Runs While On Family Vacation

I got back from Barcelona, Spain and a week later my husband and I take our boys for our family vacation to the Rocky Mountains.  It just gave us enough to to wash clothes and re-pack and go again.         We first headed to see family in Utah.  We stayed with Eddie's cousin, Shane who is a pilot and we stayed a couple of days with them.  It had been seven years since we have visited them.  That family is so much like our family.  They are very active, love the outdoors and are into health and fitness.  We would go to the gym with them, cycling, evening walks, hikes, picnics and I would run in the mornings before boys woke up and weather got hot.  They had a very nice long trail close to their nieghborhood and the view of the mountains was very nice.

The weather was cool in the mornings/evenings and it would get up in the high 90's during the day.  My marathon training doesn't start until next week, but I couldn't resist the cooler weather in the mornings that I had to take advantage and run.  I had to get use to the high altitude and would run it nice and easy.  While I ran, Eddie would hit the gym with Shane before we would start the day with our families.  We had a great time and was nice to catch up with them.

Noah loved playing with his cousins in Utah

We then heading to Estes Park, Colorado for two days.  The weather there was much cooler and we enjoyed the hikes there too!  I heard they had a half marathon in town, and I decided to look up the route and run it on my own the day before.  I ran around Estes Lake and had wildlife all around while running.  It was incredible!  I loved seeing the lake and mountains in the background while running, I had to stop a couple of times to take pictures.

Estes Lake, Colorado 

The boys went to play golf in the mountains and we did family hikes together.  We were hiking in 12,000 feet above sea level and that was tough.  I wanted to run 5 miles on day, but it quickly turned into a walk.  The altitude up there is no joke!  We went high enough to touch snow up in the mountains and saw wildlife up there too.

This is one of our family hikes trail.

We then took off to Manitou Springs, Colorado for couple days.  Here, I had to climb the Manitou Incline that has been on my bucket list for a while now.  This incline gains almost 2,000 feet of elevation over less than 1 mile and has 2,741 steps!  My time was 35:17 and was more of a crawl because it started raining on me and it was slippery.  Toughest climb EVER, but mission accomplished!  Eddie and little Noah went halfway up and then turned around for Noah had to go to bathroom and didn't want to go back up because it was raining.

Manitou Incline-Wow! That's a lot of steps!!

We ended our family vacation with a white water rafting tour down Arkansas River.  That was the grand finale to end our trip!  

This was the most active and most miles I have ever done in a week of vacation and I loved every mile of it :)