Member of the mile high club

And by mile high club I'm referring to the fact that I can now say I've run in the Mile High City.  What were you thinking??

The first weekend in June I flew out to Denver, Colorado to present my research at a conference.  Since my adviser was unable to attend due to scheduling conflicts, we decided I should present a poster rather than a talk which was fine by me.  This was my first conference that I traveled to on my own; however, I was fortunate that a girl I knew in high school happened to live in Denver.  When I mentioned my trip on Facebook, she suggested we meet up.  Serena met me at after I check into my hotel, and we decided to check out the Denver Zoo (sadly, the US mint is closed on weekends).  After having lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, we spent a wonderful afternoon at the zoo followed by her showing me around town.  Denver is quite beautiful!  The air was so incredibly dry (much better for my curly hair!), but that left me extremely thirsty.  I am Florida born and raised, so the elevation difference was pretty extreme.  The next day, I had to work the registration desk at the conference, so that morning I went for a run.  Many people warned me to make sure I did not overdo it, since I was not used to the dry climate and the altitude.  I carried a water bottle and did a nice walk/run for about 3 miles.  Working at the conference went very well.  I met a lot of great people!  The next day I presented my poster, and that went very well.  Then I had to rush to get to the airport for my flight home.  Sadly my flight did get delayed slightly, and at that point I was really starting to not feel well and just wanted to go home.  I eventually made it, and was happy to be home with Chris and my fur babies.  Sadly, the run in Denver was the only run I did that week, because the trip left me feeling very under the weather and I wanted to recover before flying out to Italy (I returned from Denver around 1 a.m. on Tuesday and flew out to Italy at 9pm that Thursday).  But no worries, I made up for the lack of running with all the activities and walking in Rome (more about that in my next post).

I do hope that I have a chance to return to Denver.  I really enjoyed it.  Here are some pictures from my trip:

I love window seats on airplanes. (o:

 

Ice crystals on the window

 

Denver airport

My awesome room

Beautiful city!

Conference sign!  Yes, I'm a dork.

Off to the Denver Zoo with Serena

I want one.

The bear that peeks into the convention center.

Me and Serena, a friend from high school

Running path

 

 

 

 

 

At the conference

The bear from the inside.

Cute, a bit scary, and a bit creepy... but mostly cute.

Bronco on the drive to the airport