Reset with a Blog-fest weekend!

This past weekend started a couple months back when some bloggers wanted to try to gather for a weekend of a little girl love, running, and high altitude training (ok, I just threw that in for a little arm twisting to come to Colorado). Nowhere better than right here in my own backyard, and so we picked the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon to be our destination. One of my FAVORITE half marathons. It starts high up in the mountains and runs along side a roaring stream and loses about 1000' in its 13 mile adventure. Gorgeous, but it's not super easy; it is what I consider a "rolling downhill" course and finishes about 25 degrees warmer than it starts when that sun comes up over the canyon walls and heats that course up. But thankfully, it never hits those atrocious temps some of y'all been enduring this summer (I still have no idea how you run in that stuff) - gotta love the high country. I love the quickness of this course with his downhill advantage, yet just enough uphills to not trash your quads to shreds. My PR on this course is 1:44:21, which was last year - I was in pretty prime shape then. I had hoped to smash that time this year (even by 1 second :) ), but my damn heel has other plans and I did not run it. Still....as official "Event Coordinator" of blog-fest weekend, I think it was a major success.

Thursday night, Marcia rolled into town from her digs in Chicago for a detox from her crazy life at home, escape the oppressive Midwest heat and humidity and spend some high-quality time with none other than MOI! Alright, a couple other bloggie souls, too. Katie A. was not able to make it, unfortunately, but all others who initially started this journey were there. Yay!! Marcia and I went downtown for a little dinner, conversations, and a quick tour of the Denver skyline. Very fun to catch up on life since our last visit in Boston.

Friday morning brought us lounging around in the morning, trying unsuccessfully to get her in to 24-hour Fitness for free (that place drives me crazy sometimes), and then packing up the car and heading over to pick up Tara , who played hookie a little early from work so we could get an early start to Idaho Springs (about 45 minutes from Denver) for race packet picked up. Then it was time to met up with that crazy chick, Shana, and her hubby who were in from the Midwest also, to gorge ourselves with some mile-high pizza pie from Beau Jo's. Isn't that pizza just screaming yum-ness???

And here us lovely ladies are, (Shana, Marcia, Tara, Me) all fueled up with carbs and ready to run (aside from me, I just carb'd up .... and expanding since I'm not expending those calories. Unlike!!). Lunch was so fun, we laughed so much and everyone just got along exceptionally well (I'm the only one who has met all these fab ladies, the rest of them had never met one another. I'm so blessed!! Shana I met this spring when she was here for the Bolder Boulder, Marcia I met in Boston and spent most of a day together, and Tara...well, we live close by and go to the pool frequently and make fun of ourselves for our excessive talking and little swimming).

After lunch, we tried to drive the course but it was mostly blocked off for vehicles due to construction but I think they got a feel for how the course was. Here we in at Georgetown Lake, the start of the big race tomorrow. Tara's not much of an attention seeker, is she?

After this picture, Shana and her husband (who, btw, is super nice and was being very patient with us crazy chicas) left for a hike while Marcia, Tara and I headed about 25 minutes West to the town of Silverthorn, where we were spending the night at my friend's condo. This little brainiac idea of mine saved us about 2 hours in the morning by not having to drive to the race start from Denver....plus it gave Marcia some time in the high country where Tara and I are just so freaking blessed to live.

We headed into the cute little historic town of Breckenridge for dinner where we ate more carbs (why I'm subjecting myself to all their carbs and calories, I'm not sure. But it's going to have to STOP. Grrrr) and walked some around this quaint little town loaded with charm. The pic below isn't from our trip - even at 9600', you don't often see this much snow in mid-August, but this I like the picture.

Early to bed, not much sleep, and early to rise on Saturday to get the girls out the door and to the start line. Woohoooo! Tara was having some stomach issues but I told her to suck it up and get on that start line! Pep taks are an acquired skill, obviously. The porta potty lines at this race are totally insane; people were 20 deep still when they announced the 2-minute start so out of potty line they came with full bladders and are now lined up to race. Look at them holding it in at the start!! (Mr. Garmin is more obsessed with his watch than his the hot chicks holding their bladders in front of him, he obviously doesn't know what he's missing).

The gun goes off, the girls go their merry way, and thankfully I hear no more whining from Tara for a couple hours.

I hung out with Shana's husband for a couple miles as the race circles back to the start line and you're able to see the racers again at mile 2. We were able to see all here and cheer them on, then we headed to about the half way point to try to do some more cheerleading. But the race runs on a trail across the river here so it was impossible for them to hear us amongst the roar of the river. But I did manage to see Tara run by before I thought it best to head down to the finish line in Idaho Springs as I knew parking in this tiny town would be atrocious for the 3000 of those running and I didn't want to miss anyone.

First to cross the finish line was Beth coming in about 1:47. Yahoo, Bethie. I was standing with the masses, about 30' from the finish line. Though I wasn't particularly sad I wasn't running this race at the beginning, I felt a pretty sharp pain watching those runners giving it their all as they crossed that finish line. Not being able to run was definitely having an affect on me....and not in a good way. Soon I saw Tara come in around 1:57 and here I left my viewing spot to join her at the end so I wouldn't lose her in the sea of runners on the football field. Not long after we found Marcia and Shana - the two flatlanders survived without oxygen tanks and rocked that race course!! I was sooo proud of everyone. We eventually ran into Beth and got all chatted up about the race and whatnot and snapped this doozie of all those awesome runners:

Beth's husband, Ken, Beth, Tara, Marcia and Shana. Way to go guys,!!! What an awesome day (and entire weekend!!) with awesome company!

I'm not sure how I got so lucky in my life to have such fabulous women in my life, but I have. And I hope I will never take them for granted. No, I can't run right now, and yes that's just about killing me, but these girls may not realize it but their hard work on this race is motivating me. Tara had stomach

problems at the start, Marcia and Shana were running in about 1/2 the oxygen than they're used to - yet no one give up, despite them wanting to. When I see the girls all happy with exhaustion, it's making my bummed-out self a little more pumped to turn my excess poundage from looking like it's current blob state to the right to a much more desirable state like that at the left (oh yea!!). More bad news with the insurance on Friday left me sleepless for nights and eating my way though half of Colorado -- and not really caring that much. Yes, I had another setback with the heel and my insurance (more later this week on that) but I am tired of feeling sorry for myself. My pathetic attempt at what little exercise I have been doing since SF has been nothing short of an "excuse." The old me never cared much for excuses. The old me needs to find herself again. These wonderful ladies did not give up and I will not either.

It's time to hit the reset button and make some changes in my world. Just because I can't run right now, I CAN make myself a better me. I can see the potential for something better awakening - thank you ladies, you have truly inspired me and it was a blast to hang with you this weekend!!

I am sooo behind on blogs and am back to work on Tuesday....but I WILL be catching up in the next couple days. Promise.

Be strong, friends! Be strong!