The Morning After...

6:45am: I'll tell you what, the morning after conquering your goal for the month feels great...mentally at least. I woke up fresh and ready to go and looking forward to my walk. My legs? Ehhhhhhhh, no. It felt like a professional soccer team spent the night kicking up and down my legs. My left hip hurt, along with my right ankle, left knee, right foot, and left calf. Maybe I'm just getting to old for this? I'm falling apart here.

Nevertheless, I rolled out of bed to gather my clothing and shoes for the walk. Jezzabel was of course all over my stuff and following me around my room and panting. She has a crazy internal alarm clock. I don't know if she actually walks to my door at 6 every morning or if she just wanders over in the middle of the night. It would be interesting to know. One thing that I do know, is that she starts to whine at 6 on the dot.

As for the walk, after working out all of the kinks in my legs, it went well. I was coughing quite a bit in the beginning and getting a decent amount of stuff up. It was mostly clear with a bit of light yellow streaks some of the time. It was a very cool morning out which always feels so refreshing to walk in. There were quite of few dogs out walking their masters this morning and J Bell wanted to say hello to every one of them (plus the cat that hid under a car). I think after church today Mandi and I are going to go for a little hike. I'm looking forward to it.

Total Distance: 2.1 miles Time: 35'28" (includes dog sniffing time)

1:00pm: Mandi and I set off to do Sunset Trail today after church (and Dunkin Donuts of course). What I love about Sunset Trail is it is not straight up and down. It kind of zig-zags back and forth on the steep areas to provide a more gradual climb. Don't get me wrong, it feels like my heart is going to beat out of my chest and I get incredibly winded, but it certainly isn't as bad as let's say a Squaw Peak.

I always get the most winded and tired right in the beginning of the hike. I'm not quite sure why this is, but I'm guessing that it is just my body adjusting to the hills. Up until today, I had never quite made it to Sunset Point. There is a check point of sorts about 1.8 miles in, that my previous two times doing this hike, I turned around and headed back at. Well, today was a different story. From that 1.8 mile marker it's only another .2 miles to Sunset Point. Let me just tell you, the last .2 miles are BY FAR the toughest. It's almost as if the trail makers just wanted to tease you and get you all worked up to get to the peak, before pulling the rug out from under you and really making you work for it.

I think I took double the breaks on the last .2 miles than I did the first 1.8. One thing I'll say though, is my breaks aren't nearly as long as they used to be. I just stop for about 30 seconds to catch my breath and wet my whistle. Getting a little taste for the face is always important for me cause I have had quite a few cramping episodes from not staying hydrated. I also had to stop a couple of times to rest my legs. They were really feeling it today and were super tired. I think overall, my legs had a worse performance than my lungs. I'm just not sure if that's a good or bad thing...

The view from the peak was absolutely worth it, and I was so glad that I got to share my first time there with Mandi. She's been pushing me hard for the last 3 weeks and I know it encourages her to see the progress that I'm making. The first time we ever did the trail together, I couldn't make it to the top and I took about 47 breaks. The breaks are way down and this time we finished it out strong. I took some pictures that I don't have time to post right now, but I will get to it as soon as possible. If you don't see pictures now, make sure to check back later.

Total Distance: 4.0 miles Time: 1h 45m (approx)

Total Distance Walk/Hike for Day: 6.1 miles

Remember to always wear sunscreen...whoops