Hiking relieves stress…….

So what’s been going on with me? Well short story October was freaking awesome; November, crap. Not even gonna get into it’s just been, well crap. The only thing keeping me from losing it is, well, hiking. When I’m hiking it all just stops (for awhile) the noise, sadness, anger, disappointment, hurt…….That being said my training miles are coming along quite swimmingly!!

I recently went back to tackle El Cajon (El Capitan) mountain over in Lakeside. Last time was not pretty at all (didn’t even make the summit). It was actually a fun hike this time, carried a gallon of water (drank half), no leg cramps and finished in under 6 hrs! Amazing what a little prep & training will do. One of the websites about the hike says “for experienced hikers”; guess that’s me now.  It’s a 12 mile out and back (elevation gain:4300). It was that thing I just had to do, can’t let the mountain shut you down. So yea me.

If I haven’t mentioned it I got in my first full 20 miler! That was back in October so yeah….

Anyway I decided it was time to stop dinking around carrying that daypack, as if. So today I filled up the ULA with my sleeping bag, water, food and some other trinkets, pack weighed in at 17 lbs! I was kinda shocked, it didn’t seem like there was that much in there, whoa. Headed out over the Poway hills, then down to the South Poway Trans-County trail, then onto the Los Penasquitos Canyon out to the Penasquitos Falls. Honestly, I really hadn’t planned to go that far, but I just kept going. The Poway Hills are my new fav, there is very few people up there, and the views are great! There are even a couple of lawn chairs and a budda statue at the top, in case it need to hang out for a bit and I guess meditate or whatever. It was a beautiful hike, all 18.34 miles of it (average speed 2.57) guess I was in the zone.

When I haven’t been able to get out on the trail I’ve been at the gym, did 9 miles last night on the treadmill. I started this thing where I hike at a incline while I’m watching TV, on commercials I run (downhill). Man sometime the commercials go on foreva! Ever other day I throw in some leg press, bicep curls, planks whatever I feeling like at the time.

I want to be in at least decent shape come January. Plans are to hike the San Diego Trans-County Trail (140 Miles in 7 days), fingers crossed I can pull this off. It would be a great shake down for me. We shall see….

Stay tuned I’ll be (attempting) to tackle my resupply plan soon…..oh dear, maybe I’ll wait till December!