Rocky Mountain High

I had an absolutely amazing trip to Colorado. I'll cover the marathon in a separate post, this is about the rest of the trip. And there are a ton of pictures. Taking in wild trips like this is my favorite part of the 50 state marathon challenge, it really is an incredible way to see the country. This was my first time to Colorado and my first time in the Rockies, but it will not be my last. I left Colorado with a bigger bucket list than I had when I started this trip. I started with a flight at 6 am, so I had to arrive at the airport at 4:30. Nobody should be awake at 4:30 am.

The Backpack

in the Denver airport

Evil Genius wanted to go with me but she's afraid to fly so I had to take her backpack like she was able to join me. I took a cab out to get the rental car place then headed south towards Colorado Springs. My favorite way to explore new places is by car, so to me just driving around trying to see what I can see is tons of fun. I got into Denver about 10:30 local time, and my first stop was Garden of the Gods outside CSprings. My jaw spent most of the drive down there on the floor. The red rock formations were incredible. I wanted to find a parking spot and hike for a bit, and get lunch at the restaurant there but was unable to find a spot to park.

At a scenic rest stop on the way to colorado springs

red rock formations

This one was the size of a football field

There are a shitload of mexican restaurants in Colorado. I found some amazing tacos in csprings, then headed back up north through Denver and up to Estes Park. EP is a small town northwest of Denver, higher into the mountains.

Estes Park is amazing. Everything else I saw was around a highway. But EP has one high mountain pass where you have to go through another small town to get there. I could see the mountains in the distance, then when I got there I saw snow covered peaks in the distance, then an actual big mountain appeared behind it (kind of intimidating). EP has the Stanley hotel - where they filmed The Shining. It's just a cool small mountain town with an incredibly laid back touristy vibe. And craft beers. I found Rock Cut Brewery the night before the marathon, which was a huge mistake. It has one of the best beer lineups I've ever found anywhere in the country.

My happy place

A cold mountain stream

Chuck Norris saving kittens on the side of a van

Downtown Estes Park with the Stanley hotel in the background

I got a selfie with the Stanley

Sunday morning was the marathon, afterwards I made my way down to Boulder where I found the Pearl Street Mall. It was really cool just walking around downtown like that! I also wanted to hike the flatirons while in Boulder but it just didn't happen.

I found another great brewery in Westminster after I got checked into the hotel. Also found a dispensary. ;)

Monday I decided to head up the road to Cheyenne Wyoming. The drive up there was jaw dropping. Getting into the high plains and the sky just opens up into something incredible.

That's a buffalo on the hill

Woolly mammoth skeleton in the welcome center!

I'm in!!

Cheyenne is the state capital. Granted, Wyoming has a population less than Raleigh, but the capital seemed like a ghost town. I found the state capitol building, but it was under construction. made for an awkward selfie. I got lunch in Cheyenne and went back to Westminster. Eventually I turned in the rental car and got an uber into downtown Denver.

The ghost town state capital. This was 11 am on a monday!

Found the capitol building!

an 8' cowboy boot! The wild west is real in WY

The sky is very big out there

Wyoming was incredible. Honestly Wyoming and Montana wasn't very high on my 50 state list, I wasn't excited about going there over, say, Portland Oregon or the Maine coast. But once I got on the road I was totally blown away. I can't wait to fly into Jackson WY and see the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. Gimme more Wyoming!

Monday night I got to go see my NY Mets play at the Colorado Rockies. I'll take a Mets game any way I can get in there. I had dinner in downtown Denver at a local brewery then made my way to Coors Field. Of course, I had to have a Coors Light in Coors field.

Coors field!

Side view of the jumbo tron. Even the stadium had incredible views

Nimmo started the game with an inside the park home run!

Check out that sky

You could see lightning from far away. I left after 7 innings because of the rain, but they did play the rest of the game. I love going to major league baseball games, and this one did not disappoint. The first batter was Nimmo and he led off with an inside the park home run! There were lots of other homes, Jacob DeGrom pitched a gem, and the Mets won big. I picked up Rockies gear for Kelley and the kids, then got an uber back to the hotel.

