For our final lecture, we learned about weather in the backcountry – how to read clouds, when lightening is most probable, what to do if you’re caught in a thunderstorm (like we were last summer) and to always have a Plan B or Bail Out Plan before you start hiking. Like all the weeks prior, what we covered in an hour and a half is just the tip of the very large iceberg. It’s enough to get us started but not enough to be an expert, by any means. There is SO much to learn about playing safely in the mountains.

We followed our lecture with our final hike on Saturday – except this time, we students organized and led the hike instead of our instructors. Our planned hike? Thunder Butte in Douglas County, CO.

Thunder Butte is the high point for Douglas County. It sits in the Pike National Forest, 24 miles north of Pikes Peak. Unfortunately, about 10 years ago, a massive fire burned through this area and the mountain vegetation is sparse. The fire burned more than 138,000 acres and 133 homes – it was started by a forest service worker accidentally as she reportedly burned a letter from her husband in a fire ring. Questions still remain about why and how the fire actually started - more about that here. Regardless of the reason, it’s incredibly sad to see such widespread damage caused by a single person.

There is no trail to follow so planning our route involved reading the topographic maps and continually reevaluating while hiking to find the the best hikeable route (less steep, no dangerous cliffs, etc). We hiked our way to the top of Thunder Butte in about 2 hours and 15 minutes.

(Thunder Butte is the peak in the middle of the photo above.)

The hike up was challenging but not prohibitively so – a person in moderate physical shape and knowledge about navigating could summit this mountain.

When we reached the top, we were rewarded with awesome views – we were the highest point around for miles.

We ate lunch on the summit and started our trek back down. Because there was no trail and everything looks similar (rocky, charred trees, low bushes), it took a bit more effort to make sure we stayed on the right track but our group of 16 managed to wind up at the cars as we’d planned.

What struck me the most on our hike was how, despite the burned landscape, tiny little flowers dotted the mountain. Against the brown dirt and black, burned trees, tiny pops of color surprised me – and made me feel hopeful that the rest of the mountain fauna would grow again.

Our round trip hike was 5.1 miles and took us about 4.5 hours. If we were hiking in a smaller group and weren’t stopping for learning moments, we could have probably shaved off 45ish minutes off the hike – so don’t be deterred if you want to hike Thunder Butte! It won’t take you all day.

Over the past 6 weeks, I’ve learned SO much about how to play safely in this giant playground that is Colorado. I thought I kinda knew what I was doing but Wilderness Trekking School schooled me, quite literally. It opened my eyes to how much I didn’t know – and how much I still have to learn. Our group and instructors were excellent – everyone got along, enjoyed our classes and learned a lot.

It was bittersweet to leave our post-hike party on Saturday to head home and pack (ugh, moving!) – I will miss spending a large chunk of my week with my group but I’m excited to get out and put my new found skillz to real use… like, this weekend!

**************

For more Wilderness Trekking School fun, here are what we learned in all previous classes:

Dry Land Travel

Navigation

Snow Day / Self Arrest

Survival

I highly recommend this class to anyone who wants to learn fundamentals of staying safe while hiking/backpacking. It’s a broad overview that touches all the important aspects of being outside and aware of your surroundings. Wilderness Trekking is the first class many people take with the CMC and is geared toward all abilities – if you’ve never hiked before or if you’ve dabbled in backpacking or if you’ve trekked in Nepal, there’s definitely something you can take away from the class.

And it’s really neat to meet like-minded people who also want to do crazy mountain adventures like you do.

The post Colorado: Final Wilderness Trekking School Hike – Thunder Butte appeared first on lgsmash.

This weekend, Alex and I are moving out of my/our apartment. The apartment I’ve been in for the past 3 years. The most I’ve lived in one place since high school! Fortunately for us, this is the shortest distance we will ever have to move – across the hall in my apartment building!

The backstory: My apartment building is in the process of an entire building facelift. From exterior painting to fancy new interior decorations and even a new community name, nothing in the building is safe from updating – including my apartment. When it came time to renew the lease, I was told our lease would be non-renewed but that I could move into an already updated apartment. We like pretty much everything about where we live – location, apartment (large! and with cement walls!), neighbors, office staff – so we decided if we could, we’d stay in the community. Serendipitously, the 1 bedroom apartment across the hall was scheduled to be available the week before our current lease was up. We signed the renewal on the spot and started dreaming of our new appliances, faux-hardwood floors and west facing views.

