We are now at T-minus 53 days, and at risk of sounding overconfident, I am feeling pretty good. The hike this morning was not that long, but it was almost entirely hills. We did a rather circular route around Big Sycamore Canyon, between my house and my folks. Just to give you an idea: we started at 833 ft. of elevation and by Mile 3 had peaked at 1860ft. It was then pretty much downhill (and rocky) to a low point of 340 ft. at Mile 7. From there we climbed up to 833 ft. again, by Mile 9. Most of that was between mile 8 and 9.
I also discovered that I may have overdone it a bit on my pack. Most of the information I've found indicates that your pack with everything in it will probably weigh 20-22lbs. Just for kicks I weighed my pack after our hike last week to see how close I was. 35 lbs! So, I think I'm probably OK on the pack front.
In an effort to help myself trim down as much as reasonably possible, I'm still walking every day at work, and three times a week I come home and run for three miles then do a half-hour on the elliptical. This seems to be enough, if I watch the caloric intake, to keep the weight coming down at a reasonable pace.
Speaking of caloric intake, this week was tough. I was in Boston for most of the week at a conference. The conference was OK, the networking was great, and the meals were awesome. Lots of lobster and fresh fish and other seafood, plus good steak and desserts. So, I did my best to take it easy on calories during the day knowing that I was going to make up for it at night.
The weather, however, reminded of yet another reason why I generally don't want to live north of the Mason-Dixon line. It's late April. Boston was 45 degrees and raining. What in the world!? No one in Boston who was from there seemed particularly disturbed, but I got to tell you, I was freezing. On the other hand, it was great to walk the Freedom Trail and get to experience much of where our country was born.
Nonetheless, it's always good to get home, and it's hard to keep up the training schedule when you are traveling. The flight back from Boston turned out to be a bit of an ordeal - it was non-stop, but because President Obama apparently decided that he needed to be in LA at the same time I did (I know, I'm SO popular) my flight was apparently instructed to "slow down". Thus a not-quite-six-hour flight turned in to seven hours plus. Of course, when I finally got to my car to drive home (at midnight according to my now-on-Eastern-time body clock) there was traffic on the 405. Yay. At least it wasn't 45 and raining!
I bought an extra book for the flight back: Paulo Coelho walked the Pilgrimage about 25 years ago and wrote a book about it, appropriately called "The Pilgrimage". If you haven't read it, or another one of his novels, "The Alchemist", I highly recommend them. They are fairly short, easy reads. Very thought-provoking. His prose style is fairly plain, but he does tell a good story.
I have now ventured into the realm of random rambling, so I'll sign off for now. Not much to update on, really, but I felt like writing a bit. Thanks for joining me, and stay tuned!
