My daughter, Anna, and I made a last minute trip up to Cherokee this past weekend to see Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. The concert was great, Joan Jett is still rocking as hard as ever and we had a great time there on Friday night.
The next day we drove over to Bryson City and had breakfast with my great friend Kelly, then drove up to Deek Creek for a hike. This was my first attempt at any long hike since my quest to become, well much thinner and much healthier. We did the Deep Creek, Loop, Indian Creek 4 mile trek. Of course, not doing enough prior research, we took the hardest of the two options for our route. The Deep Creek route to Loop trail was the steepest climb up the mountain but hey it was also the best work out. Three and half miles of the hike were great and actually pretty easy but the half mile straight up loop trail was pretty rough. It was winding and narrow and pretty darn steep. I had to make a few breath catching stops along the way (felt kind of like interval training) but overall we made it in reasonable time. It took us two and half hours total, so basically a little over 35 minutes per mile. Not my usual 10 minute mile on the Advanced Motion Trainer at the gym but these were real mountain peeks and lots of nice photo ops to get in the way.
The best part is the feeling of accomplishment. I spent so many years totally and completely out of shape, now being able to make a semi hard 4 mile hike just plain makes me pretty proud of myself. If you're sitting around on your ass complaining about how everything hurts, then get up, get on a good work out schedule, get those pounds off and stop that pain. My back and knees used to kill me. I honestly couldn't walk 2 city blocks at a medium pace without my hip hurting something awful. I had to walk down steps one at time because my left knee hurt so bad. After and during that 4 mile hike I had zero back, hip or knee pain. My lower back and hip almost never hurt at all and neither do my knees. Six months ago I could have never made that hike but with some hard work on strength, cardio and ab training all that has completely changed.
Last weekend we also did a short but damn hard hike up Grandfather Mountain near Boone, NC. That one was almost 100% a rock climb, not the wall type but it was climbing rocks not up and over dirt and roots. It was rated a hard climb for experienced hikers and it definitely was but it was so much fun. What a view from a mile high, no we didn't climb up that far, probably only about a quarter mile straight up but great nonetheless.
Wonder what we'll come up with for this weekend....
For all of you missing out on life because you hurt, you can't exercise saying you can't is nothing but an excuse, even if you truly believe you can't you can. Get off the pain meds and hit the gym and then the mountains and hills. There is so much beauty you are missing.
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