It’s time for another Blend Retreat recap!
On Saturday, our first and only full day at Blend, there were quite a few activities planned that had us up and moving outdoors. Being able to workout and move amongst the beautiful Colorado scenery was quite a treat, I’ll tell ya. Just gorgeous.
At 7:00am, we were all up bright and early for a fantastic Bootcamp, led by the amazing Tina & Lindsay.
The bootcamp was a ton of fun, and even had us broken into teams at the end. My team was pretty bad ass, can’t ya tell?
Shortly after bootcamp I stuffed my face with an amazing breakfast, but I’m saving that for a different recap, so let’s fast-forward a bit…
Around 10:00am on Saturday, our group of ladies met up once again for a planned hike up the Royal Arch trail.
Tina was rockin’ it for the camera…I think she was still pumped up from teaching bootcamp. 
With our cameras and water bottles in tow, me and my two sidekicks were ready to go.
We definitely had quite a crew…can’t ya tell?
After only about 20 minutes into the hike, I was already super impressed by the view.
Once we got deeper into the trail, it obviously got a little more difficult. I was beyond thankful for the fact that my asthma didn’t seem to bother me anymore than it typically would. In fact, I think I only used my inhaler once, which was great.
Hiiii Alyssa! And thanks to Alyssa for also providing a bunch of the pics for this post…you rock, lady.
Our small group ended up taking a few rest breaks along the way to take pictures and grab some water.
I made sure to bring some SOYJOY bars and my SOYJOY water bottle with me on my hike!
(A major THANKS again to SOYJOY for sponsoring me on my trip – hopefully those of you who got some bars are enjoying them!)
Shortly after that picture above, we had quite a hill to tackle, and I was sure that I was going to wind up doing a face plant somewhere…
Luckily, I managed to make it through with no problems…well, almost.
Once we trekked up just a bit longer, we realized we had almost made it to the top. A majority of the group had already made it up there (apparently we were the pokey ones) and were on their way back down.
The end was in site! I was ready to make the final climb and check out the beautiful view. So I started to make my move…I was ALMOST there! And then, this happened…
I had a little spillski. The arm is a little scraped and bruised up, but Sarah was super prepared and had some bandages on hand, so I was all fixed up in no time.
Plus, the camera was okay, which is really all I was concerned about. Screw the arm.
Finally, we had made it to the top!
Just check out this view…beautiful, right?
We were also joined by the lovely Julie and her husband, Terry.
Our group spent a good half hour up at the top, just chatting away and taking in the scenery. I also munched on some trailmix that I put together from breakfast that morning, which tasted amazing. (FYI: dried blueberries = AMAZING).
So would you guys believe that this was actually my very first time hiking…EVER? Is that weird? Especially since I live about an hour away from the Adirondacks?
Many of us came to the conclusion that the hike was definitely more physically challenging on the way up, but much more mentally challenging on the way down. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I was afraid to fall on my face again, who knows? But it really did take a little more brain power to come up with ways to climb down the rocks.
Even though we’re pretty positive we ended up taking a wrong turn somewhere on our way down, the hike was still such an awesome experience, and I’m so glad that I’m now able to say I’ve hiked a mountain in Colorado (even if it did make my hips and calves hurt in ways that they never have!).
Had I ever taken the time to actually write up a Bucket List, that’d probably have been on it.
(*Edited to add: Be sure to check out both Alyssa’s and Tina’s recaps from today – they’re great!)
Question for the Afternoon:
Are you into hiking? Have you ever hiked any awesome trails?
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