We got a sneak peak of our new apartment earlier this week – and much to my surprise, we found a microwave included.

Admittedly, this made me more sad than it should have. I haven’t had a microwave for the past 3 years. I’ve never even thought, ‘Man! Would it be nice to have a microwave in here right now!‘ in the past 3 years. If we need to reheat something, we use the stove or oven. Might take an extra couple of minutes but it just means that food will taste *that much better* because you waited.

And, as ridiculous as it sounds, I enjoyed that people thought a microwave was a necessity of living and couldn’t understand why we didn’t have one. ‘But, but! They’re only $40! I’ll go buy you one right now!‘ Today, though, the microwaveless era has come to an end and we rejoin the rest of the world in owning the little box that reheats things. And yes, having one doesn’t mean I have to use it. But we still have one and can’t say we don’t. Hrmph.

Microwaves aside, this move is actually pretty exciting to us – we’re getting a west facing view (baller!) don’t have to clean our old apartment since they’re tearing it up after we move out and will have brand new everything!

What excites me the most is that this is my first move with my husband. In to a fresh new space that we can truly make ours. To create brand new memories and moments in this brand new apartment together.

When Alex moved to Denver and moved in with me, I’d already been in the apartment for a couple of years. I had the furniture that I picked out and bought set up how I wanted. I’d set things up in a way that was great for 1 person but not so great for 2.  I had memories and experiences in that apartment before Alex moved in. I had a history with this apartment that Alex didn’t.

But now? It’s the beginning of a new era. An era of making homes feel like us and not just me, not just him. Of forever living in new places together. Of forever moving together as a family. I’ll trade in a silly ‘death of the microwaveless era’ for this new, super awesome era any day. 

So, here’s to a new apartment, a new microwave and a new beginning.

And the shortest move ever.

The post Life: The End and Beginning of An Era appeared first on lgsmash.

The race is 14.5 miles uphill from Echo Lake to the summit. In altitude. How the heck am I supposed to train for something like this?! Well, running on hilly trails and running in altitude. And why not practice on the actual race course? Genius! This weekend, I did exactly that.

Mt. Evans has a paved road all the way to the summit which is what we’ll be running on during the race. A nice, flat, paved road. And during the winter months, the road is closed to vehicle traffic so this weekend, Heidi and I decided to see what running the beginning of Mt. Evans will feel like while there’s no car traffic to dodge. 

The weather was pretty perfect – warmish in the sun, breezy, blue skies with some cloud cover. We parked at Echo Lake, hopped over the ‘ROAD CLOSED!’ gates and started our run! The parking lot is at 10,680 feet and we could immediately feel the affects of the thin air – but not quite as dramatically as I’d thought! We were still able to breath and run – just not breath, run and talk. 

I mean… DO YOU SEE THE VIEWS?!!!! This race is going to be challenging (like, really challenging) but HOLY COW! I am so excited about it after our run!

We fell into a steady run/walk pattern and surprised ourselves with how not awful it was to breath. Heidi had raced a 5k (AND WON!) earlier that morning so we cut our planned 5 miles up (10 round trip) short at 3.5 miles (7 round trip). We climbed more than 1000 feet in our 3.5 miles – my legs were feeling it but definitely not as extremely as I’d expected. Hilly trail conditioning must be working at least a little bit!

I seriously could not wipe the stupid smile off my face or get the ‘OMGeeeeeee!’ squeals out of my system. I LOVE THE MOUNTAINS!

I made Heidi stop and take a jumping photo for me on the way down. Fortunately – for me – she’s much better at quick photos than I am and she captured a really great one. 

But not with a few outtakes. 

Unfortunately for Heidi, I am much worse at navigating her camera and did not come away with a decent jumping photo for her. Next time, she’ll bring her fresh legs for jumping and I’ll bring my photo-taking A Game and get her a super sweet photo, too. Sorry, Heidi!

I know 3.5 miles on a mountain is not an accurate representation of how the last 11 will feel – but for now, this practice run was a big confidence boost. Our pace was consistent and on par with what last year’s finishers ran. The race cut off is that we have to reach Summit Lake at 9 miles in the race by 2.5 hours – and after this weekend (and past training runs), I am confident that is doable – barring any uncontrollable circumstances like crazy mountain weather.

We have one more Mt. Evans practice run planned in a few weeks – starting about where we turned around this weekend and running the next miles of the race.

In the meantime? More hills for running, more squats for strength and more running for endurance! 

