Christmas Day Hike

Yep, although I had a very rare complete rest day from Coach Karen, Dr. Z and I decided to go on a lovely hike up one of the smaller hills around here. After all, he needed to test out the new trekking poles I got him for Christmas. It was mid-20's with just a little bit of snow - perfect weather for playing outside!

At the trailhead


Dr. Z adjusts his new toys before setting off.


The beginning, easy, flat part of the trail.


And now starts the climbing. Was steeper and more technical than I was expecting given this hill's reputation.


The photo doesn't do justice to how STEEP this section was, which is why the rope was there. I opted to NOT go this way and bushwacked my way around.


This sign was up near the summit. Guess which way we had come from? Durr. No WONDER this wasn't the cakewalk it was supposed to be.


At the top. Not the best of views between the clouds and the fact that this was a small hill, but still pretty.


The very highest part of the hill. My feet always seem to get me there.


A well-earned cup of hot cocoa at the end of the day. A wonderful Christmas indeed.

Here's hoping that all of you had as lovely a holiday.

And Now For Something Completely Different

For the past two years I've dedicated all of my physical energy to swimbikerun. Last off-season I was injured so I didn't really get to do anything different. However, with the Mohawk-Hudson half marathon over I am officially in the off-season and only doing base/maintenance work.

So with it being extremely windy, Dr. Z and I decided to do something we haven't' done in at least a year and hike - one of few outdoor activities NOT affected by the wind. We targeted Owl's Head, a bump of a hill against the backdrop of the REAL Adirondack mountains but perfect for two out-of-hiking-shape mountain bums. It was kind of strange packing nearly nothing after being accustomed to all-day hikes. Just some water and rain jackets since the weather was iffy.


On the way up the trail.




Some views on the way up. Notice that all of the "real" mountains we usually hike are towering over us.


Me at the top. I'm leaning because the wind is blowing me over. This picture would have literally been impossible if the wind was blowing the other way - it would have been too dangerous. We didn't linger on the top because of the gusts.




Some views from the top. Unfortunately peak foliage is long past, so the colors aren't very vibrant. Still a gorgeous view though!


Heading back down the trail.

The rain came in just as we got to the truck, so our timing was perfect.

As for S/B/R? I did get in a quick spin session on the trainer late in the afternoon. You can never quite shut up the inner triathlete.

No Running (For Now)

Went hiking up Big Slide on Saturday with Dr. Z. It ended up KILLING my foot, especially when I had to supinate to stay on the rocks. After the hike, my foot was really swollen and discolored and hurt like a sonofabitch.

I decided to ice it and give it overnight to feel better before going to Urgent Care. It hurt just as much in the morning, so it was off to the doctor's. The good news is that it's a pulled ligament, not a broken metatarsal. The bad news is that running is out, and as I found out at last night's class, is Karate. Sigh.

Biking doesn't seem to bother it - I did an hour on the trainer yesterday without problem. I even did a weight circuit.

I'm off to the pool shortly - we'll see how the foot handles swimming.

Hiking and Running

Yesterday's hike up Catamount was a lot of fun. We didn't make it all the way since JewishMom and I were the only non-injured people, but we had a blast anyway. Here's some pics of "Pip and the Gimps" as JewishMom called us.


Me and the Gimps



Me going up the chute



Taking a break

Today was an easy three miles in 26:20 - the weather was perfect! Shame it wasn't a tempo day.

Tonight will be Sensei's first night back to Karate since his month-long trip to Florida. Should be...interesting, to say the least.

Tomorrow is a tempo three miles and paddling.

Catching Up

I hadn't realized it had been a week since my last update - Yikes! Last week was unusually busy, as my disaster area of a house on Sunday morning attested to.

Tuesday was a much-needed day off. No running, Karate or cross-training.

Wednesday I did a three mile tempo run in 25:59. I was not happy with that pace, but what the hell - it's February. In any case, it felt great to run outdoors instead of on a treadmill. Wednesday night was sparring, starting with Sensei and ending with four fights, only one of which was NOT against a black belt or Sensei. Needless to say, I slept like a baby that night.

Thursday I attempted an easy treadmill run, but my freakin' foot cramped up on me something fierce. It ended up being three miles very slow. I then went in the weight room and did abs, chest and tris.

My foot was still really bothering me on Friday, so I didn't even bother trying to run or do anything on my feet. Instead I made it a hardcore weight training day, with abs, shoulders, back, biceps, quads and hamstrings. I begged off of Friday night Karate to let my foot heal, especially with a hike planned for the next day.