One last uber to the airport tuesday morning and I was back in Raleigh before I was really awake. Colorado was absolutely amazing. The people were great, there is a serious craft beer culture, the mountains are beautiful. WHEN I go back (there's not an IF there), I want to hike the flatirons, get on top of a 14'er, and explore farther west. The farther west you go the prettier it gets. I barely got up into the mountains. I would love to spend more time in Estes Park, then go further west from there. This was an amazing trip and I can't wait to get back.

Family Update - more transitions

The first transition is actually something I simply forgot to mention last post. I traded in my sporty Audi convertible for another Volvo. Something feels wrong about that, but the Volvo is really nice.

Goodbye convertible, hello Volvo

The TT was really nice while I had it. The scary part about the Volvo is that it's the same model as Kelley's car, but one year newer and has 96k fewer miles on it. So when Ella starts driving in a couple of years, likely she will get Kelley's car and Kelley will take this one, then I can go back to another convertible. And I'm trying not to freak out about Ella driving in only a couple of years.

The kids both had their birthdays this year! I am so proud of the young women they are quickly growing into. These early teenage and preteen years are shaping their adult personalities and habits. It's fascinating for me to watch them develop like this.

Me with my youngest Evil Genius

Happy with her puppet

Ella the Eldest

This means they are both about ready to get back to middle school. ugh! Crazy times!

One funny thing - Kelley never transitions. She rolls with the seasons and never changes a bit. it's wild and I love it (and her)

Transitions

Recently I was telling a friend that I was going through a pretty extreme transition right now, and it may not be obvious to some people. For the last decade I've built this identity as an athlete. Triathlons, Ironman, Trail Ultras, always training and looking forward to the next race. Marathons are still my favorite, in fact I've got another one coming up next weekend in Colorado.

But it's a transition. I've barely been training and I'm going in about 45 lbs overweight. There are no races on the calendar after this. I'm having a small surgery (umbilical hernia repair) on June 28 that will take 4-6 weeks to recover. No training or heavy lifting until August. And I am starting grad school in August. All I've been motivated to do lately is work on a sailboat I'm building and other home projects, like landscaping.

I'm not the only one going through a transition! My Evil Genius has now graduated 5th grade and is a full blown middle schooler. First time in 8 years we haven't had a student in the local Elementary School.

With the teacher and principal

EG with a painting she did in the library at school

The garden is in a transition too. I shortened the beds this year and added a 3rd taller bed with the difference. Still end up with a smaller garden space overall, but it's really full this year and thriving with the extra topsoil/compost we added!

buying plants at the farmers market

Those beds used to be as wide as the muscadines behind them

Today's garden - huge growing plants!

The new bed is only squash & zuch this year

I had to shorten up the garden beds because of my next huge project. I'm going to rip out this existing front porch and rebuild it the way I want! That also means relandscaping the entire front yard in front of the house.

stairs at the wrong angle have got to go

The front porch is tiny and crumbling and it has got to go

The before picture. Crap landscaping, that stone L path has got to go

I want stairs that go straight into the front door. This existing porch has a hard L 90* turn to get into the front door. It's barely big enough for the door to open before hitting the handrail. I hate the handrail. Moving a couch in that front door is impossible. I'm going to rip it all out and put in a 10' x 16' long front porch with a block/brick foundation and extend the roof out to cover it, tying into the existing roofline. That means the stone pathway that leads to the existing stairs have to go away, and I can finally turn that weird azalea hedge (that's not how you're supposed to use azaleas or structure a hedge!) into some actual landscaping. With trees and hardscape and a path and everything. Enjoy the before pictures.

The boat is looking really good right now too. I got the keel attached to the stem and all of the frames, so the base structure is totally in place. I have 4 more boards to connect (chines and clamps on each side) before I can put the plywood on the hull, so I'm trying to find the cash for the plywood now. That might be an August thing as well.

But the biggest transition that I'm struggling with is still going from athlete to student/woodworker. As of June 1, I stopped the monthly billing for the swim team that I've been on since 2011. No open water races for me this year still feels dirty and strange. But the arthritis hurts so much I can't finish the workouts anymore. So no more swimming, at least for now. No more biking for the last few years, eh, that's not new. Running? in this heat? there's just no motivation. At this weight and with arthritis it just hurts so much more. at this weight...

