A weekend of hiking

This weekend husband and I had the chance to go check out the parks again on both Saturday and Sunday.  I don't know what earned us two days of beautiful weather, but I'll take it!

On Saturday we took another trip over to Virginia Kendall Ledges park (Peninsula, Ohio).  We went hiking there a few weekends back. Of course husband took his camera, but we didn't take any photos.  This time we went and explored a secondary trail off of it with some friends, and this trail was quite the boring route.  Nothing exciting to see, tons of mud and bugs and blah. We walked somewhere between 4.5 and 5 miles (our pedometers disagree and I can't map it online..) in two hours.  When we wrapped up we had a delicious picnic and just relaxed.  I had zero intention of coming home and sleeping, but that's exactly what we did. Came home, sat down and slept for two hours.

Sunday started miserable and the rain was looming.  However, as the day continued, the rain held off, we figured we'd check out another park.  This was our first mistake.  It was already 2ish when we decided to do this. We got the address for Firestone Metro Park and headed off.

This trip was a distaster to start with.  First we decided to park by Coventry Oaks, figured we'd see a sign and get on the trail.  No.  From where we roamed around - we just found unmarked paths, so we just followed until we eventually stumbled onto another entrance, which apparently is the senior walking route, and found a map.  In the 15 minutes it took me to do this - we were soaked. The humidity was outrageous and the sun was blasting down on us, and there's limited shading. We took the Willow Trail and off we went.  It wasn't too bad for mud, but to be honest the path was boring, the scenery was lacking and there was just nothing making the trip interesting.  It took us just under an hour and I honestly felt more exhausted than I had the day before when we cranked out double the milage and double the time on a harder trail. Husband grabbed a few photos (I refused ANY because we were sweaty messes!):

Yep - the most exciting thing there, the ducks.

Hope you guys made the most of a beautiful weekend!

That Darn 2.4 Mile Mark

Today I went for a wog around a local park that I know the distance on.  5 trips around is 3.3 miles, but there's a walk way through the park that if you cut through, it's just about a 3.1.  I wanted to get a time of me doing it outside without the treadmill controlling my pace, and to deal with inclines and real distractions.  I choose this park also because it's not hard pavement and my shins appreciated it!

Here was my first trip (and again, I'm not 100% on the distance, it could have been a tiny bit less, and closer to the 3.1 mark)

And that couldn't be more true.  It was a minute or so into my third lap and I died.  I wanted to quit. I wanted to walk across the park and get in the car and head home.  I didn't, but I let it get to me, and I let it slow me down. I fought with myself the entire lap.  

I registered for my first 5K and it's in 3 weeks.  So I figure I will practice outside on Wednesdays and Sundays until the big day pretty much. My next trip out this Wednesday I plan on making a few changes. The first is that I will not walk 4-5 minutes in my warmup, like I did today. I will do a little back and forth, and stretch, but I want to take off on my first 4min jog, and see how that affects my time. Because I know I'm not going to take off at the race walking, so I want to get a better feel. 

I've been doing 4 min jog with 2 min walks.  Although on lap three, I pretty much walked most of it. I did like a min jog, and then 2 min walk, then jogged until my timer beeped again and then I proceeded to walk.  But I was determined to do the distance just to know that I could.  I know it's slow, and most people reading this would be shocked I'm going to do the 5k anyhow, but frankly I need to do it and get the fear of the first one over.  Who knows, maybe I'll surprise myself! 

I also know that when I'm actually there - my walking pace will be faster.  When I was walking today, by myself I tend to go much slower than I would with others around me.  Either way - it's my race, and regardless of how long it takes - I'll be the one crossing the line and I need to be happy with how I did. So I can't compare myself to anyone else. 

Husband was there to cheer me on, give me support, and of course, snap pictures.

And since I forgot to talk about the trail we went on the other day (which by the way was AMAZING, and intense) - here's some pictures.

This was at the Ledges trail, in Peninsula.  There are so many little side trails and connections that I couldn't remember them all or where which pics came from where.

I do NOT envy that dude running up. I died walking up the steps!