Hike

I haven't been running much.  I do better with running when I have a goal I'm working towards.  I don't have a goal right now other than getting better.  I have run 24 miles in January so far.  I have pretty much abandoned running after work.  The thought of the cold and the dark has kept me inside, plus, the treadmill being in the living room has me thinking I don't need to go outside to run.  Problem is, I'm not running on the treadmill either, I'm walking.  I guess I need to find a half marathon in the spring I want to run and start training for it.

I am doing a lot of walking right now.  I've been walking at lunch a couple times a week, and also am walking on the treadmill in the evenings most nights a week. I don't think that the walking I am doing is keeping me in shape, but at least I'm not sitting on my butt all day and evening.  =) 

I've said it before, when I don't run I don't have as much to talk about.  Even if I'm not talking about running, at least I can think of something to say. 

Actually . . . I forgot (see, not running makes me stupider).

This weekend I went on two short hikes.  The first one was on Saturday with Maddox.  I told him we were going on an adventure, and he said he wanted to be Adventure Cat (whatever that is).  I said that he is Adventure Maddox, and he loved that name.  Then he told me we were Adventure People and we needed to go get Adventure Hats, 4 of them (even though it was just him and I hiking). 

He is so different than Damian.  His conversation was all over the place and he never stopped talking.  He talked about being Adventure People, and he talked about wanting to be like Damian.  He probably talked about Damian for 20 min, how strong he is, and how high he can climb, and how he wants to be like Damian.  He never left the trail (I couldn't keep Damian on a trail) and he avoided all the puddles because he didn't want the water to go over his boots and get his feet wet.

  Overall it was fun.  I will do it again with him.

Monday was Martin Luther King Jr Day, and while I didn't have the day off, Damian had the day off, so I took it off.  We decided we were going to go for a bigger hike and take packs and just see how it felt.  I asked a friend of mine who hikes if she knew any easy day hikes, and I was given a couple maps.  Damian picked the one he liked, he said it was 2 miles out and 2 miles back, so I thought that would be a nice little hike. 

I had no idea what to put into a pack, so kept asking Damian.  I don't have anything, and if I go alone I'll have to borrow stuff from Damian.  I really wanted to feel what it'd be like to have a pack full so we ended up putting a bunch of books in my pack to make it heavy. 

We got to the trail and were going uphill, I actually wondered what I had gotten myself into, but it evened out pretty quickly, and then we were at the lake.  It wasn't even a quarter mile from the road.  We walked around the lake, and to and around a beaver pond.  We passed several people, mostly people that looked like they were there for a stroll.  We got almost pack to the beginning and I decided we should stop and eat lunch, so we sat on a bench by the water and ate the sandwiches we packed.  And then we were done.

The whole trail, including all offshoots we could find, was 2.25 miles.  We did it in an hour and 15 min.  I was a little disappointed that there wasn't more to it, but I really enjoyed spending the time with Damian. We talked about all sorts of things, and it was nice.  I offered to go somewhere else to hike another trail, but he wanted to go home, so home we went. 

All in all, it was a good weekend.