I’m out of shape!
- July 26, 2002
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Today a friend of mine and I went hiking about an hour north of here at a place called Tall Peak. The view from the top was awesome. It’s the third highest peak in the state and is located inside a national forest. We drove part of the way, but the rangers had closed off the rest of the route. So we hopped out of the truck and started hiking up.
I used to be in pretty good shape. I’d go mountain bike riding all the time when I lived in Hawaii. I even did a 120 mile trip in 9 hours. My butt was sore for a week afterwards, but it was worth it.
Anyway, I quickly realized that I was not in the same kind of shape now. I have been behind a computer and not exercising enough for the past 2 years. And it showed. I had to stop 3 times on the way up, and it wasn’t even that high of a mountain. The heat didn’t help at all, and I had a heartbeat of about 1400 it felt like. But we eventually made it to the top, and it was worth almost having a heart attack over. There was an old ranger station at the top that gave us shade and there was a nice cool breeze. Needless to say, it was MUCH more enjoyable coming back down.
After that, we went driving about 8 miles through the forest to reach another camping area where we went swimming. It’s amazing how much better you feel after you’ve gone swimming. At first, I was only going to wade in to my knees. But after I felt how cool the water was, I decided to dive in head first. I felt 10 times better instantly.
I did have an embarrassing moment though. We had been drinking a fair amount of water while hiking, so we naturally had to take a piss somewhere. My friend went off behind some trees. I hadn’t seen any cars for a while in the area, so I decided to go only about 15 feet away from the road with my back to it but still visible to all. Sure enough, two trucks come through while I’m relieving myself! I heard them before I saw them, but it’s pretty hard to stop mid-stream when you really have to go. So I just pretended they weren’t there and kept going. It would’ve been obvious to half-blind person what I was doing, but they didn’t say anything though.
All in all, it was a nice trip and I was VERY glad to get out of the house and get some MUCH needed exercise. We might be going again next week.