Oh peeps….I’m so tuckered and it’s not even 7:00 yet!  I’m posting before dinner tonight because I don’t know if I’ll even be awake to EAT it!  Here’s why…

When I signed off yesterday I mentioned that we’d be heading toward Colorado Springs for a hike.  We chose Barr Trail which if you follow it all 13 miles you’d end up at the summit of Pikes Peak.  (No, we were NOT planning to tackle that today.)  But we Googled the trail last night and the few bits we read about it said that the first half on the way to the midpoint camp wasn’t too bad, that it gains 1400 feet in altitude across a 4 mile stretch, and a picture showed this fairly flat(ish) tree-covered trail.  Plus people run a marathon on this trail every year (13 up, 13 down) so we thought, “Let’s just do half of it, and go to the Barr Camp – can’t be THAT hard.”  We also thought “If our easy 4 mile run on Tuesdays has 500 feet of ascent, 1400 across 4 miles will be a piece of cake because we won’t even be running.”

Um, let’s just say we were in for a surprise. 

OK, first of all I may need to reread the aforementioned Google blurbs because we hiked 3000 feet UP today (not 1400 as stated in said article) during the first half of our hike which only totaled 7.67 miles roundtrip, so I don’t know what GPS that guy was using!  We only went halfway to the CAMP!  (But hey we can say we hiked over 25% of Pikes Peak today… hahaha!)  It was almost 1000 feet of ascent per mile.  I think we are more used to hikes that go up, hit a ridge, go down a minute, go up again.  This was up, up and more up.  Where were my beloved downhill portions?

This pic shows how far away the top of the 13 miles is (I think we were 3 miles in at this point.)  That is the tip top of Pikes Peak where the summit house is:

This shows me taking a quick water break.  Our car is parked somewhere down in that valley far far away that you see behind me. My expression says it all here:

My heart rate was at a constant 175 and it felt like we weren’t even moving!  Molasses going uphill moves faster than we were moving today.

People actually RUN this!?!?  (Click here for the proof.)  Are they crazy?  Do they carry oxygen tanks on their backs instead of water?  And I’m sorry, but they PAY a registration fee too?  Someone would have to pay ME to run this (and it would have to be a LOT!)  All kidding aside, I give major kudos to people who can do this.

So the moral of the story is:  I was handed my a$$ on a platter by Barr Trail today.   (But I still had an AWESOME time!)

Do you hike?  If so what kind of terrain?  Where is your fave trail? Drop me a comment!

Here are the EATS for this unusual day:

A fellow blogger I adore, The Fitnessista had her own recipe creation “the breakfast cookie” featured in Glamour’s “Vitamin G” fitness blog yesterday (very exciting!), so I told her I would have to try one.  You make it before you go to bed at night and when you wake up you have breakfast waiting in the fridge – which is great since we left the house super early this morning for the hike.  Ingredients included oats, mashed banana, raw almond butter, bit of rice protein powder, almond milk, and a few raisins.   She signs off her posts as G$ so I tried to use lite chocolate syrup to give her a shout out, but it comes out much faster than frosting and looks like a 2 year old wrote it…

It paired nicely with a cup of Kenyan Roast:

Mid-morning snack was an unpictured Coconut Cream Pie Larabar during the hike.  Coconut Cream Pie flavor is one I often use for energy before or during exercise.

After the hike, we were craving some mexican food for some reason, so we ended up at the 3 Margaritas in Monument, CO.  O..M..G… the Veggie Enchiladas were fanTAStic! I have to admit I was really surprised at how good this was!   I’ll definitely be getting them again.  Corn tortillas filled with chopped veggie mix (broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, zucchini, red pepper) and topped with a carrot puree!  I ate both enchiladas, but just had a few bites of the black beans and rice.

I had a green smoothie for a late afternoon snack around 4:15.

And dinner may or may not happen as I mentioned (I’m betting on NOT!)  If it does it will be a LAZY GIRL meal for sure, like a can of organic soup or something, because this bod is telling me to put it in PARK! 

I hope you all have had a fun-filled day!  Tomorrow’s FRIDAY!  And a holiday weekend!  Enjoy it!  See you next time!

– Shari B. =)

Tags: Barr Trail, Blended Salad, Green Smoothie, Hiking, Pikes Peak, Veggie Enchilada