Last full day in the Republic of Boulder

Morning: EP and I did a quick hike in the Flatirons again, up to the Royal Arch. It was fun to just have two of us and to scramble up and back at a good pace. The payoff for the ~50min hike up was a beautiful rock arch and a view of a fog-covered town below. About 1h30m total hiking.

Evening: Went to the North Boulder Recreation Center and discovered the nasty side of this fitness-crazed town. My mom is very excited to have moved here and has spent most of the past week telling us how wonderful Boulder is. And she's mostly right. The weather is amazing (the clouds break up as they come over the mountains, so your typical day has brilliant sunshine), the mountains are a stone's throw from your front porch, everyone is active, everyone's liberal, drivers share the roads with cyclists; etc. Paradise, right? Sure, like most perfect towns, it's too-rich and too-white, but it's not a bad place to spend your retirement. Well tonight I discovered what can happen when you come between a Boulderite and their treadmill. The county rec center is a busy place at around 5.30pm, and there are only three treadmills. I wanted to run for 45min+, but it was so busy I quickly revised that goal to 25min. I put my name on the cardio list and went over to spin a little to warmup and lift upper body. I wasn't sure if I was next or not, so when a girl got on the treadmill I was waiting for, I figured I'd let her go and then go camp out 20min later to be sure to get it. When she finished her workout, I stepped up to take the machine and another lady came over and huffed "this is my treadmill." I asked where she was on the list and showed her that I was next in line. She was really ticked (I guess the girl had told her that nobody else had signed up while she was on and she assumed she was next?) and gave me hell about how she'd now have to wait for 30 more minutes and asked me twice during my workout how much longer I would be using the machine. So much for this nice town, eh? Bottom line: 10min spin, upper body lift (bench, rowing, presses, pulldowns, biceps), 3.5mi in a few ticks over 25min (and not a second to soon!)