The trek experience was the first physical challenge. I wrote about that in a previous blog. With the new Murdock bike trail opened this summer, I have pushed myself and done many long bike rides, the longest being 20 miles. With a number of weeks of good weather still left, I hope to push that distance up to at least 25 miles.
This blog is about two other physically challenging activities I did in the month of August. With plans to head out on a full-time senior mission sometime, hopefully early, in 2014, I wanted to climb Mt. Timp one more time. I don't know where we will spend most of our time during retirement, so I was worried that this summer might be my last opportunity. Dave wasn't interested in joining me so I wanted to find some hiking companions, so I extended an invitation to my Beehives to join me. Two of them took me up on the offer.
I was interested in making it to the saddle, the very top of the peak wasn't the goal. We started hiking at about 7:20 am. The first part of the trail the girls realized they had actually hiked last year during girls' camp. They had hiked up to Scout Falls. We detoured over to the falls for a photo opp. See below.
We were doing well and enjoying the climb and views
until we got to the big meadow. Eliza had lost her enthusiasm and steam. Even though we could see the saddle and peak from the meadow
Saddle ... oh so close
We had the peak in our sights
the people coming down informed us that it was still an hour more to the saddle. This discouraged Eliza and she didn't want to keep going. She said she would if we insisted, but I really didn't want to have her hate me for the rest of her life and I wanted her to want to make the attempt again some day and be successful in reaching the top. So we had lunch in the meadow (it was 11:30 am by then), took some pictures and turned around.
Lindsey & Eliza at our rock ledge lunch site
Pretty photo of the three of us surrounded by the meadow wildflowers
It actually turned out to be a good thing we headed down at that point because both Eliza and I struggled with foot problems and barely made it back down. Eliza and I suffered for days afterwards. Eliza with blisters and I with a bruised left big toe. At the last minute I decided not to wear my hiking shoes and wore an old pair of running shoes, with thick wool socks. They worked well going up the mountain, but on the way down, my feet swelled up and felt squeezed into too small a space, those bruising the big toe. I had to wear open toed shoes all the next week and wasn't able to exercise at all.
No photos to show about this part of the hike (and I'm sure you appreciate that).
I worried that the Timp hike had put in jeopardy my ability to do the triathlon I had planned on doing in two weeks and had been training for a month for. Luckily a few days before the race I was able to get a pair of covered shoes on that foot. I went down to the school track and tested out running. I managed to run a mile without problems. So I went forward in faith to race day, Sat. Aug.24th.
I and two other ladies from my neighborhood participated in the half-triathlon. This was held in Orem at the Scera pool and surrounding neighborhood. This was put on by the Share A Smile Foundation as a fund-raising activity. This was their 13th year of sponsoring a triathlon event but it was a very non-competitive atmosphere, which is just what I needed. The night before I hardly slept so worried was I about what I was getting myself into. So on about 3 hours of sleep, I headed out.
The first phase was the swimming, my weakest event. Luckily since it was a half triathlon I only had to do 4 laps down and back for a total of 200 yds. Here I am reaching for the last wall of my swim.
The next leg was biking, my favorite event. I had Dave prepare my road bike to use, which would have been faster and lighter, but I psyched myself out of using it since I hadn't ridden it all summer and I wasn't familiar with the road conditions I'd be traversing so I decided I better use a bike I felt comfortable with. This may have slowed down my speed, since you can see below I rode a coaster bike for the 5 mile route, which had us traveling on main thoroughfares in Orem - State St., Center St. University Parkway, 3700 N/800 S. Here I am approaching the finish line for the bike section.
Then it was off for the last leg, the running. Fortunately it was only 1.5 miles, which under other conditions would be no sweat but coming off of a swim and a ride, made it seem so very difficult. My time was much slower than I would have liked.
Dave snapped a photo from behind as I approached the finish line. (Don't you love the back end view? Not!) He rode my bike out to find me and found me a bit past the half way mark and kept me company until I got back to Scera park. It kept me going, because by then I was running out of steam so I have to give me credit for helping keep my time down.
My goal was to finish in an hour or less. I didn't make it but came close, finishing in 1 hr. 1 min & 55 sec. Here are the three amigas together at the end. Left to right - myself, Camille Davis & Carissa Neely.
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