July 13, 2009 @ 20:21

Miles:  4.5

Hours of other fitness pursuits:  3, plus the doubled up advantage of hiking those 4.5 miles in the sauna that is Arkansas in July.  I think that qualifies as 7.5, yes? 

Pounds lost:  4

Not bad.  I think that I should journey out again this weekend and see if I can lose five more pounds and not die.  Good plan . . . 

July 12, 2009 @ 09:51

So yesterday was the day that I put my not-so-well-thought-out plan into action.  A couple weeks ago I sent out a dinner party alternative invitation.  Instead of piling all into my house and eating and drinking way far more than any of us should.  Better idea?  Hiking.  Responses to the invite? 

“Are you out of your mind?” 

“Good luck with that.” 

*crickets*

And phone calls bowing out of the opportunity, filled with large bouts of snorting laughter.  Not atractive you know who I mean, I’m just saying. 

Yes, I know, it’s July in Arkansas.  Yes, I know it’s hotter than five shades of hell.  But I don’t wanna sit in my house and eat.  I wanna get out of my house and do something that’s better for me.  It’s a Great Plan!  Right? 

And it was.  Firstly, I found out that I have two friends who either A) love me enough to humor me, B) are as foolhardy as me, or C) wanted to be on the trail with me to call in the park rangers to haul my overzealous hide back to the car when I fell out because I’ve spent the last year being a slackass.  Well, two outta three ain’t bad, and we narrowly avoided that C option. 

So brave Sharon (mostly known to me as the over-sharing with Sharon fun girl) and Miss Weight Loss (of course she’d be up for it, and totally able to hike out to the trail head to tell them where my body was later) loaded up into my car around 10 am and headed out.  Oh, did I mention that the night before Trixie and I went to happy hour with Sharon and B and that I had had entirely too much too drink and then proceeded to stay up until 3:30 in the morning talking?  Uh . . .  yeah . . .  Not my brightest move.  Since my body clock is so rigidly set, sleeping in late for me is 7 a-freaking-m.  I had planned to continue re-hydrating on the 40 minute drive out to Petit Jean State Park but somehow all the gear wound up in the trunk, including the water bottles so I didn’t get a head start on that.  And the camelback got left behind.  Just like me. 

We arrived at the park about 11.  We got back in the car after our 4.5 mile hike at 3:30.  Yes, it took us four and a half hours to do four and a half miles.  Now twice we stopped in pretty spots, perched on rocks in the shade and rested. And even the trail guide says this trail takes four hours and classifies it at “moderate to hard”.  And we all know that those classifications are NOT like one-size-fits-all.  If it says it’s hard, it’s hard.  Frequently, just when we’d think we were about to die!, we’d round a corner and the trail would lead us under a ledge of rock with enormous ferns growing in the cool shade of it, or a breeze would slide through the trees.  Even so, it was only about thirty minutes in when we had all sweat right through our clothes.  But the bad part was, with about a mile and half left to go, I stopped sweating.  Not a good thing.  Miss WL kept going on to get to the car and refill our water bottles, which we had emptied at that mile and a half left to go marker.  Sharon stayed with me  so she could wave to the rangers to show them which hollow my body had rolled down into after passing out.  And we took a couple of short rests.  We met Miss WL about a hundred yards from the trail head.  Let me tell you she had a cape and a freakin’ halo, and more importantly, two full water bottles and a powerade.  I tell you it was hard to fall asleep last night with my heat fried brain being so busy composing poetry and love songs to her greatness.  Sharon made me feel far less like a slackass by admitting that it was, in fact, the hardest thing she had ever done.  And when we drove off the mountain and passed the first bank in town, be damned if the temperature on the sign didn’t say ONE HUNDRED and FIVE!  Well damn I feel like the worst friend ever now.  But I will say this, although we will wait until better weather.  The minute we got more water, I felt like million dollars.  I slept like a stone last night.  I woke up this morning feeling awesome.  And the pain of the last mile, caused by my outright stupidity, was so entirely avoidable that I’m ready to go again. 

Soon. 

I wish I’d managed to take a picture of the dozens of little racing lizards we saw all day.  They were pitch black with racing stripes from nose to tip of tail that, I swear I’m not making this up, were electric orange at the nose changing into eletric blue by their tails.  Paint job that would’ve been right at home on any muscle car.  We watched them race around the rocks on our first break on a big slab of rock looking over the almost completely dry creek.  But here are a couple of pics from the day anyway . . . 

