I also bought a pair of Montrail Continental Divide Trail Running Shoes. The boyfriend and I went on a hiking/camping trip this past weekend so Tuesday morning I tried on my hiking boots to see how they felt. They did not feel good. I couldn't imagine hiking for several miles in them so I thought this would be the perfect time to buy Trail Running Shoes. Hoping it would give me motivation to go hiking more and find more trails around me. I went to my local running store and found out they don't carry Trail Running Shoes. Probably because there really aren't any trails in Buffalo. They did happen to have the old pair of Montrails they originally brought in for running in the snow but they didn't do too well with that. They happened to have my size and they also happened to be 50% off. Win, win!
Wednesday I ran in the morning. I did 4 miles in 38:57. Not bad.
Thursday I did the Jillian Michaels DVDs again. I also increased the weights from 5lbs to 8lbs for most of the exercises.
Friday I took a rest day. I didn't want to be sore for all the hiking we were doing over the weekend. Plus I still had so much to do to prepare for our trip.
Saturday morning we headed down to the Morrison Trail in Allegheny Nation Forest. The plan was to hiking 6.5 miles to the campsite, stay overnight there and hike 5.5 miles back Sunday morning. We set off into the beautiful woods carrying all our gear. My pack was about 20lbs and the boyfriend's was about 40lbs (he had the tent). It was a beautiful hike and the Montrail shoes we wonderful. I was surprised how much easier it was to hike with 20 extra pounds than I originally thought. I was nervous I would be holding us up a lot and want to stop and take breaks but that wasn't the case. I think we each asked to stop and rest an equal amount of times. The hike on Saturday was downhill over the whole 6.5 miles but there were uphills mixed in. Here are some pictures from the Saturday hike:
It took us about 3 hours to get to the campsite and we were both pretty tired. We took pretty much the first campsite we found. It was uphill from the lake and away from people. We wanted something on the beach but it seemed like there were a lot of people down there and we didn't want to be right next to a bunch of screaming kids. We set up our tent and took a walk around. Of course, on our walk we found a perfect campsite right on the water. It was fairly secluded. We could hear the people next to us but their were bushes and trees between us. After some convincing on both our parts we decided to move down there. We were both glad we did. It was great to watch boats out on the water and just have a great view.
The View!
Our Campsite
Once we got settled the next task was to get a fire going. We brought hot dogs and smores for dinner we needed to "cook". It had rained the night before so all the decent sized wood we found was wet. We had a pitiful fire but it did it's job. the rest of the night we relaxed, enjoyed the view, watched boaters, and went to bed early. Sunday morning we were up a little before 8am. We ate breakfast (bagel and peanut butter) and packed up to leave. We decided to take a shorter trail back (3.8 miles instead of 5.5) because we were both pretty sore. Boy were we glad we did. The way back was mostly uphill and steep uphills too. I wish I had my Garmin with me, though I know it wouldn't have worked under the trees. It would have been nice to see a map of the elevation changes. It took us about 2 hours to get back because of the hills.
Sunday Hike
It was a really great trip, especially for it being our first time doing something like this. We didn't forget anything crucial and we learned a lot about what we need and don't need to pack.Just about finished!
I'm still sore today; my shoulders the most. But it's not too bad. I have 5K Coaching tonight.Sorry this post wasn't really about running. Hopefully this week will bring some quality or at least interesting runs to share.
The backpacking looks great - this is something I want to add to my activity list too!
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