South Mountain

While not the quietest place to hike, South Mountain is close with many trails to hike. When the weather starts to heat up, I'll be hiking there before work.

2 mile hike in just under an hour. Not a lot of elevation gain, but I want to go slow to prevent re-injuring my knee.

Gorgeous day with my husband Brian and our dog Bella. She was pretty tired afterward!

Weight progress

As I mentioned in a previous post, I started a diet and exercise program shortly after the photo with my brothers was taken. I primarily started because I didn't want to be the Mom that no longer fits in the rides at Disneyland OR can't keep up with my kids.

I haven't cut anything out of my diet, just moderation.

The picture with the pack shows my progress. About 20 lbs on the scale but many inches lost. The less weight I have to haul in and out of the Grand Canyon will make it more enjoyable!

Zumba!

A few months ago, my daughter Stephanie drug me kicking and screaming to a Zumba class.  I was prepared to hate it and thought I'd embarrass myself.  But surprisingly, I loved it!  Music from Reggaetone to Bollywood (which is my favorite) with crazy moves to try and follow.  Do I look like an idiot?  Yea, I probably do.  But it is so much fun that I don't care!  It is hard and there are moves I am far too uncoordinated to ever pull off, but I'm getting in a great workout and spending time with my girl.

Bell Pass

Over the Christmas holiday I had a lot of time off and decided to spend time hiking.

I hiked Bell Pass twice over the holidays. Once the hard way (11 miles round trip but I only went 6 miles) and the easier way the second day but only going 5 miles.

Photos from the 2 days. I love the desert at this time of year.

Let's Get This Party Started

Yeah, this whole app blogging is great. Apparently my subconscious knew I'd be taking this trip with Heather so I got started on my weight loss and training about 3 months ago. I did a couple of great, uphill hikes over the holidays. Here are some photos from my hike with friends to Sunrise Peak.
It was a beautiful hike outside of the wind and letting a 33 year old fit guy set the pace for 40+ year old women. Remind me not to do that again!

Overlooking Scottsdale

Is this thing on?

Posting from my iPhone. How cool is this? I'm hoping that Sarah and I can post from our training hikes as well as on our trip.

Started my strength training and I feel great! Also been going to yoga, which is really helping.

This weekend I need to pull out my backpacking gear so I can make a list of what I need to get from the REI annual sale. I also need to take a hard look at what I have packed. The hike is hard enough without carrying an extra 10 pounds of crap I don't need.

Let the training begin!

The last few weeks have been spent getting ready for the holidays, taking a break from life and planning my training.  Sarah is seriously kicking my ass in the hiking department, so I need to step it up.

My plan?  Strength training 3x a week, cardio 3x a week.  After a month, I'll add another day of cardio.  I'd like to be doing cardio 5-6x a week.  I found this really good book - Conditioning for Outdoor Fitness - that I'm using as a guide for my strength training.  My focus is going to be working on my core strength, balance and building the muscles that support my crappy knees.

To track my food, I'm using a really cool app on my iPhone called LoseIt!  Sure makes it a lot easier to be able to update everything on the go.

So many years I've talked about doing this, I can't let my friend down!

Today's exercise: elliptical 15 minutes, yoga 60 minutes