Brace yourself for an onslaught of photos. I’m recapping 4 days of vacation into 1 post.
Last week, we went to Denver to see our friends from college, Meridith & Dallas—who was the best man at our wedding. Talk about a small world….I knew both of them before I even knew Todd, as I had them in some of my advertising classes at K-State. At the time, I never would’ve thought 7 years later that we’d still be hanging out, but I’m so glad life has worked out the way it has. Wow, 7 years, I feel really old right now.
For our Thursday recreational activity, we headed out to Roxborough State Park for a mild hike. In rattlesnake country.
If you know me, you know I have a huge fear of snakes. HUGE. Thanks to the promise that the weather was too cool for snakes to be slithering around (I shudder at the thought), I pressed on through the threat of snake and/or mountain lion attack.
I’m glad we went hiking, it was gorgeous there, with the red rocks reaching out towards the sky.
. . . . . . . .
On Friday, I split off to hang out with two of my college roommates, Shannah & Angela, who also live in the Denver/Colorado Springs area. Man, I really miss these girls. The years living with them were some of the best (albeit craziest) years of my life but now we’re all grown up and responsible adults. I was super excited for this reunion also because I finally got to meet Angela’s little girl, Brightyn. It’s so awesome seeing girls I’ve known for most of my life turn into moms.
After a full day of shopping and catching up on several years of life apart, we said our goodbyes and then Shannah dropped me off to meet the rest of the gang at a lively dueling piano bar. Quite the entertaining night.
. . . . . . .
Saturday we made a pit stop for doughnuts & coffee and drove an hour north to Ft. Collins. Why Ft. Collins, you ask?
Well last fall, Mer somehow convinced me to sign up for the Colorado Marathon (I chose to do the 1/2 marathon instead and she signed up for the full but ended up changing to the 1/2 now that she’s 3 months pregnant).
Somehow when I registered back in December I made the good judgment not to attempt the full. Thank goodness. Let’s just say that my training (if I can even call it that) for this race was very lackluster. We also got to see Dallas’ dad & stepmom who brought out over 40 runners from their training program in the Kansas City area.
. . . . . . . .
Sunday morning was race morning and we were all up and out of the hotel by 5 a.m. Us runners had to take shuttle buses up in the mountains and then run down the canyon to the finish in downtown Ft. Collins.
I wish I would’ve had my camera—but it’s a pain to run with—since the start at sunrise, winding down through La Poudre Canyon, next to the river was just amazing. It looked something like this:
Once we got out of the mountains, the race was basically flat (thankfully, since I was not prepared for much of a hill challenge).
(photo courtesy of runningmemories)
Surprisingly, I felt great. My main goal was to have fun and not injure myself, both of which I achieved. It’s nice not being out to set a personal best or feel pressure to run harder. I was having a blast, and finally around mile 8, I saw my handsome cheer squad.
Finished in 1:54:54. Not my fastest time, but for only getting a couple good training runs in, I was very happy. This was my 9th half marathon and Mer’s 2nd half marathon. Did I mention she’s 3 months pregnant?!!!
Every postrace calls for a dynamite breakfast, of course, so we checked out of our hotel and went to Mer’s favorite breakfast cafe, Snooze.
I should also mention that the wait for this place was longer than it took me to run 13.1 miles. Yeah, we waited outside for over 2 hours, not knowing it would be that long when we first arrived. 
But it was good.
We headed back to Denver, took a much needed nap, watched Ironman 2, and flew back home the next day. Colorado was good to us. We had a blast. We’ll for sure be back for more. I’m hoping next time I can go snowskiing.