I ran across this picture when the tattoo sleeve was new back in 2015 and tried to recreate it with today's belly. The tattoo is still awesome. But the difference in my belly between 2015 (when I ran a bunch of marathons and went to Minnesota) and this summer is obvious. The people I see every day don't think I've gained much weight. With a shirt on it's easy to hide. Even in the pool people don't think there's much of a difference. but yeah. this is painful to look at. On the left I'm about 170 lbs, on the right is about 210. Today I weighed in at 216 so it's gotten a bit worse.

trail running fixes everything, right?

So here's the plan for the transition. I'm going to do this marathon in Colorado next weekend no matter what. By the time I'm recovered from that it will be time for the surgery - 11 days apart. By the time I'm recovered from that (4-6 weeks) I will treat it like I'm starting a base/weight loss phase. No runs longer than 5 miles, go vegetarian again, 1800 calories a day. It worked in the past, it should work again. It will be easiest with the heat to run in the morning before work, and I can do grad school classes/work in the evenings and squeeze in the woodworking stuff when I can. Now I typically get about 45 minutes a day to work outside before dinner then hit the gym after, so now I'll get the same 45 minutes (maybe) outside before dinner and do the online school after that. It will be the right time and structure to get my health back in line. Just losing weight won't help the arthritis, but it will help me feel better about myself. No marathons for at least the rest of the year, maybe no marathons until the end of grad school. Then I can take a closer look at how my body feels and where my motivation lies.

I told my friend to start with small goals, and when you achieve them see what kind of bigger goals those lead to. My small goals are to get my health problems under control and keep these house projects going. No timetable on those, just be sure I can pay for it as I go. This summer I don't want to let the Seasonal Affective Disorder ruin my mood. I mean, there are a lot of reasons to be down on myself here (they all start with "shit I'm old" and "that hurts"). But I'm not going to let the heat get to me this year. Acclimate and accept. All I can really do in this transition is keep a short focus and see where it takes me. I could end up someplace that I love as much as Ironman.

Catching Up

There has been a lot going on around the Flynn household since we were in Delaware. I've been totally unmotivated to write about it, but big things are happening!

Yesterday I got accepted into grad school! In August, I'll be starting the MBA program at UNC-Wilmington. It's been 20 years (May 1998) since I was in a college classroom, so this should be interesting. I'm excited about the new challenge. Work is paying for it, in-state tuition is only about $15k, and it should take about 2 years to complete. It's 11 classes taught in 7 week blocks, one class at a time. At my company, now I am part software architect and part manager. I did recently get a promotion, but the title is still short of being either an architect or a manager. There are no architects or managers in the building (700 employees here, 10,000 worldwide) that do not have a masters degree or PhD. Not having a masters degree is not holding me back right now, but I fear it will limit my options going forward if I don't go ahead and take care of it.

Another huge change is that I have dropped the monthly fees for the RAM swim team as of June. I've been on this team since 2011 and absolutely love swimming. But since I got this promotion, I can barely make one swim practice a week. And with the arthritis, that one practice is very painful. Availability, pain, and lack of conditioning. It's a bad combination. I'm really enjoying running right now, so I'm just going to stick with that. But I will really miss my teammates, the workouts, and being competitive in open water races.

Some other cool stuff happened too. I got to work for a day on a Habitat for Humanity construction site with my teams!

Sheeting the exterior walls

Someone gave Tejal a sawsall, terror ensued

Adding a sill cap

I love construction!

Also I've gotten in some good family time lately. Loving on the wife and taking the whole family out for a Durham Bulls game

Love at the front door

At the Bulls game

Full crowd!

The kids loved playing the video games in my office

It's getting warm and things are blooming!

Got a new medal holder. 59 and counting, if you didn't know

Evil Genius got some artwork on display at the mall

Enjoying the fire pit on a cool spring night

We also got to enjoy a day at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville. EG is obsessed with the Titanic movie, and they had some costumes on display. With her birthday coming up, we had to get out there and see those or she would never let us hear the end of it.

it big

I love that chandelier

holding hands with Jack

Panorama from the wisteria patio

Wow, that took a few cups of coffee. Welcome to summer! We're in full swing already.