Hiking Adventures

Recently the husband and I have started hiking! So far we've only gone twice, but So Cal has  SO many great places to hike. Part of the reason I have fallen in love with Southern California is the diversity. We can spend a day at the beach, or drive 30 minutes and hike a mountain, or drive a few hours north and go snowboarding. They just have everything here! 

A few weekends ago we went to Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve. We hiked about six miles total. It was pretty much entirely flat, but it had a great little waterfall that reminded us so much of all the pretty waterfalls in the foothills of the Adirondack's where J is from. 

The pretty little waterfall!

It felt SO good to be outside all day. Not to mention in the six miles we hiked we went through a forest, a desert, and a waterfall! 

J and a HUGE cactus plant in the middle of the woods!

I had a great time. It was easy enough for someone as out of shape as I am, but still a decent workout. J put a 25 lb weight in his backpack to make it more challenging for himself. Silly boys.

J climbing up some rocks.

I decided I didn't want to venture into the rocks. It just looked like the perfect hideout for some nasty snakes that I definitely didn't want to meet.

Yesterday we decided to try a more difficult hike. Our friend from college spontaneously ended up visiting us Friday and Saturday and he's a pretty avid hiker. He and Jon decided on the hike while I was still catchin' some Z's. They decided on Mt. Woodson.

Friends, let me tell you, if you're out of shape and new to hiking this is not the trail for you...and I know this from experience. ha! It was up-hill right from the get go, and pretty steep too. The combination of my being out of shape, being dehydrated from a night full of beers the night before, and a not-so-friendly visit from Aunt Flow meant that I chickened out. Yes, that's right, before we'd even made it half way I turned around and went back while the guys went on to the summit. *facepalm* 

Needless to say that proved to be a HUGE amount of motivation. I'd already decided this post-wedding weight had gotten out of hand, but dude, having to quit a hike was so embarrassing there's no way I can keep going the way I have been! I've attempted to do p90x several times. But the truth is, it's hard and I'm not the type of person that enjoys pushing my physical limits. I can never keep it up just from the sheer memory of the pain endured the day before.

So I decided to look into other at-home fitness programs and discovered that there's a Power 90 program! It's still going to be challenging and it's still by Tony Horton, but it promises to be a little less intense, which is definite what I need. I found the whole thing on eBay, bought it, got it in the mail yesterday and am starting tomorrow! I WILL CLIMB AN ENTIRE MOUNTAIN!