Saturday, Dr. Z, JewishMom and two others bagged both Porter and Cascade. That's a total of three High Peaks done and accounted for, all in winter. It was windy as hell at the top but otherwise a beautiful day to be outside. The trails were jam packed with people.

Sunday was a much needed day off, although Dr. Z and I forced ourselves to go for a walk to work out some of the mucho stiffness from our first serious hike in months.

Today I went back to the gym and did my long slow run. It was only five miles, but that's plenty for now. I did it in 44:39, which is about my usual long slow day pace. I ran out of time and energy to do any weight training, and figured I needed to leave something for tonight's kids class and regular Karate class.

So, tonight will probably be relatively low-key since we just sparred on Wednesday, and thank God. *LOL*

Tomorrow is a light three mile run easy and upper body weights.

Slowly but Surely Improving

Friday night Dr. Z and I did a marathon kata review - hit all of the non-black belt katas. Dr. Z then went on to work bo, but by then I was tired and needed to sit down.

Saturday we went hiking with JewishMom. We got about 45 minutes in and I had to turn around, mainly because the 5-degree air was making me cough too much. It's frustrating, but I just have to keep telling myself I'm doing better than before.

Sunday I didn't do a damn thing except watch football. (THREE wildcard teams winning? The HELL?) I also watched "PreFontaine," which of course left me a blubbery mess at the end. I mean, the hearse going around the track to the pace of PreFontaine's PR while R. Lee Hermey intones, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Steve PreFontaine's bell lap" and the crowd cheers "Pre! Pre! Pre!"? Excuse me while I run up Kleenex's stock price.

Today I went to the gym - managed half an hour of an 11 minute pace and only a little coughing at the end. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to do a 10:30 pace.

Tonight is my first real Karate class in weeks, so that should be interesting.

Jogging Again

Hey All!

I went to the gym again today. This time I was able to actually jog 12 minute miles for half an hour. I did pay for it after with a huge coughing fit, but otherwise it felt great. I'm slowly but surely coming back. I'm just glad it's in the middle of the off-season so I have plenty of time to let my lungs heal.

Tomorrow will be a light, easy hike with Dr. Z and JewishMom. I'm a little nervous because it's supposed to be super-cold tomorrow morning (low of -10 overnight tonight), which is what really aggravates my lungs right now. I'm not going to be stubborn though - if my chest starts hurting, I'm turning around.

Anyway, tonight is Karate for the first time in weeks. I really need to review my kata because it's been so long.

First High Peak Bagged!

Wow, it was one of those weekends where I needed to go back to work to get some rest! LOL.

Friday night was Karate. BruceLee was there for a little while, but mostly it was just Dr. Z and I. We worked on brown belt kata and once BruceLee arrived, KusankuDai.

Saturday we went crosscountry skiing. It was the first time there was actually enough snow on the ground to do it properly. Despite the frigid single-digit temperatures, we managed to keep warm enough for two laps around the golf course. I'm starting to get the hang of it, but uphill is still giving me a problem. It just feels extremely unnatural to go uphill on skiis.

Sunday was a long hike with Dr.Z, JewishMom and Megatron. And by "long" I mean all eight hours of daylight we have this time of year. We went up Phelps under snowy, windy and icy conditions, but we made it! Dr. Z and I officially bagged our first high peak and are on our way to becoming 46ers.

Needless to say, no gym today, only Karate. Even *I* can only do so much! LOL

Am I Boring You Yet?

Heh. Sorry, once again not much for updates.

Saturday, Dr. Z bought me an early Christmas present - a three month membership to the gym to get me through winter. Yay! I was happy to go back.

Sunday I went hiking up Pitchoff with Dr. Z and JewishMom, but had to turn back early when my front foot slipped and my back foot caught in a root at the same time, tweaking my knee in a very bad way. Luckily, lots of ice and elevation the rest of the day healed things up nicely.

Monday I broke in my new gym membership. I jogged on the treadmill - knee felt fine - and then did chest and triceps for weightwork. Unfortunately by the time evening came around the lack of sleep the night before caught up with me and I didn't go to Karate.

Tuesday I went to the gym again and did the bike for 25 minutes on level two. I wanted to keep it light and had to keep it short because of meetings. I worked back and biceps downstairs.

Today probably won't see me at the gym since I need to use what little free time I have to go grocery shopping. However, I'm going to Karate if I have to drag myself kicking and screaming.

Hiking and Biking

Good Morning! Here's your weekly off-season update:

Wednesday Night - Karate. Sensei was not there and Sensei SixPack had to leave early, so Dr. Z ended up being in charge. We worked Kata (spent most of the time teaching) and some self-defense.

Thursday - Last day at the gym. I had the bike up to level six and also worked on back and biceps. Very sad to see my pass expire, but I don't have the extra $45 a month a membership would require.

