Outdoor Weeks Ending 3/24/13

The last two weeks I was more busy than usual but still managed to get outside for 9 hours 26 minutes the previous week, and 6 hours and 40 minutes last week. Fresh snow just prior to the official start of spring time and seasonably very cool temperature slowed things down some, but it was still beautiful outside on most days. Just a few snowy pictures for the last two weeks!

Outdoor Week Ending 3/10/13

Almost 12 hours, 3200' of climb, mostly hiking with a little trail running. For some reason I was run down early in the week, but felt a little better and did some running on the weekend. Seasons all have their character, and now I'm looking forward to springtime. Wet feet, sloppy snowy and now muddy trails, and gray skies are getting tiresome. Had a minor fall yesterday on some ice, put a nice scrape on my bare leg. Nature always refreshes and inspires though, if I go prepared and relax into the environment.

Pix, click to enlarge:

All melting fast,

then a mid-week 8 to 10 inches of fresh snow, breaking trail,

Outdoor Week Ending 3/3/13

This week brought an early change of seasons to the lower Hudson valley as the snow mostly melted with rain early in the week and daytime temperatures above freezing. Almost 15 hours and a mile of climb this week, that's better!

I encountered a mix of still very hard packed icy trails with other areas quite muddy on Friday as I wandered out to the north exploring a few new trails in an area still fairly new to me. I wasn't entirely sure what route I was taking, so I just took a look at the map every time I came to a new trail junction. I ended up doing a giant loop around the park, probably 16 or 17 miles, all on sloppy slippery ground, many times taking off and then putting back on my trusty Kahtoola microspikes.

(I've tried other traction devices for hiking and trail running, but I like these the best because they're flexible and you can wear them on rock and bare ground if necesary and they handle that better than other models, and the neoprene upper is of better quality: these never slip off even with very hard trail running).

It was a serendipitous outing that found me with just one 24 oz bottle of water, but luckily it was winter so I could get away with drinking less liquid. I had plenty of food though, and my normal solo emergency winter stuff - a lighter, space blanket, flashlight, and a few extra energy bars. I thought about the water, and it was everywhere with the snow-melt happening all around me. I should get a steripen UV water purifier I thought. But I could also put heated small rocks into my plastic water bottle to boil and purify water if necessary, I also thought.

Sometime before Parker Cabin Mountain the sun came out, as advertised, only to disappear behind a very dark cloud-front that moved in from the west 45 minutes later. Despite cloudy weather pretty much all week, I still enjoyed the stark landscape in full melt. While I was out there this week I thought about the great shoes I've been wearing all winter and how well they've served me: the Montrail Mountain Masochist 2 Outdry.

(These are waterproof and hold their waterproofness well over months of continuous use. Yes your feet eventually get wet from sweat condensation, but they run very well, can handle any terrain, and will keep your feet comfortable, warm and dry longer than any other shoe I've tried. On the wet east coast of the USA you need something like these. Highly recommended!)

Now some pix from the week (click to enlarge):

Swollen streams and rapidly melting lake ice:

Hardpack ice on the white bar trail going north:

Atop Parker Cabin Mountain:

A clusterf#$k of trees on the long path going south:

Another hurricane "Sandy" mess:

NYC from the shelter at an unmentioned location:

Still lots of snow in places:

You wonder how it even grew there, right on my favorite short section of the Kakiat trail:

Outdoor Week Ending 2/24/13

A somewhat busy week, but I still managed 9.5 hours of hiking and trail running. Cold wind ruled the week, but it was beautiful and serene outside. Seeing each season progress through it's extreme has been wonderful in the last year, and the only way is to get outside every day. Not many photos...

Mid February Update

Through the first 48 days of the year, I've done 71.5 hours of exercise, or just under 1.5 hours per day. This is not a bad start to the year considering I had the flu last month, and it's taken time to get back outside nearly every day. I had more days off recently and a few days in the gym, but I've been back on the trails much more the last two weeks, so that lifts my spirits!  I have a rough goal of averaging 2 hours per day for this year, which means I'll have to do some extra time at some point, but that should be no problem in the summer, if I stay healthy and on my feet!

Here are a bunch of recent photos from my outings (click photo to enlarge):

Nice Powder after the storm.

My snowshoe like skis: Karhu Karvers -- it was a lot of fun but exhausting

I think Raccoon, but I'm not sure.

I was looking at houses, and there was one up on a hill in Hillburn in a very remote location. This access road was apparently closed, but I walked up halfway only to see the road disappear up the mountain. The next day, I drove in with my agent from the New Jersey side, a 2-3 mile winding trip up the mountain. Very cool location, but not right for me for various reasons, not the least of which was that this access road isn't being used and has issues, but also too many neighbors on the Jersey side, who would all want to drive right past (my) house if this access was opened. Oh well.

Outdoor Week Ending 1/27/13

So last week nipped an injury in the bud, this week otherwise overcome. Influenza. I was out for three hours on Monday, and though I did feel slightly tired at the beginning, I felt strong enough. But in the last hour of my run-hike, I felt my lungs being chilled, even though I was dressed warmly. That hastened the flu blooming inside me, and what followed was a week lost. Viruses affect not only the weak, the young and the elderly, but kill far too many of such -- one quarter to one half a million people every year die from influenza. Trying to feel fortunate for life ongoing, and not lamenting time lost, I'm healing well and I'm looking forward to getting back outdoors this coming week!

Outdoor Week 1/20/13: Nipping a Tweak in the Bud

Monday I felt a tweak in my right achillies tendon (which I posted about), so my goal this week was active recovery. As a longtime trail runner, I've had many small aches and pains, and a few bigger injuries as well. Active people who enjoy exercise nearly every day really don't like to be injured, and sometimes don't want to admit to themselves that something is wrong. The problem with denial is that if you ignore warning signals, which the body often provides in the form of small pains and other signs, you can miss the opportunity to heal before something is injured worse.

Normally you can look to my 2013 Activity Log for daily activity, but I will post some of this week's detail here because it was all about getting healthy again:

Mon:   2:17 run-hike with some running, I felt a sharp pain in my right achillies tendon
Tues:   easy walk only, 40 minutes on pavement, (no sharp pain, but tight)
Wed:    easy walk only, 40 minutes on snowy/icy trail, (no sharp pain, better)
Thur:   1:53 easy hike only, normal rugged snow covered trail, 500 feet of climb/descent (only felt something in the achillies once, just a slight sign at the beginning, but fine after warmed up)
Fri:      1:26 run-hike, 500 feet climb, hiked up ran down, no signal from achillies
Sat:      2:55 run-hike 1000 feet climb, with an hour of very hard running, getting the heart rate up over 90% of maximum for sustained periods. Everything felt good.
Sun:     1:40 hike only, 500' climb, take it easy after a hard day

Saturday I probably pushed harder than I should have, but I was feeling good and bursting with energy, probably from holding back earlier in the week to try to fully heal my achillies tendon tweak. I don't know if I will have any more problems with that same area. This week I tried to listen to the signals to give things a chance to heal, and so far so good. Really though, just like life, you have to read signals of all kinds and adjust things appropriately with the goal of being healthy heading in the direction you want to go.

Only a few pictures this week... (click to enlarge)