It’s Fall. Whhhhhaaaatttt?!?!?!?!
Yes, I pretty much disappeared for the whole Summer. There was a good amount of fun but there was also a HUGE amount of work in there.
Trying to think back (you know, based on cell phone photos) on what we did!
There was a good amount of outdoor eating and enjoying our partially built railing around the deck. Hoping to make more progress there before snow!
Brooke has enjoyed improving on her new bike. She is crushing the gears!
We purchased the lot next to us (because we couldn’t really handle the thought of neighbors). A rancher friend hayed it for us! Was pretty fun to watch! Now we have 10 acres to play on.
The second weekend of July, Ken and I dropped Brooke and Jasper off with Errin and Colin and we headed to Beaver, Utah to race the Crusher in the Tushar. It was about 69 miles with 10,400 feet of climbing. It was hard. Ha! The trip took a crazy turn when we ended up without a hotel room (luckily we could crash on a friend’s floor-ideal race prep). Not sure where the other 25 people who had the same issue ended up.
The race itself was a lot of fun (though also incredibly painful-ha). I have big plans for redemption next year! Ken did great and finished 12th overall. I struggled in the last 20 miles or so with some serious low back cramping and issues with blurry vision-thanks to super dry contacts. Happy to finish 12th out of 36 the 36-49 year old women.
Back home, Brooke kept up the biking and I switched to running for the rest of the summer.
This guy turned 10!
Even though I switched to running, I couldn’t resist a free entry to the 100 mile gravel version of the Tour de Steamboat. I suffered having not recovered from the Crusher a week prior.
We did some Vizsla sitting for some friends. Hi, Penny! She is 3. And a riot.
The two of them get along amazingly well!
Farmer’s Market and Brooke’s first time trying Cotton Candy. She thought it was okay, but only ate half and was done. I was fine with that. 😉
Had some mornings like this. I got to run through that low fog and it was amazing!
Lots of playing.
Outdoor playing and painting.
I jumped into the Stinger Trail Marathon. On 4 weeks of running. And woke up with a cold the morning of. It was great. Okay, it was a struggle, but it was a really good supported long run.
Ken worked a couple of Triathlons.
Then he looked like this.
And then our lives exploded….hahahahaha. But really. SBT GRVL week hit and it got insane.
Thankfully, we had a LOT of help from family.
When parents show up with giant dinos strapped to their roof!?
Someone thought it was the best day ever. Totally normal yard decor.
Did some VIP decor creating.
Stayed up until all hours of the night, er, morning….yes, that is stage building at 10pm.
All in all, the event was incredible. The amount of happiness shared by the participants was out of this world. Social media exploded. It was amazing. No sleep for over a week, but amazing.
So thankful for all of the help from our families and friends. We really couldn’t have done it without them!!
Brooke got to come visit at the expo and just happened to match our sunscreen sponsor!
Ken made all of my podium dreams come true!
A small peek into the race. Ended up with 1200 starters on race morning! That’s a lot of people!
Photo by our SBT GRVL photo team (they were amazing!).
I spent race day at the start/finish doing all sorts of things!
Alle crushed her first 100 mile race (not to mention she came from sea level!) as well as Colin. (And then we put them to work tearing everything down at the end of the day. Not sure why they still like us.
Robert, Rene and Keith all did great in the GREEN course! After they had been put to work for the days before hand!
My cardio involved things like running for finish line fencing that blew down. Always a good time.
Everyone got put to work. Even the kid 😉
She got to ride too, so she was okay with her jobs 😉
Since the race, there has been a lot of work cleaning up, finding places for storage, redesigning the website, responding to social media, etc. Never a dull moment.
Also thrown in there has been training for my first 50 mile ultra running race. It happens to be this Saturday. 8 weeks of training could have been a little on the low side for something like this. I guess we will see! I finished my last speed workout today and just have 2 tiny runs left this week. Excited and equally terrified for Saturday. Just have to figure out what to wear/take/pack….should be about 35 degrees at the start and then warm to 50s-60s. Most is above 9500-10,000 feet so should be perfect running temps!
And I think that is all of the big things! Looking forward to a little down time sometime soon!
Fit After Little Bits 
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