20-Miler Carrying 27 Pounds... Done!

UPDATES
I returned back from my trip just before the weekend, I had a great time seeing my friends and hanging out with my family. I do miss them all living so far away right now. But I'm looking forward to lots of visits this summer when I have time!

WEIGHTLOSS
As for my weight loss journey, I'm now down 28.5 pounds, I was actually surprised I didn't gain a ton on my trip because I ate out nearly every day and didn't even try to order low calorie, LOL. But I'm thinking maybe all the hard work and muscle I am building helped burn off some of those restaurant calories I took in since I still lost weight.

HIKING
I've done a lot of hiking to get reading for Grand Canyon R2R2R. I have put my body through a tremendous amount of pain from lots of huge climbs. I don't even remember what it's like to not be sore, but this is the good kind of workout sore so it's all good! I actually love it!

Last weekend was no exception, I went out and hiked a 20-miler. I selected specific trails ahead of time that would force me to hike the highest in elevation climbs and losses. Overall it was over 12,000 feet in gain and loss, and those are just the numbers I could pull off the trail guides and not counting some of the trails I didn't look into.

I carried 27 pounds to start on that hike and ended with around 15 pounds because most of it was water drank. It was 90 degree's out and I purposely chose places with very little shade. I did it in about 9 hours. It was a little slow, but I didn't push it on the last 2,000-foot climb of the day because it was at 17 miles and to be honest I was tired!!

I don't tell ya all that to say I'm turning into wonder woman, LOL But those are the types of things needed to be done so I can have an enjoyable R2R2R hike and not have my legs screaming in pain for the return trip, LOL

FYI: These pictures in this post today are the few I took while on the trip. And a first for me, I'm sharing here before I've even shared them on Instagram! If you love hiking and travel pictures and don't already definitely follow me on INSTAGRAM HERE. I try not to disappoint and only upload my best pics from any trip!

HALF MARATHON TRAINING or NOT
In Feb/Mar when I got sick for nearly a month (no joke) I lost all of my training. So if any of you read my previous R2R2R training plan, yeah very little of that actually happened as far as the running was concerned.
Since I was starting from near scratch in Mid March I realized I had no time to actually work on running, I needed to get my body ready for the hike. Oddly, you do utilize different muscle groups more than you'd think hiking vs. running. After all, I'm backpacking across the Grand Canyon not running, LOL

So yeah, although I have consistently gone out for 3-6 miles runs 3-4 days a week it's really not been much in regards to training for a half marathon to really get ready for it as I normally would for a race. I would prefer a little more than double that but...

So am I still going to do it?

I think so. I'm not too concerned with time on this one and although I haven't been running much I'm in pretty good shape otherwise. So I'll see what happens. I still have a little time, so maybe I can knock out a longer run if my legs can recover from the 20-mile hike soon!

Plus it's a great excuse to drive up north and visit my family and friends, LOL.

I am about 99% of the time an after the fact blogger. 

This next part is my 1% exception.

It seems there is an increasingly high amount of my blogger friends coming to Utah to run in June, which is pretty awesome!  It's funny because of all the races to come to Utah for, I never would have thought this particular one to be so popular with out-of-staters. But it's a pretty canyon run and it's one of the least steep canyon runs, so maybe that is why?
I won a free entry into it, so maybe others did too??

So that is why I wanted to talk about where I will be in advance so I don't miss an opportunity to meet some of you. So if you're doing Utah Valley Marathon or Half, hit me up. I'd love to meet you in person because as of right now I should be there doing the half.

And if you see this, and are coming I would love to find out why so many are coming for this race, I will probably ask ya when I see ya in June. But I'm super curious for sure what drew so many to this one instead of one of the more popular ones in Utah.

THESIS PROJECT

I'll share more with you on this hopefully later this week if I can find time to write the post. But I thought I'd quickly share what I received approval on and have decided to do for the project portion before I write the final paper.

And this will make more sense another day when I explain more.
But it's going to be a
Virtual Race - Half Marathon, 10k or 5k option.

I'm working hard right now to get things set up and get the business portion of it set up right. But I will say I am doing things a little unique on all fronts so it won't be like every other virtual race out there. (Well as different as it can be!)

So for those of you who are interested in racing for medals or want to help support me in this huge project this summer, keep an eye on my blog for both registration and (hint) Influencer opportunities around it soon!

Linking up with the lovely gals from the Weekly Wrap! Misssippiddlin and HoHoRuns this week!

If you don't already, check out their blogs and this fun weekly link up to meet new bloggers each week.