Trip to Grand Lake

View from our deck

I just got back from a trip to Grand Lake, Colorado.   My mother-in-law was in town and we took the kids to spend a couple of days in the mountain.  We had a blast hiking around Rocky Mountain National Park, checking out the lakes and we even saw a Moose!

We also had no internet in the cabin where we stayed.  I always love the chance to "disconnect" from the world for a couple of days.  Being disconnected definitely slows things down and frees my mind to focus on the things that are important to me such as eating ice cream with my son

ice cream goatee to match his dad's

I also squeezed in a couple of runs while we were there.   Since Grand Lake is at 8300 feet, it gave me a chance to gauge my fitness and readiness for the race next week.  All in all, the two runs went well and gave me a chance to explore the area on foot.   I did notice the altitude when I was going up hill, but otherwise it wasn't much different than running around Denver.  

On Sunday, I attempted to run 3 miles at my race pace of 7:30 minute miles.   Unfortunately, the three mile course I chose had a 1 mile long uphill stretch that totally wore me out.   I've heard that the course I'm running has some rolling hills but it does lose 1000 feet of elevation over 13 miles.  I'm just hoping there aren't too many steep grades on the course.  If there are, my goal time of 1:40 will be but a dream. 

Fortunately, I'm getting closer and closer to my fundraising goal of $3000.00 and I think this goal is achievable.   I'll post an update later today when I get the new numbers.