Day ??? Practice Hike #2

Over the weekend, I took my second official hike since starting training. It was a delightful view over looking the Pacific ocean. We were in the Palos Verde area of LA.

It was me, the husband, my bother in law, sister in law and my two nieces (age 10 and 8). It was supposed to be a "easy" hike, probably walking a fire road, but at some point, we strayed and decided to follow another trail of dirt. Some of th

e dirt was like talcum powder, and we were heading almost to the ocean. I think we all thought that if we didn't stop where we did, it would continue to the water line.

The trail was covered in the bone dry foliage and bushes. Fire season is upon us. And I was hiking with 2 smokers. Scary thought. Thick pan

ts would have been a good move because the branches that lined the path scratched whatever it rubbed against. We found refuge from the sun under some really nice trees. If only the whole hike could be be under those trees! We ate the sandwiches that we brought along with some soda and juice boxes. We took a group photo to prove that we did indeed take a group hike, and turned around.

Up Up Up the mountain.

This is where we stopped navigating our footing not to slip, and instead focused on our breathe, or lack there was, I should say. At times, we were hiking an 8 degree grade only with a few seconds of some actual flat ground.

When we got to a clearing, there were steps... I

am guessing to be about 500 of them that brought us out of the canyon and back to our cars.

We climbed and climbed and climbed. I'm used to steps, but these were tough. There was this Asian man who was working out on the top tier of them, and wow, he was doing something right! He had a six pack and even looked like he was enjoying himself... moron.

But, I only ever hike if the view is worth it... you tell me?

While I was in the Outer Banks, I did my best to try to get as much excerise as possible. Lying on the beach and eating comfort food didn't really go with my "plan", but I wanted to go with the flow. I did have the opportunity to explore and climb Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.



This baby has like 257 stairs (I asked the nice park Ranger from Boston) and then I was able to fly up the steps with only 1 or 2 short breaks to grab some breath. But it was very exciting to see my body responding in a way I'm hoping it to.

In actuality, when working out with Erika, I think I climb about 3 of these lighthouses as a warmup, but I will take the sucesses when they come!







This is what the stairs looked like from a diagram. Its a better picture than I could have taken!




When I asked Brian what he thought of the climb, he said he was winded. It put a nice perspective for me.

Day 65

OMG. I've been gone a while. Work's been busy, rendering me trying to sleep as much as possible when I get home.

Then an impromptu trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina where I laid on the beach for a week and read... Life is good.

Back in the swing of things, I knew that if I didn't work out on Tuesday with Erika, I would have likely put my workout back on vacation too. But I made it.

And...

I've progressed to 10 pound weights for my arms!!! YAY