Great timing too, gearing up for a hike at Sugarloaf this weekend & Montana del Oro next weekend!
Monday, December 20, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Hike #3
Cull Canyon in Castro Valley was our hiking location for Dec 11, but with all the rain this week, it was too washed out. We changed hike locations to Muir Beach/Dias Ridge.
Beautiful fog. Soft mud. Lovely people.
Uphill at first, for a while, and me without my poles! I ordered a set from American Hiking Society for $60, hopefully they'll make it to me before the next hike! But so proud of myself for making it up to the top of the ridge!
This hike I mainly stuck with Joy!
Such a joyful and humorous lady, who might be my new carpool! Talking led to all sorts of topics: wicking undies, acupuncture, sesame snacks. It was a nice loop trail, in which we crossed Highway 1 twice. Full of other hikers and runners with doggies. One couple (wearing Cal sweaters!) had a Rhodesian Ridgeback! Totally reminded me of a friend of the family who had two Ridgebacks, who were the awesomest dogs!
Coming down from the nearly 1,000 feet of elevation was fun, especially since the fog was breaking up just enough to see the beach. Back where we started! The end in sight!
Lots of banana slugs along the trail, as you can see in the attached video. And lots of running water, puddles, mud. But not the mud that sticks to your boots, thank goodness!
Cherry cordial M&M's once we were back at the parking lot. I'm ready for next week! Rock on!
Hike #3
Cull Canyon in Castro Valley was our hiking location for Dec 11, but with all the rain this week, it was too washed out. We changed hike locations to Muir Beach/Dias Ridge.
Beautiful fog. Soft mud. Lovely people.
Uphill at first, for a while, and me without my poles! I ordered a set from American Hiking Society for $60, hopefully they'll make it to me before the next hike! But so proud of myself for making it up to the top of the ridge!
This hike I mainly stuck with Joy!
Such a joyful and humorous lady, who might be my new carpool! Talking led to all sorts of topics: wicking undies, acupuncture, sesame snacks. It was a nice loop trail, in which we crossed Highway 1 twice. Full of other hikers and runners with doggies. One couple (wearing Cal sweaters!) had a Rhodesian Ridgeback! Totally reminded me of a friend of the family who had two Ridgebacks, who were the awesomest dogs!
Coming down from the nearly 1,000 feet of elevation was fun, especially since the fog was breaking up just enough to see the beach. Back where we started! The end in sight!
Lots of banana slugs along the trail, as you can see in the attached video. And lots of running water, puddles, mud. But not the mud that sticks to your boots, thank goodness!
Cherry cordial M&M's once we were back at the parking lot. I'm ready for next week! Rock on!
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Hike #2
This was the view from the top...
Hiking from Fort Baker, underneath the Golden Gate Bridge on the Marin side, all the way to this zenith, was really not what I wanted to be doing on 9am Saturday. But I did it.
It started at 8am with the TNT group gathering to go over milestones (our team is nearly at $50,000 of fundraising!) and hear from an honoree. This hike Kurt Zimmerman talked. He didn't talk about how cancer has changed him personally. He talked about how cancer has changed his family. As soon as his daughter found out about his cancer, she signed up for a Team In Training marathon. And the whole family got behind her, and Kurt, in an effort to find a cure. In some ways, Kurt says "My cancer has really strengthened and helped my family grow." And he also says that when we're up there, struggling to reach the peak, with knees that hurt and thighs that burn, we're struggling beside him. We're in the fight just as much as he is.
Couldn't have said it better.
Uphill sucks. No doubt about it. But once you're up there (with some help from trekking poles!), your body goes into autopilot. Suddenly, you're not thinking about how your legs feel, you're simply putting one foot in front of the other. You're commenting on how beautiful the trees sound when the leaves get hit with raindrops.
Amelia was a joy to hike with - new friend FTW! - and she let me use her poles almost the entire hike. Then she told me about the American HIking Society and how they have poles for just $60! That's my next purchase. Boots, check. Fleece, check. Poles - time to go shopping!
Doesn't she look cute in her blue rainjacket!
Hike #3 is Saturday the 11th, in Cull Canyon (Castro Valley) - and then on the 12th I'm hosting a Bake Sale! So, hopefully some great fundraising news will come from that!
Time to get baking...
Monday, November 29, 2010
Hike #1
Waking up at 6:45am does not regularly occur in my world. However, waking up for my 1st hike with the team on Nov 28th went smoother than I expected. Breakfast egg boiled, tuna sammy made, teeth brushed, clothes on, and boyfriend woken up (to drive me to my mentor's house) all in about 20 minutes.
My mentor is Susan - a cat lover living in the Mission - who has completed 12 seasons of Team In Training events! Triathlon. Check. Ironman. Check. She's already done the winter hiking season before and she's training to become a coach for Team In Training! Did you know the SF Bay Area is the only chapter in the US to have a winter hiking team?
Donate to LLS and my efforts to train for a snowshoe hike in Yosemite!
