Rocky Mountain High

This morning, I woke up before the rest of the crew and had an urge to go for a walk. I wasn’t going to let myself do any running…primarily because Troy and I already notched that off the list yesterday if you recall and it wasn’t pretty. I threw on a fleece and long pants (it was a bit chilly) and took off toward Keystone Mountain. In the winter time, in the dead of cold, I am definitely not making that walk. I am “Team Free Shuttle” all the way. But it was a sunny, crisp morning – and in those conditions it really isn’t a bad walk. While I brought headphones intending to listen to music, I instead opted to listen to the sounds of the outdoors. I climbed off the beaten path down to a gurgling fresh water stream and sat on the bank for awhile. The birds sang to each other, the wind rustled through the evergreen trees and the sky seemed to just open up – so very blue and clear. Sounds like a novel right? Or maybe a painting by Bob Ross? I swear…it felt like it. I cannot express how much I love the Rocky Mountains. It is the one place I can relax and easily lose track of time. In fact my walk, which I intended to only last about 30 minutes, wound up taking over an hour. I even stopped at a playground at the base of the mountain in the “River Run” development and hopped on a swing. Now seriously, tell me when the last time is you were on a swing!? It was awesome…until of course the squeaking chain that supported the swing got the best of me.

Mid-morning the crew did some cleaning up around the house, laundered all sheets and towels and packed the cars. It was time to head from Keystone to Boulder to grab our race packets, check in our hotel and see what else we could get ourselves into. So, after taking some pictures at the dam, stopping at the Under Armour outlet store on our way out of town (because I surely needed more UA gear, lol), the Smiling Moose Deli (which I have officially fallen in love with) and grabbing a Cherry Dip Cone from DQ (heaven on earth to me)…we forged ahead to Boulder.

The sibs posing at the Dam

One-handed bandit

The Crew (l to r: Lexi, Eric, Ellie, Tyler, Me and Troy)

Troy clearly didn't think my face was important in this shot, lol

After picking up our Dick’s Sporting Goods brown paper bags, complete with race bib, t-shirt and 40,000 presenting sponsor coupons, we wandered around –checking out various exhibit tents. There was a point, however, that my legs decided it was time to stop walking. And, when they do this, I am the first to listen because I know all too well that the next thing to start hurting will be my back.

We thought the Cheesecake Factory was a good compromise. An early dinner (5:00pm) beat the rush and also became the root of a funny story. When we came in, Troy told the hostess that there were 6 of us. The hostess said “6 of you for…?” We all kind of paused at this point and then Troy slowly responded “…um…food?” We all died laughing and the waitress remained confused only for a moment until she realized we wanted to eat NOW. She thought we were trying to make a reservation for later in the evening.

After dinner we headed to Louisville, Colorado (5 miles from Boulder) to check into our hotel. Big talks of a card game rematch or watching a movie slowly disappeared when my eyes lost the battle with my eyelids and I dozed off. I think most of the others got pretty tired too. This could also have been because we started discussing what time we were getting up in the morning (5:00am for some of us) and grew a little faint, lol.

Troy and Tyler shacked up in one room (they had an earlier start time, by about an hour, and would leave before us) and the rest of us claimed the second room. Lights out quickly followed – Race Day is almost here!