Friday - Day off. Did go to Karate with Dr. Z, where we worked on Bo sparring for the first time in over a year and reviewed kata. We left early thanks to loud Can/Am kids in the hotel.

Saturday - Gym with Dr. Z. I worked chest and triceps, after biking nearly eleven miles. (The bike at the FCI is definitely calibrated differently.)

Sunday - Hiking! We decided to do Scarface. Dr. Z got tired, so we turned around before summiting. (It was cold, windy, fogging and snowy anyway.)

Today is Karate and some weightlifting at home if I can find the time. One more week until I can start running again! (And only two until the Speedskating Oval opens!)

Still Slow

Not many updates lately, but there's also not much going on. Running is over and I'm doing the bike at the gym to let my lower legs heal, canoeing is over and we put the canoe away for winter storage a couple days ago, nothing new at Karate, and no speedskating yet. (Although we DID just have our first snow of the year - half a foot of the wet, heavy stuff fell last night.)

Dr. Z and I did do a quick hike up Mount Baker on Sunday. We would have done a longer hike but the weather was supposed to be really terrible in the afternoon so we didn't think we had a lot of time. Turned out to be gorgeous the entire day, but what the hell. You can never predict the weather in Lake Placid.

Don't worry, a couple more weeks and not only will I be running again (low-key, offseason stuff but running nonetheless), in a month the speedskating oval will be opening and I will once again be attempting to NOT fall on my ass.

Weekend Update

Friday night Dr. Z and I did some preparation for the karate tournament coming up in two weeks. A little touch sparring - my reflexes are still a bit off after not sparring much the past few months, and some review of kata and weapons. I'm still feeling a little rusty in general but hopefully I can get prepared in time to do well.

Saturday we went hiking with JewishMom and her friends. Despite concerns about Dr. Z's knee, we ended up going way ahead of them. We felt bad, but we really weren't going that fast at all. They were just at a real snail's pace. Anyway, it was still a good hike up Noonmark and back. It's nice to be getting back into hiking and was good practice for my trail run this weekend.

Today is a light gym workout (tired legs) and Karate. Tomorrow, gym and not sure what else. Unfortunately canoe season is over. :-(

Bad News/Good News

Hey all two of my confirmed readers! Heehee.

Bad news first. The reason there was no posting last week is because I was battling a nasty, nasty cold and didn't exercise at all.

Good news (there's a lot more of this, luckily): I was well enough to go down to Connecticut to train with O'Sensei. We spent Friday night doing self-defense against knife attacks. Not my strong suit, but it was still amazing being in a roomful of very high-level martial artists. (At a high brown belt I was one of the lowest-ranked people there.) O'Sensei didn't seem himself from what people had described of him, but I found out later that he was stressed and upset due to some stupid martial arts politics. (Yes, they do exist and are in Tae Kwon Do and probably every other art in existence as well.) Afterwards, I found out from Sensei that O'Sensei was supposed to present me with my black belt certificate but politics kept it from happening.

So, I now have two black belts, just not officially yet. Not sure when I will actually be officially promoted because Sensei tends to be absent-minded about such things.

Saturday was the big banquet for O'Sensei's 60th anniversary of teaching. It was really fun to see everyone dressed up. What was truly amusing is that you could tell that most of the people there would have been a lot more comfortable sitting around in their gi's.

More good news: Yesterday Dr. Z and I went on our first hike in months. We decided to do Catamount, which in the end wasn't a good idea for me. I'm bad at rock-scrambling as it is, but I still had vertigo from my cold, which made it even more challenging. After hours of having to balance by sight alone, I was physically and mentally exhausted. I did manage to not fall off the side of the mountain though and am even not that sore this morning.

There's no Karate today because of the holiday, but I plan on trying an easy run and hopefully some canoeing with Dr. Z after work.

Last Busy Weekend

Well, this was the last busy weekend of the summer. Sigh. We had our last canoe race of the year on Saturday. It was awesome - we took 8 minutes off last year's time and that was with a nasty headwind. (Yes, two extremely windy races in a row. Ouch.) In addition, I somehow reinjured my wrist two days before. Amazingly enough I was still able to paddle. My wrist certainly isn't happy with me today, though.

MomTook was supposed to come up in the afternoon, but because it was the first hot enough weekend day of the year, they had decided to put some turkey in the smoker and she had to watch it since Geritol was out. I ended up coming down for dinner. I had never had smoked meat before, and...wow. It was turkey breast, which is usually the driest meat on earth, but this stuff was so juicy and tender it practically fell apart. Yum! I got to take some home with me and I can't wait to make a sandwich with it.