The post Fitness: Let’s Try Running Up Mt. Evans appeared first on lgsmash.

Sana really wanted to see mountains and snow last weekend – unfortunately, skiing was out of the question but we were able to show Sana both mountains and snow, up close and personal! We drove down to Manitou Springs, just outside of Colorado Springs, to ride the Pikes Peak Cog Railway to the top of Pikes Peak.

Sometimes, Alex and I forget to do the ‘touristy’ things in Denver and Colorado because there’s so much non-touristy things we like to do. Visitors give us a great chance to do exactly those things. Visiting Pikes Peak has been on my ‘must do in Colorado’ list since I’ve moved here so down to Pikes Peak we went!

The cog railway train is the world’s highest cog train. Tickets are $35 and we weren’t able to find any discounts that fit our schedule. We piled in the train at 1 p.m. for our 1:20 p.m. trip. The ride up takes about an hour and as the train passes interesting landmarks, the conductors point it out and give history of the mountain, rail and train. At one point during the climb, the bottom of the train was 3 stories lower than the front of the car. That’s a steep incline!

We had a mostly cloudy day with some small interruptions of beautiful blue sky. For me, the best part of the train ride was seeing everyone get so excited about mountains, rocks, snow and how high we were climbing. It’s not that that stuff doesn’t excite me anymore – it absolutely does! But it’s lost it’s ‘first time seeing mountains’ magic so it was so fun to watch everyone else squeal with delight on the ride up.

Just over an hour after our trip started, we reached the summit! The conductor team warned that it might be cloudy and snowing in the summit and they were right. Sana certainly got her snow!

My question for other ‘peak baggers’… does riding the train to the summit count?! Can I cross Pikes Peak off our list of 14ers achieved?!

Kidding. Kind of.

There’s also a summit house (… on the summit) that sells these awesome donuts, snacks, fudge, gifts, etc. After we climbed through the snow outside, we poked around inside and bought some donuts for the trip down the mountain. YUM. If you ever get to the top of Pikes Peak, try the donuts.

After 35ish minutes on the summit, we boarded the train to head back down. Many people on the train were feeling the altitude – lightheaded, dizzy, nausea, sleepy – and they were ready to start getting to lower elevation. Because the weather was getting worse, the last train of the day was not going to make it to the top so we waited a few extra minutes for the summit house staff to hop on the train to ride down with us. Those few minutes felt much longer than they actually were!

The ride down takes just as long as the ride up but the sensation is very different – the steep decline really works your core muscles to keep yourself in your seat! Fortunately for us, the sky cleared a little on the way back down so we were able to see a bit more than our ride up.

This is Inspiration Point which is where Katherine Lee Bates was inspired to pen America The Beautiful. I’m sure the view on a crystal clear day is phenomenal!

We all really enjoyed the train ride – it was a unique and fun experience in Colorado! If you’re just visiting Colorado or are looking for a place to take visitors, this short day trip gives visitors a taste of our beautiful mountains and what altitude feels like in a safe, non-exerting/hiking way. I highly recommend it! 

 (Pikes Peak from the back of a random King Soopers parking lot)

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As I went through college I could feel myself changing. I enjoyed meeting new people. I felt less and less awkward. Maybe it was the beer at college parties talking but I started to feel comfortable with who I was and felt less nervous around people I didn’t know. I ‘blossomed’, as my mother might say.

Now, thousands of miles apart, I find myself acting and sounding like my mom more and more in the best way possible.

When Alex makes me laugh really hard, I hear my mom’s laugh.

When I tell stories that are long and details, I rush through details in the same manner that she does.

I find myself having ‘Sandy Moments’ regularly – a ‘foot in mouth’ moment or a minor, silly mistake because sometimes (many times) we speak and act before we think.

We have the same nose, cadence in our voice and sparkle in our eye. Many of my best qualities – independence, compassion, inclusiveness, sense of humor, eternal optimism – come from my mom.

My mom is the warmest, most genuine person I know. She has the biggest heart and is quick to open her home and arms to anyone who might need a bed or a hug. She’s the first person to laugh at herself and make a silly joke – her laughter and personality are infectious and people love to be around her. My mom knows EVERYONE and acknowledges everybody she knows with a smile and kind words. She’s smart, hardworking and extremely caring. Full of life, love and happiness.

Each day that passes, I realize I am my mother’s daughter and I know if I become half the woman my mom is, I will grow up to be a phenomenal person.

