, the lift! But first, a really yummy lunch – I enjoyed a grilled cheese and pulled pork sandwich, along with some really awesome fries. I later regretted having eaten all that food (especially when I had the massive breakfast burrito for a late breakfast)… but it was yummy 🙂
It got really cold in the afternoon, but I was proud to get the guys doing runs on the beginner chairlift before we called it a day. They were staying overnight in Frisco and coming back to ski on their own the next day, and I was really happy I was able to get them far enough that they’d have plenty to work on the next day without me!
When we headed back to the parking lot, I surprised them with homemade chocolate chip cookies that my mom and I had baked on Saturday afternoon. It was my little attempt to make it like a Beaver Creek lesson (where in non-COVID years, they hand out fresh baked chocolate cookies at the bottom of the lifts at 3pm every day).
I said my goodbyes and headed home, stopping at the grocery on the way, and made it home by 6:15 – at which point I immediately headed down to the Peloton for a 30 minute intervals & arms class with Cody. It was a good one! I was happy with how my day had gone, but also happy that the weekend still wasn’t over and I had Monday as a bonus day to spend at home and get a bit more done.
Unfortunately, my Monday morning started out rough – while I woke up in a great mood, literally as soon as I came downstairs, my mom and I got in a big argument. So many of my friends have told me I’m a saint for having my mom stay with me throughout her chemo, but I always feel kind of guilty and embarrassed when people say that. If they only heard the fights we occasionally get into! I finally grabbed Sadie and took her out for a long hike to try to calm down.
Sadie and I started from South Mesa Trailhead, and headed up to the top of South Boulder Peak. It was a great hike, but I’ll be honest that I spent most of it totally stressed and in a miserable mood, even stopping at one point to cry on the way up. Get it together, Laura!
But I had a good call with my friend Blake on the way home from the hike, and her empathizing with the situation made me feel a lot better. Plus, I had more than three hours on the hike to think about exactly what I was going to say to my mom, and what needed to change in the future to make things more tenable. I hope the solution I came up with works!
I spent a bit of time in the afternoon catching up on blogging and also work, but I also tried to carve out at least some time for an MLK-related activity: reading Lead from the Outside, by Stacy Abrams. I didn’t get quite as far as I wanted, but I felt like if my company gave us the day off to promote racial equality, I ought to do something in line with that. All in all, not the day I planned – but I was still grateful for the extra day off.