Hello Colorado!

My first trip to Colorado and my first race out of town in almost a year and it was an absolutely awesome experience. This picture captures what I felt!!!

We left around 5.30am Friday for my first road trip to Colorado. We were taking our newest family member Stella with us so the full trip took a solid 12hrs with all the stops. We were concerned, but Stella was a champ road tripper. She was alert and active and then slept a ton too! More confirmation that we adopted the right dog!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got into Dillon, Colorado around 6pm and we were staying with friends Lisa and Dave. Thanks for letting us crash guys!

They have 3 dogs of their own so we had some time getting four legged intros out of the way and then chilled out and watched Avengers to just relax after a long day.

During our drive in my service engine light came on..go figure! So first thing Saturday was to get that figured out. After making sure we got the dog walked good and plenty, we made a trip to Auto zone and a call to a Nissan dealer later, we figured ahh screw it..likely an O2 sensor which since then has been resolved (hopefully). My car and I have issues at times!

 Stella’s first Colorado morning dog walk!!

After getting car checked out, we headed out to Dillon Dam Road and checked out the reservoir, grabbed some food and headed back. What an amazing view at Dillon Dam!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once back everyone headed out for a hike in literally Lisa and Dave’s backyard which are the trails into the mountains! Can I transplant some of these back into Kansas please?!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Between that hike and the one following with Lisa, Coleen and her hubby Erik I got about 4.5miles in high altitude. Dillon sits around 9200ft so I could definitely tell my breathing was very different but I had no altitude sickness at all. Whew!! Saturday night was dinner at Dillon Dam Brewery where I ate a pretty good Tuscan Chicken wrap filled with grilled chicken and veges, fries and had me a delicious IPA for good measure!! Then it was back to the house and off to bed early so we could get a good nights sleep before the earlier than butt crack of dawn wake up call for Bear Chase Trail 50k which went awesome! The race report is on its way, but spoiler alert…50k PR and no stomach issues!!!

Post race Lisa and Dave drove me up to Loveland Pass which sits at 11,990 ft at the continental divide. My phone had died on me by this point, so I had to borrow some pics to show you what this typically looks like. Amazing views and ones that pretty sure literally take your breath away! I saw the ski areas and while I’d maybe be up for trying to snowshoe…hmm skiing and me will likely never get along!

 

 

 

 

 

After getting back to the house, we were all totally beat! We watched some football and after a little while hubby, Stella and I totally crashed as we had a long trip back home early the next day. We woke up early Monday and got on the road a little past 7am and headed back to the flatlands of Kansas! Even Stella was looking longingly at the mountains while we drove away….

The trip was short, but was a great experience! I loved the trails up in the mountains and would love to get some hikes and more races up there in future to see how I hold up in higher elevations and more inclines. I’m not a fan of snow and ice mostly because I absolutely hate driving in it! I swear if I never had to drive in it and only had to walk/hike or run in it I’d be totally fine! I did have some slight anxiety issues when we were headed into the mountains on the drive up..pretty sure mostly of that was because I was worried about my car stalling and us getting stuck in the middle Colorado somewhere! Drive down was much better! I would love to try snow shoeing, but really have no interest in skiing and the thought of those slopes do scare the crap out of me!

We will definitely be visiting more of that state in the future! Next time plan things out a little better and have more time to really enjoy it all!! We shall be back Colorado!