Sunday was a monster hike up Noonmark. We ended up getting rained on, but made pretty good time. It was the longest hike I've done all year. My legs were killing me, but then I realized that I had run a ridiculous amount last week and my muscles needed a break. Hence today I will be only walking into town to buy VeggieSis's birthday gift.

Awesome Weekend

Hey All,

Wow, what a weekend. Friday night I got all the way through Chinto with Mssrs. Z and S. Happiness! Of course, we'll see how much I retain.

Saturday I was up early for the first canoe race in over five weeks. To bad it sucked muchly. First of all, forget our specific class; there were NO other rec canoes at ALL. So now Dr. Z is all upset about probably having to move to stock class. Telling him that I went to the Wenonah website and priced the stocks at $2000 didn't help. Oops. I did offer to go in with him on it, seeing as it's only used for racing and I'm his partner. Secondly, the people running it were MORONS. They were SO disorganized (paperwork not there until right before the race, failing to give classes the correct start time, and an inability to read the results) it was ridiculous.

Sunday I went for an early morning hike up Ampersand. It was perfect timing because I left just as the IronPeople were getting out of the water. The bike route is a terrible time for cheering/spectating/etc because they get really spread out over the 112 miles and you only see them for an instant. We ate lunch at a new outdoor grill/cafe place and then I was able to watch the marathon section with JewishMom. It was great. I took a break from 5-8, and then headed up to the skating rink to watch the IronPeople come in. It was SO much fun.

I Don't Feel Like Blogging

Don't know why, but lately I just haven't felt like blogging.

Anyway...

Picked up my new dresser and rug on Saturday. They both look awesome! I'm especially happy with how the rug looks in the living room. It's PERFECT. The dresser is a bit more particleboard than I'd like, but is the perfect size and style for my bedroom.

I also finally got a real lawnmower. It's electric instead of gas, but I think that will work out a lot better for me, especially with my teeny tiny lawn.

Went for a long hike with Dr. Z yesterday. We needed it though - we're severely undertrained for September's Colorado backpacking trip. The plan is to do a long hike once a week until it's time to leave.

Oh, also - received three more stripes in Karate on Friday. Found out that when FakeDaughter showed Sensei her katas, she received a total of four, so Dr. Z was a bit pissed (since he seems to think I'm better) and gave me three to match her rank. I'm going to work even harder on my katas and hopefully get ahead of her again.

In other news, I was sick as a dog last Wednesday. I managed to make it through work, but just barely. I crashed all evening. Not surprising since I had had body aches and a fever of 100 degrees all day. (Doesn't sound like much, but my temp usually runs around 96 on my thermometer.)

Alright, work is busy so enough updates.

The Strongest Woman I Know

Okay...so...

Went hiking today with Dr. Z and JewishMother. It started off as normal, although it was my first long hike of the season.

About a third of the way up, a guy coming down tells us that a woman has seriously broken her leg near the summit and that the bone is nearly breaking through the skin. Dr. Z of course takes off at a dead run, having medical training. After clearing things with JewishMother, I ran up a rock face to catch up with him, figuring it would do no good to have the one person on the mountain with medical training injuring himself while rushing to help someone.

After sprinting about three miles and 2000 vertical feet we get there and a guy with at least first aid training has nicely splinted her leg and the group of a dozen hikers have covered her with coats. Seeing that she's shivering from shock, I add mine. Now, this woman has a tib-fib break so nasty it's nearly a compound AND SHE'S LAUGHING AND JOKING WITH EVERYONE. I mean, god DAMN. You'd need to hook me up to a morphine drip to be that comfortable with an injury like that. And this is a SIXTY YEAR OLD WOMAN. Wow.

Anyway, there were very high winds today, so we didn't think that they'd be able to Medivac her out, but low and behold, the chopper came. After some of the most impressive piloting I've seen, they get close enough to drop a guy out with a gurney. We get her in and then he has us basically line up along the trail and hand her up until they get to the copter. I'm at the bottom of the line so I don't see them get her in, but when they take off they have her HANGING OUT ALONGSIDE THE CHOPPER. Craziness. I thought they'd at least have her IN the copter with her head and feet hanging out. Afterwards, Dr. Z saw blood on his hands and think it might have been a compound (i.e. piercing the skin, i.e. VERY much worse). (Not that we were going to remove the Ace bandage to find out.)

We actually did end up finishing the hike after they flew her out, but even the amazing views were anti-climatic after that. All I can say is that I hope to be half as tough as this lady. Oh, and this mountain that took us almost all day because it's so long and steep? She told us that she does it as a "morning walk" in an hour and forty. WOW.