Gym and hiking thoughts.
I've been to the gym twice now, after a hiatus of some 21 months. As expected, getting up at 6 am is rough, but so is the pain of putting my body to use after almost two years of inactivity. I managed all of twelve minutes on the elliptical machine on Monday, my first morning, and my calves have not stopped aching ever since. (Full disclosure, I did another twelve minutes on Wednesday morning, so technically my calves have ached all week thanks to twenty-four minutes on the elliptical, thank you very much.) On the weight machines, I find I have the physique of a wet noodle. On just about every weight exercise, I can master only about thirty pounds -- I keep making derogatory comments to myself about benching toothpicks and needing tweezers to pick up my weights. It's gonna be a long time before I see any real improvement at this rate.
Naturally, I'm ignoring that fact and making huge ambitious plans for hiking in the spring and summer. I doubt I'll be able to walk Breakneck Ridge end to end or climb Mount Marcy before the end of the summer, but I'm still feeling more ambitious than normal for this spring. I almost feel like inviting my uber-fit former hiking buddies to something, the ones who quietly stopped inviting me after the third time I sat gasping and heaving on the trail while they stood around awkwardly, not even breathing hard. I feel like giving myself a challenge.
It's horridly cold out, which means I'm restless for spring and nice outdoorsy weather. I'm trying to restrain the urge to type up yet another hiking schedule for next year, since those things almost never predict what I'll actually do when I have the opportunity. I want to do everything, though. My imagination skitters along from one trail to another, more than I could possibly pack into any realistic year.
Plus I keep coming up with new ways to expand my geographical reach. What if I, like, take the car after Jen gets home one Friday, drive until 1 or 2 am, and hike in the morning? (Gas calculations don't factor into my imaginary scenario just yet, though they would be prohibitive, to say the least.) Why, I could reach Ottawa and hike in Gatineau Park! Or I could go north and reach Acadia National Park! Or south, deep into Virginia! Or west to Cuyahoga Valley National Park! Or what if it were a three day weekend, and I somehow had the funds to rent a car. Why, I could drive sixteen hours in any direction, and still have a whole day for hiking before turning around. I could reach Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan, the hills in southern Illinois, anywhere in Maritime Canada and Quebec south of the St. Lawrence (including Cape Breton and or Chics-Chocs), anywhere in Ontario up to and including Lake Superior Provincial Park, anywhere in the southern Appalachians from West Virginia to Alabama, Kentucky's Red River Gorge... All extremely unlikely to happen, of course, at least until 2016 or so, but it adds a whole new way I can sate my geographical hunger. Someday.
Naturally, I'm ignoring that fact and making huge ambitious plans for hiking in the spring and summer. I doubt I'll be able to walk Breakneck Ridge end to end or climb Mount Marcy before the end of the summer, but I'm still feeling more ambitious than normal for this spring. I almost feel like inviting my uber-fit former hiking buddies to something, the ones who quietly stopped inviting me after the third time I sat gasping and heaving on the trail while they stood around awkwardly, not even breathing hard. I feel like giving myself a challenge.
It's horridly cold out, which means I'm restless for spring and nice outdoorsy weather. I'm trying to restrain the urge to type up yet another hiking schedule for next year, since those things almost never predict what I'll actually do when I have the opportunity. I want to do everything, though. My imagination skitters along from one trail to another, more than I could possibly pack into any realistic year.
Plus I keep coming up with new ways to expand my geographical reach. What if I, like, take the car after Jen gets home one Friday, drive until 1 or 2 am, and hike in the morning? (Gas calculations don't factor into my imaginary scenario just yet, though they would be prohibitive, to say the least.) Why, I could reach Ottawa and hike in Gatineau Park! Or I could go north and reach Acadia National Park! Or south, deep into Virginia! Or west to Cuyahoga Valley National Park! Or what if it were a three day weekend, and I somehow had the funds to rent a car. Why, I could drive sixteen hours in any direction, and still have a whole day for hiking before turning around. I could reach Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan, the hills in southern Illinois, anywhere in Maritime Canada and Quebec south of the St. Lawrence (including Cape Breton and or Chics-Chocs), anywhere in Ontario up to and including Lake Superior Provincial Park, anywhere in the southern Appalachians from West Virginia to Alabama, Kentucky's Red River Gorge... All extremely unlikely to happen, of course, at least until 2016 or so, but it adds a whole new way I can sate my geographical hunger. Someday.