My weekend kicked off in a fun but bittersweet way: a farewell dinner for my mom with my friends Chris, Mark, and their kids. We went to Tequila Y Mezchal, a new Mexican restaurant that just opened in Superior, and it was delicious. I got the shrimp quesadilla, which was absolutely fantastic… crispy but not oily. I don’t think I’ve ever had a quesadilla this good! Afterward, Mom and I went home and watched a rom com movie together, Set It Up, which we both loved.
We didn’t have anything planned for Saturday, but in spite of that, it ended up being a really busy and good day. When I first woke up, I wanted to go for a run on the trails, but realized that I could instead make good on my plan to take Mom hiking before she left. So when Sadie and I went in her room to wake her up, I asked how quickly she could be ready to go. In 20 minutes, we were out the door, with mugs of tea in hand, and on our way to the Fowler Trail for a hike up to Rattlesnake Gulch.
It was a pretty chilly morning, which we had planned ahead for in dressing warmly. I also suspected we wouldn’t see many others on the trail, and I was right about that. However, it also meant that there was a lot of snow on the trail over to Eldorado Canyon, which I hadn’t been expecting. Mom was pretty freaked out by the snowy sections once we got to the canyon, where there was a drop off to the right; she was especially worried that Sadie was going to pull me over the edge. But I wasn’t worried – it wasn’t fun to not have traction, but it wasn’t so bad where I thought I would go over. And Sadie is pretty careful when she sees me taking something slow, whether because of ice or technical rocky terrain.
But if it was snowy to this point, we definitely weren’t going to keep going up to the overlook, since I knew that would be even icier. Instead, we turned around and headed for home. The way back seemed particularly frigid, but in spite of the cold and ice, Mom said she loved the hike; I’m looking forward to doing it again with her in better weather!
While heading back to the car, I got a craving for pancakes – and so we decided to head to Snooze for brunch. One blessing of the pandemic is that Snooze has allowed you to reserve a table via their app (where it used to be first come, first serve) – so we stopped home to drop Sadie off, then headed up to Boulder, only needing to wait about five minutes for a table once we got there. Score!
And not only did we have a really delicious brunch of a pancake flight and a sweet potato bacon smash, but we bumped into my friend Laura dining at the next table over with some friends. Laura is a really fast runner who had just won her most recent half marathon, and in addition to it being great to catch up with her, the conversation inspired to start training harder and focusing on speed again. I’m excited!
After lunch, Mom and I headed to Trader Joe’s and found no line, which was a nice treat. I’ve become a real Trader Joe’s addict lately, listening to the Trader Joe’s podcast and scouring the Trader Joe’s Reddit, and now I always have a list of things to be on the lookout for. This time, my store didn’t have much that was new and exciting (a sign that I have definitely been there too often), but I did pick up a bag of bamba, an older product I’ve wanted to try for a while. On “Laura’s Buynary Scale of Trader Joe’s”, the bamba is a “buy”. (Though I probably won’t buy it too often because it’s addictive and I don’t need the temptation in my pantry!)
After TJ’s, we popped over to Sprouts in Lafayette, and then to an open house near Harper Lake. My mom is planning to move to Colorado once she can go back to Albany and clean out / sell her house there, and while she can’t buy a home in Colorado until she sells her house in Albany, we’ve been scouting a lot so she can get a sense of the market as well as the different neighborhoods. This house wasn’t super nice, but the Harper Lake neighborhood is awesome, so I was happy to show that to her!
When I got home, I almost immediately took Sadie out for what ended up being a speedy 6 mile run; inspired by my conversation with Laura at brunch, I turned my usual 1/3 mile interval loops around Wildflower Park into double loops, doing 0.7 miles of speed work at a time. Sadie was really sluggish in the noonday heat, and by the second lap, she was actually falling a bit behind me and I needed to cheer her on and encourage her to run faster, which was new – she is usually pulling and leading the way. Sadie definitely needs some training in the Colorado sun!
Next, Mom and I headed over to Louisville to meet my friend Heather. The plan was to get ice cream, but oddly enough, after my run, I wasn’t really feeling like ice cream… or anything for that matter. Honestly, exercise usually makes me less hungry rather than more… weird, right? Mom and Heather each got coffee, and we took advantage of the empty patio tables at a dinner-only Italian restaurant to enjoy the Colorado sunshine. It was great for the three of us to catch up, and my mom and I ended the night just the two of us, watching the series finale of Britain’s Best Home Chef, where I was delighted by the winner (no spoilers). I called it an early night and went up to bed at 8pm, though stayed up till 9:30pm reading.
While Saturday was a super busy day, Sunday, in contrast, was pretty slow. With Laura’s inspirational running still in mind, I started the day by forcing myself onto the treadmill for Becs’ 60 minute endurance run, and surprised myself by maintaining much faster paces than I expected. I finished 7.79 miles by the end of the 60 minute class, and never dropped my speed below 7.5mph once I was in the main workout (vs the warmup)! I was so incredibly proud of myself for sticking with it and not slowing down, even though it got hard toward the end. That set the tone for a great day!
Since running on the treadmill meant Sadie didn’t get any exercise, I took her to the dog park… and ended up bumping into my friend Sara there! We had fun taking her pup Oshie alongside Sadie for a walk, and it was good way to get Sadie some stimulation without me having to work too hard.
The rest of my morning was a little bit slow, but I enjoyed avocado toast and then messed around on my computer for a while, finally getting my act together to make a salad for lunch and also do a bunch of baking for the afternoon. My friend Elisabeth was hosting a socially distanced outdoor happy hour, so this was a good chance to bake things that wouldn’t hang out in my pantry and tempt me for a while! Haha. I made carrot cake cupcakes using a tried-and-true recipe, but I subbed in gluten-free flour, and I think that messed with them. However, I also made a lemon cake that was really awesome – this is going on my list to make again! Before I knew it, the afternoon was gone, and it was time to head over to Elisabeth’s.
My mom and I had a really nice time with my friends, and then we came home to watch the Oscars. Although it was neat to see how it was all working this year with the pandemic, we were a little bit bored, since we hadn’t seen any of the movies. So instead, we decided to do a little movie watching of our own – putting on Five Flights Up, starring Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman. In spite of the all-star cast and interesting premise, this too was pretty boring – bummer! It was still a lovely evening with Mom and we went to bed hugging and sad that her time in Colorado is just about over 🙁