The hike started out fairly benign. I've hiked at Redwoord Regional Park before - with YWSE back in August. It was much hotter then and I didn't have to deal with mud or cold breezes. It was a lovely trail, even if the uphills kicked my you-know-what. I feared that we would be walking uphill for a large portion of the hike. Not so.
The East Ridge Trail begins/ends at the Skyline Gate of the park, so starting there equals minimal uphill, as you're already at the level of the ridge itself. Our group started there, while another group started in Moraga at Valle Vista. I lucked out starting where I did, because I didn't have any steep uphills like the Valle Vista group did. We met in the middle, where the two trails meet. The passengers from Skyline hiked onward to Valle Vista and vice versa.
The hike down towards Valle Vista was really shady, amidst the redwoods, so I was glad I had built up some heat from the first leg of the hike. Going downhill is actually more difficult for your body and your legs. Again, I got lucky. I'm genetically pre-disposed to handle downhills a bit better because I've got some thick muscular thighs and calves that can handle squatting and bending for longer periods of time. Go genetics go!
We saw mushrooms, ferns, tall intertwined redwoods. It was a really beautiful hike. But the mud was unrelenting - on both stretches of the hike. On the first leg, there would be large pools of rainwater that created massive puddles that you couldn't get around easily, which then created a carpet of mud before and after the puddle. Mud meet hiking boot. Hiking boot meet mud. It's a match made in heaven - they stick to each other like teenagers in heat!
Through the second leg of the hike, the mud got so thick at one point, it felt like I had grown an inch or two. And don't even think about the ways we all thought of scraping it all off at the end of the hike! Wire fence. Rocks. But don't try the grass or brush - it's wet! Suddenly, you'll be carrying a wedding gown train of twigs and leaves with you!
Donate to LLS and my efforts to train for a snowshoe hike in Yosemite!
After the hike, most of us (in different cars than we started out in) ended up at Coach Carolyn's house. Apparently, salty and sweet snacks are what you crave after a hike! Potato chips, pretzels, chocolate, cookies, and beer. I gladly ate my tuna sandwich, but also carbed up on all of the aforementioned junk. I had drank all of my Camelbak's water (70 oz.) - I figured the beer was a great way to cap my first hike! No worries though, I only drank half a pint...
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
OMG, Snowshoes?!
Impetus? Not being a lazy bum without exercise in her life.
Source? New health coach Chloe, letting me know I can hike with others with a greater goal in mind.
What? Team In Training's Hike Team in the Bay Area (which has beer and wine snobs in it, gotta be good, right?)
When? January 22nd is the big badass hike in Yosemite - in the snow!
Snowshoes? Really? Really.
Watch me wear and rock the snowshoe! Watch me save lives!
I'll be updating my fundraising page with all sorts of update goodies between now and January 22nd. You'll get to see where I did my training hikes with the group, my progress as I train during the week, and the stories of our team honorees: folks who have lived and often survived a blood cancer. Donate now and you not only get my undying devotion and a big smile - but you get to know that you are affecting the lives of those effected by a blood cancer. You're supporting a patient and their family through medication, hospital stays, and funding research to find a cure.
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Thursday, August 19, 2010
East Coast Vacay Plans!
Yay! A flight has been booked as of 8:20pm last night, August 18th, 2010!
I am officially going on vacation as of September 12th. Sigh of relief. AND the price of the flight actually decreased since last week. Virgin America rules!
We will be landing here...
Boston. Before driving northwest to a little town called Royalton, Vermont. This is where we'll do some....
camping! Haven't decided yet if we're bringing the tent with or renting once we're there, but either way, sleeping bags will be used! September in Vermont is beautiful, so I've heard. And the Four Springs Farm is not only a great camp site, it's also an organic farm that produces bushels of yumminess - enough for a local CSA program. And they have a bakery! Can you see me now? Gorging myself on home-baked berry pies?
After a couple nights of camping Vermont-style, we stay in the state to check out this place....
NECI (New England Culinary Institute) to see if it's the place le boyfriend wants to commit himself to for the next 3-4 years. I think that would be a rockin' adventure - I'm fully supportive!
But we can't leave the East Coast without checking out the competition from this place...
the CIA. No, not where they run around in black suits and spy on each other. The Culinary Institute of America, people! Big stuff, they've got a campus in Hyde Park, NY - but also in Healdsburg, CA (just to the north of us) and in San Antonio, TX. However, only the NY location has the BA that le boyfriend wants!
And since Hypde Park is only 2 hours north of my godmother, Jill, it just wouldn't be right unless we stayed with her a night and visited this place...
The Big Apple! We'll fly out of JFK (probably) and head home, with many big decisions about le boyfriend's academic future on our minds and lips.
Should be a kick-ass vacation with lots of yummy food along the way - no worries, I'll blog about that too! Now, back to the work day. I was at home yesterday recouping from the nasty anti-virals the doc gave me - man, do they make you exhausted! So, catching up is on today's agenda!
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