Happy Mother’s Day, Momma. Thank you for being the best mom and friend a girl could ask for – I wish I could be at home to celebrate you today!

The post Life: Every Day, I Am More Like My Mother appeared first on lgsmash.

Mental Health.

Did you know May is Mental Health Month? A month dedicated to being aware of our mental health and giving ourselves a few extra moments to check in with it.

Too often, mental health has a negative connotation – that it’s a scary thing to talk about, that someone is ‘weaker’ if they admit to struggling.

But here’s the thing – mental health isn’t a Big Scary Life Sentence. And it doesn’t have to mean a Big Scary Disease or something that happens to other people. Mental health issues range from ADHD to anxiety to depression to autism to eating disorders to schizophrenia. Some of those sound familiar, right? Maybe you’ve experienced one of those mental health issues or known someone who has. ‘Mental health’ becomes a lot less foreign and a lot more personal, huh? As the years go on, ‘mental health’ is losing its stigma, little by little. More people are talking about it, more are acknowledging their experiences.

And if you haven’t experienced depression, this post over at Hyperbole & A Half explains it in relatable and honest words.

Taking care of our mental health is just as important as taking care of our physical health – I’d argue that it’s even more important. Our mental health drives our decisions, our emotions, our actions. Without a healthy mind, the rest starts to fall apart.

But when mental health issues aren’t addressed when you recognize them in yourself or someone recognizes them in you, you risk so much more than you might realize. Sometimes, mental health issues and diseases can spiral quickly out of control, causing people to make permanent solutions to a temporary problem. Sometimes – and unfortunately, frequently – our friends, families, coworkers, neighbors, celebrities and sports figures commit suicide to end their pain.

And in ending theirs, ours begins.

Why is suicide prevention important to me? I’ve lost an aunt to suicide, almost lost my younger sister and since have known too many friends who have lost their loved ones to suicide. All had different reasons, different stories but all might have had a different ending with professional help earlier or families and friends who recognize warning signs of suicide.

Each year, I help organize the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s walk in Denver. The Out of the Darkness walk brings together those who struggle and those who’ve survived suicide to build a community of hope, a network of recovery and to raise money to affect change. Each year, I am floored by the planning committee – at their dedication to this cause, their passion to make sure no one looses a daughter, husband, aunt, mother or friend like we have, their drive to grow awareness in our community.

I guess my point of this post is to publicly acknowledge that it’s okay to struggle with mental health issues – but don’t struggle alone! Get the help you need before it’s too late. And for those of us who may not currently be experiencing mental health issues, be aware of those around you – knowing warning signs of suicide (or depression or eating disorders or anxiety, etc) can help save a life.

And for those who’ve been touched by suicide, I encourage you to look into participating in the Out of the Darkness walk in your area. It’s tough and uncomfortable to talk about suicide – but the more we do it, the less isolated those who struggle with mental health issues will feel and the likelihood that they will reach out of help increases – and the potential to save a life grows.

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If you poke around my blog, it becomes pretty obvious I like to play outdoors with my husband. We have been learning a lot about how to play safely and have been acquiring the gear and clothing to do so. Between the two of us, I have had the most catching up to do, gear wise. In fact, before this past winter, I didn’t own a proper winter coat, boots or legit gloves! In my defense, I spent most of my weekends prior to Alex moving here visiting Alex in other states instead of playing around outside in Colorado.

Fortunately, I have a husband who knows how to (and loves to search for!) a great deal. His main objective is to get us the best quality for the best price and we’ve found a lot of success on Sierra Trading Post. They sell name brand gear that may be discontinued or last year’s colors so we’ve been able to score Columbia, Marmot, Mountain Hardwear, Smartwool and North Face stuff for a pretty good deal.

So when I told him recently I thought I needed new hiking boots – I’ve had mine since I’ve lived in Denver and the tread is pretty worn – he was on it. I mentioned that I wanted a mid-rise shoe for more sturdy handling on trails – my current shoes are a low-rise, hitting under my ankle, and sometimes don’t feel awesome hiking on steep or curvy trails.

Alex sent me a link to the Columbia Talus Ridge shoes. Right price, right specs and they had my size (and color preference) in size so he ordered them. What I didn’t realize at the time was that these are the same exact shoes Alex wears.

We match!

What’s more is that this isn’t the first set of matching gear that we own. In general, if he likes the gear/clothes he already had and finds the women’s version for a reasonable price, he buys it for me.

