It's been a while! I haven't had much time to update the blog, but I'm sneaking a post in at my lunch hour.
I've been doing a lot of different things lately, mainly because I can't seem to focus or make up my mind. That seems to be the trending topic lately, but I think I am starting to narrow things down.
Last week I did my first Adventure Run of the year!!! These are runs that happen the first Thursday of every month at the
San Carlos Road Runner Sports. I am a big fan of them. Basically, you get to the store where they have a little festival/event set up with fun booths. You can try new products, I often wear the shoes that they lend out. Then you are given a map, and you run to each spot to collect raffle tickets. After an hour, you race back, and sit with a cold beerski and win prizes.
This time, my friend Brian who regularly goes with me, won two gift certificates. I won a fleece blanket, which I'll throw onto the growing pile of random blankets. I really just enjoy the sprinting from point to point (averaging about an 8 min mile). Oh, and this dog totally made himself at home on my lap while we waited for the raffle to start.
Friday through Sunday I spent either in the car riding to/from Mammoth Lakes, or spending time in the actual mountains! It was my first time visiting there, and I absolutely loved it. My very gracious and badass friends,
Rini and her husband
Brandon (SERIOUSLY, check out his photography RIGHT NOW), gave me a taste of hiking/backpacking/mountaineering by making our way up to Crystal Crag. We weren't expecting snow, especially the amount that was there. I welcomed it with open arms, and for most of the trail we were the first footsteps, but it did make the potential climb up Crystal Crag to be icy, so we didn't make it to the summit. I guess they figured they didn't want to scare me to death, and wanted to leave this as a pleasant inviting experience. Good call, Guys.
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| Rini scrambling up to Crystal Crag |
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| A view from the top. Gorgeous! |
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| A little snowman we made. Asian snowman. |
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| Not to toot my own horn, but I love this shot I took of Rini! |
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| The badass couple that you will be seeing more of |
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| A classic Brandon Riza shot, my first time being over 10k (that I remember) |
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| We made it! I'm still alive! |
Amazing views, eh? I had a blast, and surprisingly wasn't sore after. I think the best part was playing in the snow, I haven't seen the stuff in years! I only half-wish we could have climbed to the top, I still am a baby and the idea of it kind of freaks me out. I'm grateful to have such experienced mountaineers as friends that don't mind having a newbie slow them down. ;) We will be back for more, for sure.
And of course, we needed to go for a run. I really just wanted to see what running at 8k-9k feet elevation felt like, the views were just the icing on the cake. We did an 8 mile run up to the top of Panorama Dome, with just a bit over 1k feet of total elevation. Running up there definitely was harder than normal, but surprisingly not as bad as I thought it would be.
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| View from the top of Panorama Dome |
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| Weeee just finished 4 miles, now back down! |
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| Rini makes her own trails! |
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| Running partner 4 Lyfe! |
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| Of course a Bloody Mary had to happen. Delicious! |
The trip back was long...7 or 8 hours due to closed passes, but the trip there was even longer! It was worth every minute though.
Sadly, one of my old climbing shoes rolled under the bed at the Air B&B that we were staying at. I am going to get it mailed back to me, but decided to buy a new pair in the mean time. These are the Scarpa Vapor's. I love them! I especially love how the upper has the rubber there, which keeps it from indenting into my toes like the Muiras do. They don't look too bad either...
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| My new climbing shoes. Love them! |
Lastly, I've also been getting into weight lifting. It's been a while, and my muscles have deteriorated since my days of bootcamp/crossfit. My old trainer would shake his head at me, while I tremble and shake to press an empty bar. I'm looking forward to tracking the progress. I have a great friend, Susan, that's helping me with the process. I'm not familiar with machines, and actually kind of hate them, but I feel like I need to give them a fair chance.
So far, I have been sore every day. A good kind of sore though. I also have been climbing several times a week now too, which has significantly improved my abilities. I'm participating in the
Jamie Eason's Livefit Trainer program, which is 12 weeks long and was suggested to me by Susan. I won't be doing the diet as much, but I'll keep eating clean. It's just nice to have structure again. Feel free to find me if you're on bodybuilding.com, my username is HeatherIhn.
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| Ah so relaxing at the gym. Latte and all. |
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| I actually got Jon to lift weights with me! |
Oh, and I'm still running of course. Not as much, and the efforts are a bit scattered. This was today's run, where I gave it a hard effort at the last three miles. I clearly lost some of my speed with the MAF training. My very hard effort is probably an 8 min mile now. I want to work on getting faster, but still doing most of my runs at MAF. I'm not sure if this is going to be a problem, and actually make me go backwards both aerobically and anaerobically, but we'll see.
This weekend I have a big 10k race that is giving me butterflies. I haven't gone all out in a 10k in a long time, so it makes me scared! I'll post all about it next time!
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| Last 3 miles - med/hard effort |
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