Table Rock, Pisgah and kayaking

Over the weekend I had a fun adventure with my swim friends and doing some solo hiking! There's a summer swim fest at the same place as the winter one and a group of us went for the event. I didn't swim, instead I kayaked for a friend who did a 5K and for the 1 mile swimmers, which was so fun!

On the drive up I took a little detour to do Table Rock, which is on the terrifying 25 hikes of the White Mountains list. I did a short route up - just 1.5 miles, and only 750 feet elevation gain. It actually wasn't too hard, though of course I was still breathing hard and glad to get to the top. The big thing with this hike is the rock at the top - it's maybe 4 feet wide, maybe 20 feet long, and about 100 feet straight down on both sides. I got about 10 feet from the end before I started thinking too much, and crouching lower and lower to the ground. I didn't completely think I was going to make it to the end, so I wasn't too disappointed, though I did give it like 3 tries. Then I had a delicious cheese sandwich at the top and hiked on down. By doing the hike on the way up to the swim, I didn't drive 3.5 hours for a 1.5 hour hike (good choice me) and I got to take some of the back roads to get to Lake Memphremagog, which I also liked. It's so nice out there!

We camped at a really nice place in Vermont, which turned out to be where the races left from. Two thumbs up, would definitely do again. I just got a new inflatable mattress, and it was so lux. We stayed for three nights, and had a fire each night. Really fun!

On the second day I hiked Mt. Pisgah, which is about 30 minutes from the campground. I took the North Trail because the trailhead was closer to the campground. Very random reason, but they both sounded good. Also enjoyed this hike - the trail up was steady uphill, but there were switchbacks for some of it, and only a couple really uphill bits. On the way up they seemed to take forever, but on the way down they weren't so bad. There were 4 viewpoints at the top, all of them really nice, but the first two were the best. I was so hungry when I got to the first one that I ate my sandwich (white bread, cheese and avocado. So good!)  The hike down was pretty easy - in fact I did both of the hikes in book time. 

That evening we went to the pasta dinner at the race place. Honestly, I don't love their favorite restaurant and my stomach was a little upset after eating. Then, I must have walked through some kind of bug's nest or something, because after we got back to the campsite my feet were itching so badly I didn't know what to do. When we looked at them, they had swollen up like crazy and someone had to go get me Benadryl to make them stop. Fortunately by the time we went to bed they were only a little itchy, and they were fine the next day.

Race day was so fun - I loved being the kayaker. My friend had rented a kayak for me to use, and I have to say it did work better than my folding one. It was pretty fun to zip around in the water, though mostly I lazed along because my job was to guide her along the route and swimming is just going to be slower than kayaking. She did so well - she didn't even train and swam 5K in 2 hours and 10 minutes. After we had to stand in line for over a half hour for the race lunch, and it wasn't that good. Note to self - bring a sandwich next time. The other two people I went with did the 1 mile race, and I kayaked for that. It was so fun being the person in the yak being supportive of others. There was one woman who was really the slowest, and so after everyone else finished I went back and met with her and another kayaker and cheered her on. I would totally do that again.

Definitely a fun weekend, would do again for sure! Except for the bugs...

Swim Stroke Changes

I've had two really helpful swim lessons in a row - the first one last week Coach said that I was looking too far down and that was causing drag. And, I was moving my head too much - it should just go into the water and out, not move around. Also my left arm was dipping and not getting as much power as it could. Today he said that I was only swimming with one arm at a time - so, I am doing stroke and back, then stroke and back, like that catch-up arms drill. But, really both arms should be going at once, like on a bike. When one arm is pulling, the other is recovering and going into the water. Once I started doing that I swam faster! I even caught up with some of the "fast" swimmers :) I'm going to have to do some practice with that. I will also say it's much more of a workout.

Speaking of workouts, I switched my YMCA membership to a larger network where I could register for classes online and don't have to be Julie. I've been thinking I should do this for a while, but haven't because it's so hard to cancel a gym membership, but the woman was really nice about it and didn't give me any hassle. Anyhow, the new gym gives me 2 free personal training sessions, so I did my first one last week and have my next one this week. It was kind of fun, the guy who was teaching me was nice and he set up a couple of good circuits for me to do. I think he saw me and kind of underestimated me (not sure how I feel about that) because he kept giving me things to do and looking surprised when I could do them. I mean, super easy things like the world's greatest stretch. The two things that were the weirdest were that he just kept watching me all the time, and instead of telling me to go during a timed exercise he started the timer when I started. I'll do the second session, but I don't think I'm going to pay for more.

I did do my first zumba class last week also. It was super fun, not too hard but still got my heart rate up, and I didn't crash into anyone. I will definitely do that again. After I lifted some weights.

It's been so hot here, and I'm not a hot weather person. I've been hanging out at home in the AC a lot, but yesterday I went with a few swim friends to the beach on the north shore. It was over 90 out, but the air was a little cooler at the ocean and the water was 59. We stayed inside long enough to get a nice chill going, it was great! It took about 45 minutes to get there, definitely something I could do again.

Fireworks from the Charles

This year for July 4 a friend and I decided to watch the fireworks from kayaks in the river - so fun! Two thumbs up. Would do again.

We strategized about our paddle and decided that it might be easier to get parking if we went earlier in the day - so we drove over there, parked my friend's car with all the heavier stuff in it, and then biked home. We both biked back to meet at 8. Biking home I took a blue bike and went over the river to check out the action while people were waiting. They had already closed Storrow, so I was able to bike down the road, which was pretty cool, and I watched everyone walk around and get set up for later in the day. There was such a huge police presence, it was pretty crazy. I saw one of the police dogs eating a stick, so not everything was serious. I took a regular bike at first, but then about half way home I switched to an ebike - they are just so much easier. For the ride back I took my own bike and went down Mem Drive, it was starting to get a little crazy by that point.

My friend has an inflatable kayak so we took her kayak and most of the other stuff down to the river in a wagon she has. Then I went back and got my kayak, because the foldable is easier to set up. There was a picnic happening, and a lot of bollywood music, which was kind of funny for July 4, but it was a fun atmosphere. We launched around 9 ish and paddled from BU bridge almost to Mass Ave bridge, and then dropped anchor near the MIT boathouse. We used an old cinderblock and a dog leash for the anchor - it took a while to come up with that, and unfortunately the cinder block was too heavy to pull back up, so it had to stay in the river at the end.

Once we dropped anchor and tied together we just hung out chatting for a while. I pulled the pops concert up on my phone and we enjoyed being out on the water. The fireworks were amazing, as they always are! So big and they go on for so long. From right by the MIT boathouse we could see perfectly. It was a really good spot to watch from. 

As soon as the fireworks ended people raced off to try to beat the crowd. On the water that meant that there were kayakers zipping past us - it was pretty amazing. Then there was the crowd that was in less of a hurry - there were so many human powered boats on the water. You could see the lights everywhere, and it was all kinds. The most popular were the kayaks, but then there were also canoes, paddleboards, some funny looking rowboats, and someone had one of those boats that you move with bike peddles. My friend and I headed back and it was so fun to be a part of this huge crowd paddling down the river. 

I was a little worried that it would be hard to get out because the boat ramp wasn't that big, but it was totally fine, no issues at all. We packed up our stuff and headed back (which was much easier without the cinder block - we did it in one trip.) Even the ride home was no problem, we ran into a little traffic but honestly not much. Definitely the way to do the fireworks! We both agreed that we would love to go again next year. The one change that I would make is trying to bring two anchors because we kept turning during the fireworks and it was a little bit of a pain to have to keep the boat facing the right direction.