It has been a weird and crazy couple of weeks, as a result I have been very neglectful to my blog so I am going to catch it up with this combined post.
I have been fighting really hard to not give in to my bad eating habits and it paid off….I managed to take off the weight I gained back and so I am at 57.4 Lbs lost, 32.6 left to go. Yay! I just focused on working out and staying within my daily calorie allotment.
My hike last weekend ended up being a repeater. I woke up at 4AM with every intention of doing a new hike but just felt really off , like I am pretty sure I cannot do a 5-7 hour hike off, adding in 3 hours of travel time ( round trip) seemed near impossible. After my weight gain I didn’t want to not do anything either and since I was already up, I headed off to Deer Creek Canyon. It is close to home and I knew that I could get a quick 8.6 miles in with a decent leg workout.
I will admit that I felt funky at the beginning of the hike but soon found my legs and really started moving. There is something about knowing your hike so intimately that makes it fly by and seem much easier than it used to feel. Before I knew it I was on the final mile, which is completely downhill, and so I decided to jog it. I have started noticing that smaller steps feel much better on my tired feet when the end of a hike is near and I am struggling with the downhill return, the only way to take smaller steps comfortably is to jog a little. Since I was feeling so good I thought I would test out how it would feel to jog for an extended period of time. It felt good and I was surprised at how far I made it. It kinda made me sit back and think hmmmm, I wonder what else I can do now that I could never even consider before. I ended up finishing the hike in under 3 hours, a personal best for me. Unfortunately the rest of the weekend was spent in bed feeling terrible. I am so glad I got out when I could and I think it actually helped me get back to working out faster. Monday morning’s workout was surprisingly good.
I did do a new hike this weekend and did some jogging again at the end, it felt great….I see a new me coming around the corner, one that might actually jog occasionally. Who knew someone who hates jogging with a passion could find a way to like it through hiking?
hiking to healthy 
Nice work getting back at it even when you didn’t feel like it! And I think it’s awesome that your body has shown you what it’s capable of. Best. Feeling. Ever. Go girl!
Thank you! It has been feeling pretty awesome to bust out jogging at points these last 2 hikes. It also gives a little more challenge on the way down which is usually not as big of a cardio workout.
Watch out, that running bug will get ya!
Ha! Well I don’t know that I could ever love running like I love hiking but it is certainly an interesting transition for me! It is really helping me challenge myself!
Good for you to get your weight down again: not easy to pick up on motivation, good job! And I like the expression that you ‘know your hike intimately’. I can feel like too, almost as if I own it in a certain way.
Thank you! Deer Creek Canyon really does feel like my own little church, so many great things there!
What a wonderful feeling — making yourself do your hike and then discovering that you can do so much more than before. You go, girl!
It really has helped my overall outlook and what I want to start trying! Thank you!