Life

I'm unemployed now. Lack of work and funding. You'd think I'd be hiking more, but I'm not! I need to work on that. Tomorrow I hope.

I am losing weight though. Mostly through dietary changes. I've become very frugal in eating. I eat less overall, but a greater proportion of vegetables and much less meat.

I suppose I should talk about depression. I like to eat when I'm depressed. Now that I've been a week without work, I feel significantly less depressed. I always knew I was unhappy at the job (it was the work I was doing, not the people) but I think I was more unhappy there than I really knew. Now I have worries about what am I going to do with my life, but I'm not gorging myself on fatty or sugary food every day. My chocolate consumption has gone way down. Money will be a problem though, eventually.

Mesa Trail Recap

I have a lot of rambling to get to my point.

I've been hiking up Mesa Trail since about the mid 1980s. I think it is the second best trail in the Magdalena mountains. When I joined Search And Rescue the litter carry practice was to carry a real human up Mesa Trail. Thankfully, I was sick and couldn't go that day. I've been thankful ever since, actually.

Also, Mesa Trail might not be the name of this trail. Matt's GPS showed that the other trail was called Mesa Trail. And someone had nailed boards across the "gate" to Mesa Trail. It used to be a little boxlike non-turning turnstyle to keep things like cows and motorcycles out, but that was gone. Now it is just a hole in the fence, and someone nailed boards across it. There was no sign saying it was closed, and the side-gate wasn't locked, so we just went through the gate.

All my years of hiking up have taught me things. Going out and hiking it without recently prior hiking experience is quite painful. It is a short trail (to where I normally stop) of less than two miles. A bit steep. And normally my first time or two onto it is a pain fest. I'm too out of breath to hike up, my legs are quickly too sore to hike up it. I can't walk the next day because I'm too sore from having walked up it.

And now I ramble! I've been weight lifting for a couple of months now. Medhi, whose 5x5 plan I'm following, says squats are the main exercise. Squats can hurt. Interestingly, the places that squats hurt are also some of the prime hurting-places for having hiked up Mesa Trail. It's like stepping up a trail is somehow similar to lifting up your whole body with your knees.

So yesterday, with months of weight lifting behind me, but fifteen months since my last hike, I hiked up Mesa Trail. I plodded on steadily. I didn't become out of breath. My legs didn't scream at me. We took no sit-down rests, the only substantial stop we made was so that Brad could fish his Gatorade bottle out of his pack. If not for that, it is likely that I could have hiked non-stop to the top, which isn't what I'd expect after a broken ankle and fifteen months of not hiking up things. The only time that has happened is when I've made hiking up Mesa Trail a routine occurrence. But this time I just jumped right in and it was easy. I have every reason to believe that weight lifting is what made this easy.

There were some problems hiking up. The rains have brutalized the trail. What used to be a smooth dirt path is now a rocky and painful rut. I was wearing five-fingers, and this was the most painful terrain I've every tried to walk on. At the top I had some terrible foot cramps. Walking around on flat ground after getting back to Socorro was hard, and I limped a lot because of how knotted my left foot was. This morning isn't bad. I can feel that I was mean to my feet yesterday, but I'm able to walk around, which is good. My left ankle also has some pain in it, but it got a work out too.

We hammocked at the top, as always. I took a few pictures. Despite saying I needed to take a lot of pictures, I didn't. The hike down was painful because of my foot cramps. If my feet were in better shape then it would have been pretty easy to get down.

Mesa Trail

Heading up Mesa Trail tonight. I packed 8.63kg for the trip but added a couple of things that probably weighes half a kg. Camelback, junk bag, two hammocks, rain parka, rain pants, camera, M&Ms, figs, GPS, hat, trekking poles, and a camp towel.

Hiking Tomorrow

Tomorrow I lift weights, then I go for a hike. Mesa Trail. It might be #13, but I really can't remember. Maybe 13 is the one that comes off to the South and lands up the road a bit?

It's the second nicest trail in Water Canyon. Copper Canyon is definitely the nicest. The trail that cuts around the back side of South Baldy could be really nice, but it's too short, and I consider it part of Copper since it connects up and is often used in conjunction with Copper Canyon.

When I joined Search and Rescue back in the mid 1980s it was Mesa Trail that the litter training was held on. The team put someone in a litter, and then carried that person up the trail to the top. I was thankfully unable to attend that day, and it was apparently the last time they were that hard core about litter training.

I hope and plan to spend more time taking pictures on this hike. It's the one thing I constantly regret on these hikes: too few pictures. And I often take a lot, but there is a huge difference between the wow of being there and the blah of what the camera captures. It always looked so much better in person, and the pictures suck. Practice will help though. I'll get better at taking pictures.

Sunday should be another hike. Probably Mesa Trail again. It's a nice trail.

These hikes should provide me with some major spikes in my pathetic pedometer logs. I made a webpage for my daily step history. pedometer graph

Reflection On My Ankle

Reading over the past year of updates was interesting. Today, and recently, I'm annoyed by my ankle because it still seems weak compared to my right, and the range of motion is restricted. But when I read what it was like after the bolts came out and I was finally allowed to walk on it then it seems like I've made so much recovery. I have recovered a lot, really. Yoga can still hurt it, but even that is getting better. Downward dogs, for instance, are quite doable now.

Two Good Reads

You Walk Wrong: http://nymag.com/print/?/health/features/46213/
How To Transition Into Barefoot Running: http://www.runbare.com/446/how-to-transition-into-vibram-five-fingers/

Hiking, Eating, Walking

Last night was a good walk. Despite feeling like my core strength has been doing well, I felt sore in my core after the walk. Obviously I'm still not doing enough to keep it strong. More walking will help, as it will require me to hold myself upright. On the other hand, my core could have been sore because of all the stooping I did to cook my okra stew. Oh, and there is also the fact I did squats, overhead presses, and deadlifts, yesterday, all of which I could feel in my core.

Turkey Creek needs to happen sometime soon. The prospect of going to do that will certainly motivate me. I need to hike up Mesa Trail soon, to find out just how bad off I am. I'm sure I'm pretty bad off.