Listen to your Body

I've started to hike again. I'm really proud of myself. The hike I did today I would have said no way in HELL to a few months ago. But quarantine makes you do crazy things.

So today I did a 2.6 mile out and back with 850ft elevation change and then 100 stairs at the top for the fire look out view.  My FIRST piece of advice is here: Read and RE-READ your trail map before going out 850ft in 1.3 miles is one thing, what I really got myself into was 550 ft in 0.5 miles and 300 feet in 0.8 That's a difference between an overall incline of 12.4% and 20% for the first 0.5 miles with 7% for the back end. That is a painful difference. 

Which brings me to my SECOND piece of advice LISTEN to your body.  I stopped over 10 times on the way up the trail. It took me just over an hour to do 1.3 miles. And guess what? That's fine.  I'm not in competition with anyone, I'm not running a race. I am getting active and outside for MYSELF. If I had rushed I probably would not have made it to the top. But I stopped and listened. 

So THIRD piece of advice: Set Smaller goals within a longer trial.  Every 0.1-0.2 miles I had a visible trail marking be it a large rock, fallen tree or in the case of this trail hanging cranes. I never set the goal of making it to the top. I set the goal of getting to the next marker, where I would check in with myself, get some water, maybe a bite of food, even sit for a bit and then keep going. Breaking the trail into smaller parts really helped me feel like I was accomplishing something.

My FORTH and final piece of advice for this entry is to set reasonable goals.  Today's hike I did in hopes of doing a 3.5 mile 1000ft elevation on Wednesday. But after some reflection about how today's hike made me feel not only in the moment, but after, I have decided to do a 2.5 mile hike with 600ft of elevation gain. The hike will pass by 2 lakes, so I can re-evaluate at the first lake if I want to go further or not. Not giving up on beauty or enjoyment, but listening to what my body needs and not overdoing it.

Signing off for now

-C