Two women who deserve a real dinner party. 

Normally, there’s a creek rushing through these rocks. 

View from our rock, flat on my back, which I dearly needed at that moment. 

Thanks girls!  It was an amazing day! 

July 07, 2009 @ 20:39

So Sunday evening, Charlie was not acting like his normally chipper self.  Not like this . . . 

He was lethargic and a bit whiney.  We had been out and about alot lately and at first I thought he was pouting at me.  He slept in his doggy bed instead of under the covers with me.  Monday night, the same.  But this morning, when I realized that he hadn’t moved noticeably from his little bed all night, I knew I was wrong.  I reached out to touch the top of his little head and he yelped before I could even touch him.  I called the vet and we went right in. At first I felt relief, as his normal personality bubbled up when I asked him if he wanted to go for a ride.  He bounded out to the car.  But when the doc examined him, he found the pain.  He took him back and put him under, x-rayed, pulled a tooth btw for good measure and then came out to tell me what was up.  Degenerative Disc Disease.  So our little old man is really feeling like one.  The doc put him on steroids and muscle relaxers and for today, morphine.  When I tucked him into his little bed again he was pretty high.  I felt as if I should put on The Wall for him and make him a White Russian.  Been there before. 

That was after his “blowout”.

But he made due with his regular dinner with a few tablespoons of canned pumpkin stirred in.  Doctor’s recommendation. 

Tonight he’s acting like his normal self again.  Hopefully he really is feeling better and not overdoing it because of all the meds. We’ll know more tomorrow.  But for now, I’m just really grateful that he’s going to be okay, just more fragile than we had known.  Poor sweet baby. 

July 06, 2009 @ 20:29

What did she say?  Stats?  Yeah, didn’t forget, just hit my head pretty hard falling off the wagon . . .  again . . . 

Miles:  8.5, 6 on one trip on the bike, 2.5 on the trail. 

Hours of other fitness pursuits:  2

Pounds lost:  6

Hopefully next Monday I’ll post this again.  And not continue to drop the ball on the plan.   Now if I can just find a regular tennis and batting cage partner, it’ll be golden. 

July 05, 2009 @ 21:03

Hope you had a great fourth.  We did.  Half of it was spent apart from each other, but all had fun.  Bear got to attend a party at a hotel overlooking the river where our state’s biggest fireworks display is held.  Puppy visited an uncle and got to watch fireworks shoot over the lake at their cabin.  I spent the day with Nonnie.  A day including the new Transformers movie (awesome), a surprise birthday party for her sister and then grilling and hurricanes.  It was a really good day.  Then Sunday morning, against all odds as I had seven of those hurricanes, I woke up early.  So I decided to take the opportunity to hit one of my favorite trails that is along the route of the three hour drive between her house and mine.  The Delta View Trail at Cane Creek State Park.  It’s a short trail, just two and half miles.  But it’s got a really good layout and it’s all tree covered.  Which is usually great for the shade, but was really good for today because it was raining.  Yay for me for not snapping up the easy excuse not to run. The first 1/4 mile is even flat trail, then it winds down into the forest for about a mile.  Then you have a long stretch of easy trails, switchbacks, for running before it begins to wind back up in inclines that will make you feel it.  The trail is essentially tear drop shaped so you rejoin that first flat stretch for the cool down walk back out to the trail head and parking lot.  Just right.  It was really quiet in the park.  The only other vehicle I saw was a park ranger.  I suppose because of the rain.  I heard lots of scuttering animals in the leaves off the trail, none slow enough to be seen, and what I swear were hundreds of birds up in the canopy of the trees.  So much wildlife noise that my iPod stayed in my pocket.  It felt like a jungle.  There were ferns and towering oaks and giant butter colored mushrooms the size of good pottery dinner plates.  I almost tripped over an orange spotted turtle/tortoise?  He was bigger than a softball, smaller than a frisbee, and right smack in the middle of the trail.  He didn’t even flinch when I leapt over him.  Just rolled one eye up at me like I was crazy, out in the middle of the woods alone, running, and in the rain.  By the time I got back to the car I was thoroughly winded and soaked through and felt better than I have in months.  I finished the drive home and picked up the boys and we headed to my dad’s house and spent the rest of the day with my sisters and one brother and all the kids in the pool.  We had sandwiches and the best cantelope ever and celebrated Father’s Day late since we were in the Grand Canyon on the day.  It was a spectacular weekend.  Next weekend, Petit Jean, Seven Hollow’s Trail I’m thinking . . .