Gretch Runs

Happy Wednesday everyone! For today's post, I'm going to be sharing the next part of my National Parks trip this past December. This is great timing too, because it happens to be National Parks Week! I've been celebrating by sharing all of my favorite trips on my Instagram- so far I've talked about Haleakala, Everglades, Cabrillo National Monument, and Cuyahoga Valley. Today is all about the Grand Canyon, which is probably one of the best known (and most popular) parks! I was lucky enough to visit the park in winter, during a snow storm. To be honest, I didn't know that it snowed there, since all of the pictures I've seen were during clear, sunny skies and usually had people dressed in the bare minimum. Plus- it's in Arizona! This was definitely NOT the case when we got there- temperatures were well below freezing, and there were several feet of snow and ice on all of the trails. Some of the roads were even closed because of the conditions. After...

Happy Wednesday everyone! For today's post, I'm going to continue with sharing my National Parks trip from December. After spending a few days in Zion National Park , our next stop was the Grand Canyon. We broke that drive into a stop along the way to visit the small town of Page, Arizona. There are a few must-see attractions here, and I was really excited!  Here's what we did for our overnight stay. Antelope Canyon One of the main reasons I wanted to make this our next stop was to visit Antelope Canyon. If you haven't heard of it, chances are you would recognize it by the pictures! This is an iconic spot, full of insanely beautiful slot canyons that seem to defy nature and gravity. It's always been a place that I've wanted to see, so I was excited to book our tour! The canyon sits on Native American land, so it's required to go with a tour group to visit. There are a few companies to choose from, and we went with Dixie Ellis. After picking our g...

Hi everyone! Today I'm going to be shifting away from the current news and looking back on a trip I took in December to a few beautiful national parks. The first park we visited was Zion, located in Utah. While we were there for three days, we did a ton of hiking and saw some of the most incredible views and scenery.  I'll be sharing all of the hikes that we did, along with restaurant recommendations and more. Enjoy and stay safe! Hotel - Zion Pioneer Lodge I found this hotel by doing a Hotwire deal. It was really cute and had a rustic look which put me in the western mood! I loved the location of this hotel as well- we were in the small town of Springdale which sits at the entrance of the park. There were lots of restaurants around us, and we were within walking distance of the park. There's also a shuttle in this area to drive you to the park which is convenient if needed. Plus- this was the view from our room- how gorgeous is it!? Shuttle Service One of th...

Hi everyone!  It's been quite a while and a busy few months!  The end of the year shows no sign of slowing down either- I'm definitely going to end this decade with a BANG with a few trips and races coming up! To catch up, here's a look back at a few highlights from each of the past 7 months that I've been missing- April San Diego Dan had to go to San Diego for work, and luckily the timing worked out that my mom and I were able to take a trip over and visit!  We had a blast and were super busy on our long weekend, doing everything from hiking at Torrey Pines, walking around La Jolla, visiting Cabrillo National Monument, going to a San Diego Padres game, and visiting every cidery/brewery/winery in the area.  The Padres stadium was so beautiful and definitely one of my favorites that I've visited (now up to 15!). Capital City Half Marathon I made a trip to Columbus with my favorite running girls to run the Capital City Half!  I was signed up fo...

Hi everyone!  I've been a bit quiet for the past few weeks and haven't posted workout recaps, and that's because Dan and I took a quick trip down to Florida!  We were there for 10 days and visited Miami and the Tampa area and crossed off two more stadiums.  Here's a quick recap of the trip, along with some workouts I managed to squeeze in! 4 mile run in Brickell We stayed in Brickell, which was a GREAT location.  There were a lot of restaurants and beautiful places to run, and anytime we drove somewhere we were going against the crazy Miami traffic.  For my speed work, I ran to Brickell Key, which is a flat, mile long triangle island.  It has beautiful views of the skyline and even has some water fountains!  Plan was to do 1 mile warm up and cool down, then 1 mile at 8:30, 1 mile of 8:10, rest 3 minutes and repeat.  After the first round  (hitting the paces perfectly) I was completely wiped and my legs felt like lead, so I just ran ...