Our winter hiking boots? Matching.

Our mid-layer long sleeve shirts? Matching.

Down puffy coats? (Almost) matching

Most socks? Matching.

Our liner gloves? Matching.

Sleeping bags? Matching.

Trekking poles? Matching.

Soft shell wind resistant jacket? Soon to be matching, I hope! (<– very envious of his!)

It’s a little bit ridiculous, huh?!

So if you ever catch Alex and I together on the trail or if we ever take a backpacking trip together, don’t be surprised if we look like THAT couple who matches their outfits….

…Because we are.

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This week, we focused on emergencies, basic first aid and survival. It’s great to learn how to play safely in the mountains… but what happens when something goes wrong? This week addressed what to expect, how to react and what to do. Every emergency is different but having some awareness up front will be extremely helpful in keeping the chaos under control when the time comes.

In our classroom section, we talked about the different types of emergencies we could encounter: losing a person from the group, injury, sickness, getting caught in adverse weather and getting lost (but! we already learned about navigation… so no getting lost for us!). These emergencies could be within our own party – or we could happen upon someone else stuck in one of these emergencies and we need to be able to act quickly to help.

On Saturday, we headed to White Ranch Park to practice some survival and first aid tactics.

First, using only what we had in our packs (always hike – even day hikes! – with the 10 hiking essentials!), we broke into groups of 3 and had to fashion a quick shelter big enough for 1 person in 20 minutes to protect ourselves from a thunderstorm that might roll in.

We used – a tarp, rain fly, bungee cords, rope and rocks to make our quick shelter.

For a first-ever attempt and for shelter from a rain storm, this would be… okaaay. Definitely room for improvement but it was a good start.

We then broke into different groups and were instructed to make a shelter that was more substantial, as if we needed to stay overnight or a couple nights. We were encouraged to use natural features around us, too.

I was pretty proud of my groups – we used a group of rocks as a wall near our entrance (under the dark orange rain fly) a fallen log as our middle support, insulated with tree logs (that I cut with the badass saw I brought) and pine needles, duct tape and bandaids. It was sturdy and really warm inside – someone would definitely survive overnight or two, if needed.

The other group used dead logs as a roofing structure over a rock ledge.  And the last group used their rope to make a wide spine to hang their tarps between two trees. Inventive and genius! They made the ‘spine’ by securing branches between the cord.

After shelters, we took a quick break for lunch. I swear, our lunch views never fail to deliver breathtaking and interesting scenery. It’s hard to tell in this photo but Denver was clear as anything from where I ate my lunch of a Nutella Sandwich.

After lunch, we talked FIY-AH! Our instructors demoed different fire starters to show us a few of our options. My favorite were these calcium carbide ‘rocks’ – they don’t burn when put in a fire. Instead, when you get them wet, they give off a methane gas that you light on fire.

To demo, we lit snow on fire. No, seriously.

I was lucky enough to take home a few of these rocks for our gear supply – Woohoo!

I’d also brought these homemade/DIY firestarters that Alex likes to make to test/demo for the group. Basically, Alex takes lint from the drier, melts candle wax on it in an old, cardboard egg container. That’s it! It’s kinda gross because there’s a lot of my hair stuck in there but he used some slightly scented candle so our fire smelled more floral-y than burning hair-y. To use this fire started, just spark the cardboard and the container will start a nice fire under kindling.

Next up, first aid! There is a whole CMC class devoted to first aid so this was just a very basic overview of what to do when faced with an injury. In this situation, our instructor had a broken arm and bruised rib and we had to assess the situation, check our casualty and decide how to proceed.
First aid school as definitely been on my radar – I do not know enough to feel like I’d be able to help someone in an emergency situation. Especially with adrenaline running? Forget it. My mind went blank when something ‘small’ happened, let alone a much bigger emergency.

Lastly, we covered how to hang a bear bag. No photos because I was demo’ing! A bear bag is a bag (or bags) that you pack with your smellables and food – anything that might entice a bear to your camp – and you hang it away from your camp, in a tree. This way, if a bear does find the smells, you won’t have a run in with a big ass bear in the middle of the night.

This was a super productive learning day for me. Generally, I rely on Alex to know all of our survival information but it’s extremely important for me to know just as much. I won’t always be hiking and backpacking with Alex and, as evidenced in the Unfortunate Snow Saw Event of 2013, my information source may be the injured. So this day and week was a great jumping off point for me but really highlighted how much more I want (and need!) to learn about safety, first aid and survival techniques in the backcountry.

