 Here we go. It's a beautiful morning. It's gonna be pretty warm today and I'm ready for a little adventure. We'll see how my body holds up. I feel good so far but I haven't gone very far. Look at that. This is my backyard baby. I love it. I'm heading that way. All the tallest peaks all the way out south. That's where I'm going. I'm going up the Sinitas Valley Trail now which will get me up to the top of Sinitas. Whoo! Long way to go. I'm taking a break here getting some water sitting away from the crowds on Sinitas and since it's the week of gratitude and being thankful I figured that I'm gonna stop at the top of all these mountains and talk about what I'm grateful for and number one right now what I'm thinking about is I'm so grateful for my healthy body even though I have COVID right now a virus. I'm incredibly grateful that I can do this not only today but every day. I can run and ride my bike all over Colorado in the world and I get to share these stories with you and I I'm really happy because I'm gonna be 45 in two months and I feel strong. I feel as strong as I've ever been. As strong as I was when I was running cross-country in high school and yeah very grateful for that indeed and I think it's because I've stayed with it. I've made exercise a big part of my life. I'm not obsessive about it but I definitely try to get out almost every single day and that's keeping my body healthy. Whoo! Doing good buddy, doing good. Heading back up to Red Rocks and you can see right behind me. Beautiful Sinitas. Oh yeah. Whoo! Red Rocks. Oh I love this spot. I've been coming here since I was a kid climbing on all these rocks. I remember coming here in high school with pretty girls sitting up top. Look at that. The lights of Boulder twinkling down below. I have no making out today. Gotta keep moving. Looking good. One of my favorite places in Boulder. The Flagstaff Amphitheater. For those of you who don't know Boulder all that well this is the first flat iron and right there is Green Mountain. I'm heading up to that mountain and then behind that is South Boulder and Bear Peak. Okay time for gratitude station number two and while I was running up here I was thinking a lot about how I'm just so grateful for this life this wonderful life that I get to live. For being able to wake up every morning in this beautiful town. For having a loving family and community of friends and for feeling safe. You know I've been paying a lot of attention to the Israel-Palestine conflict in Ukraine and Russia and it's heartbreaking what's going on over there. So much death and destruction and suffering and it impacts me a lot. It hurts my heart to know that other humans on this planet are just suffering every single day. Even humans that aren't in conflict zones who are just living in Honduras where I served in the Peace Corps and they're picking food scraps out of landfills to get enough calories to make it through the day and that's something I never need to think about. And you know on one hand I'm grateful that I do live this wonderful life but I want everybody on the planet to be able to thrive like I do. And it hurts when I see images of people who are just suffering so hard. So I'm sending out a lot of love to all the people around the world who are having a hard time. You know I do my best to lead with love every day and every decision I make. I try to support organizations financially and with my time but I know it's it's just little old me I'm not going to make a gigantic difference I can't solve all the world's problems. But I do my best and at the end of the day you know I like to go to bed knowing that I tried to make the world a little bit better. Maybe it's just my community maybe it's just my neighborhood maybe it's just my family maybe it's just me some days. And that's that's that's what motivates me every day how can I make this world a better place and maybe just put a smile on somebody's face. All right I better get going because my body is getting tight. I have a cool story about this little cabin. I remember an elementary school coming on a summer field trip part of a summer camp sitting on these tables right here and pounding designs into little strips of leather. It was the first time I had ever done that and I made like a little belt and I'll never forget it. It's interesting how we can recall things from so long ago seems like another lifetime and it feels like I'm just sitting here once again as a little kid with all my friends having fun. The first time I ever made it to the top of Green Mountain was my freshman year of high school 1994 kind of a long time ago and I remember thinking oh man this is gonna be so hard it was 16 miles to run from Boulder High School to the top of Green Mountain and back and I'd always been a runner but I'd never run that kind of distance and especially not this type of vert and I remember thinking oh gosh there's no way I'm gonna be able to do this but slowly but surely we made it and that may have been one of the first real challenges of my life where I overcame something that I didn't think I was gonna be able to do and it felt so good and it filled me up with just confidence for the rest of the cross-country season. Here we are. Look at that. Have I told you that I love Boulder? I love it. That's my town right there look and to make it official at the top of Green Mountain hold on I can do this I think I can't you got to get to this thing and hit the buzzer pump pump pump. Look at all those beautiful mountains. Okay gratitude station number three and you know what I'm thinking about right now or I've been thinking about for the last hour that's one of the best things about running or biking you have so much time to think and I am so grateful for all of you sitting on your couches or your computer chairs right there. I'm so grateful for you because without you I wouldn't be able to do what I do for a living it's an absolute honor to be able to travel the world and share stories with you and it's incredible and I love being able to interact with you and help you on your own journeys we've created this wonderful community of people I don't know a lot of you in real life but I know some of you and you're all awesome and and I just I'm very very thankful that this is what I get to do for a living this is a dream. So there's Bear Peak and there's South Boulder Peak. This is hard. This is hard. Getting to the top of Bear Peak is not runnable as you can see. A lot of rocks and they're slippery be careful. Bear Peak ladies and gentlemen and you really get a perspective on how flat the city of Boulder is and then boom the Rocky Mountains the foothills start up just west of town and you know what I'm thinking of right now what I'm grateful for my corazón my heart and it's thumping pretty hard and something that I do now after I run something hard or I ride my bike up a steep mountain and I can feel my heart going crazy I put my hand on my heart and I just think it good job heart way to go thanks for getting me here once again I'm very grateful for my strong heart because for most of my young life I had extremely high blood pressure and I was on medication every single day to lower my blood pressure I'm much better now so my heart has had to work over time throughout my entire life and I keep on asking more of it and it keeps on providing so thank you corazón look at these cuties just waiting for their owners hi guys hi can I pet you oh you're so sweet yeah you're so sweet both of you okay one more big mountain to go South Boulder Peak we got this South Boulder Peak does not take long to get to from Bear Peak but here I am huh man it feels good I'm really glad I got outside today I was wondering whether or not this was a good idea with COVID and everything and I think it's a really good idea I feel amazing I feel so good and I'm just glad that I've been out in nature all day such a stunning stunning beautiful day and I have Thanksgiving tomorrow to look forward to that's what I'm grateful for just being able to be standing on South Boulder Peak right now because I didn't know how far I'd get I really didn't this is like my fourth day of COVID and it hasn't hit me too hard but still it just makes things a little bit harder when you have a runny stuffy nose and a little bit of a headache but I'm feeling pretty solid and it's all because of this all right I'm done with all the big mountains which feels great but I'm still pretty far away from where I need to get home so I'm gonna start hustling down the canyon here just think it's shadow Canyon or something and make my way home the sun's gonna go down and like I don't know a little over two hours it's 2 p.m. what's up shadow we're almost done where to go buddy now I need to take a bus home or something I am on the other side of town from where I live and thank you so much for watching I appreciate it please like and subscribe and do all those things that you're supposed to do on YouTube right and stay tuned for some more adventures on feet or on wheels who knows anyway you guys are awesome happy Thanksgiving cheers