The post Colorado: Wilderness Trekking School – Survival Day appeared first on lgsmash.

When you start to participate in a wide variety of activities – hiking, backpacking, camping, running and trail running, currently – you start to *need* a lot of different gear.

A certain shoe for a certain type of trail.

A specific jacket for a specific season or temperature.

A down coat only for winter camping.

A hat only to block the sun or a hat only to keep warm.

There are some items that crossover nicely – that transcend the seasons, temperature and activity. And I am pretty psyched to share that this YMX long sleeve top I’ve been testing does exactly that!

The one item my active wardrobe has been missing is a multi-functional longsleeve base layer. So when I was given the opportunity to check out YMX’s line, I picked a long sleeve base layer to test in hopes that I could use it almost year round – from winter camping to springtime running to chilly fall backpacking trips.

What really intrigued me was their MadKool fabric:

MadKool fabrics regulate your natural body temperature so you will stay warm in cool weather activities, and cool when your heart is pumping. Thats why MadKool is the perfect fabric for Cycling Tops, Leggings, Shirts, and Shorts. Whether your are cycling, hiking, running at yoga class or on the dance floor you will feel dry and comfortable in YMX apparel made with MadKool fabric. (from their website)

Many clothing retailers make that claim but not all products stand up to the claim. I wondered how my shirt would hold up and decided to put it through the ringer.

I took my shirt running on a treadmill.

I took my shirt to Genesee on map and compass day in Wilderness Trekking School.

I took my shirt running again – this time outside, the day after a Colorado spring snow with no jacket.

*Side note: both times I ran in this shirt, I forgot my running socks and ran in hiking socks. Not recommended!

All I can say is the MadKool holds up. From running outside in chilly Denver the day after a snow storm to working up a sweat bushwacking on Navigation day in Genesee, I never felt cold or hot. Like Little Red Riding Hood, I always felt juuuuuust right. 

This MadKool stuff has a lot more up it’s sleeve too – UV protection (very important in the Colorado sun! Google doesn’t forget that I have very sun-sensitive skin…), it’s very stretchy yet maintains it’s shape (so far, very true!) and the prints/colors don’t fade with washes (I’ve only washed it 4 times but haven’t noticed any color warping or dulling!).

It’s safe to say I’m a fan. This shirt has kept my temperature regulated when exercising, hasn’t stretched or dulled and is saving my skin from freak swelling.

And let’s not overlook the fact that this shirt is bright pink and orange! Generally, I don’t gravitate to prints on my clothes – and some of the other shirt designs are outside my comfort zone – but I actually really love the design and color combo here. I honestly didn’t expect to love it as much as I do but I think it works very nicely with my fair skin and blonde hair. And it’d be a big fat lie to say I don’t shop for outdoor wear like I shop for any other clothes – it’s gotta make me look and feel good as well as serve it’s purpose! 

The (major) downside to this shirt is the price.The shirt I tested retails at $98. This is a little bit pricier than I’ve seen other long sleeve base layers sold directly from retailers – but not by much. I’m still in the ‘gear acquisition’ phase of my outdoor adventures (actually, who *isn’t* in gear acquisition phase? There’s always something new and cool to add to your gear!) so I can’t rationalize paying full price for a single shirt right now. But because this is a shirt that could be used across many sports and seasons, I might be willing to shell out the dough down the road (given the expected ‘cost per use’ equation) but I can count on my hand the number of times I’ve bought a shirt at full price – and directly from a retailer.

Now, if YMX was sold on Sierra Trading Post? You can bed I’d have 2 or 3 of these shirts in rotation. Not even an exaggeration. 

All in all, I dig this shirt a lot.

The post Gear Review: YMX Long Sleeve Top appeared first on lgsmash.

It was a quiet night – almost eerily quiet – at the park. I passed a handful of runner on my first trip around Wash Park and only 1 on my last. Such a stark contrast to Sunday evening when the park was in full swing – volleyball nets, laughing and dogs everywhere.

For the first time in a while, I ran completely solo. Well, I brought Philly – but no other humans. To be sure I was seen by drivers (and because I love to be colorful), I wore clashing bright colors from head to toe.

This collage turned out a lot less cool than I’d imagined it.

A fun coincidence I noticed before we got started was that I matched my long sleeve to my nail(s) and my tights to my shoes.
Awww. So cute.

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