Ran a mile!

Actually, 1.1 miles, which I did in about 12 minutes, which is about a 10 min, 40 sec mile, which is way faster than it felt. It felt seriously slow. It may have been slower, but we are going to pretend. I was talking to one of my coworkers today, and she said that she runs two miles a day, but she use to do one mile a day. And I thought, I could run one mile a day - say 3 days a week. I mean, I wouldn't enjoy it, but also it wouldn't take that long and I could do it. So, we will see if I can. Day 1, check!

I have been doing virtual parkour, and it's so fun! On Monday we played "The Floor is Lava" or, as my brother and I used to call it "Keep Off the Floor." We were much more organized about it than my brother and I used to be, we started by planning one step - which for me was stepping onto a yoga block on the second highest setting (because I did yoga class right before - go me!). At first I could just picture the block turning over and me falling and a sprained ankle and not being able to exercise for months; but then when I continued to do it, it was actually fine. Then we added another step, which I did stepping onto my ottoman. Then we added more - I just got a new dining room table, and I had taken the legs off my Ikea table, and they turned out to be perfect parkour props. They are still lying on the floor in the living room so I can walk on them. The cool thing was that every time I tried a new thing I thought I wouldn't be able to do it, and I thought about getting rid of the yoga block, but by the end of the class it wasn't so hard!

I actually got my mom and dad's dining room table and chairs because my mom is moving to an assisted living floor. It's really weird going through her things and dividing stuff up when she is still here, it feels intrusive. And, since we are taking stuff, it sort of feels like we are stealing from her. (In fact, I told some people that my sister and I were stealing my mom's stuff, though of course it's not really true, it was always meant to come to us.) With the quarantine, we aren't able to visit her and we have to wear masks around each other, which is also weird.

I also got a nice computer chair, which I didn't realize I needed - but now that I've been using it my back is feeling so amazing - I didn't realize that it was killing me because of the chair! One of my cats, Tigger, had been coming over to me before and scratching and meowing, but I didn't know what she wanted - it turns out that she wanted her own seat! Now that I have cushioned chairs, she comes and naps next to me in the morning while I work.

Parkour Lockdown Challenge

I finally joined parkour - they have a $75 per month online membership which isn't a bad deal. They have noon workouts every day, and then geriatric evening classes Monday and Thursday. If I do 2 noon classes a week, and one geriatric evening class, that's $6 ish per class. I'm feeling so out of shape, I needed to do something!

Thursday I did my first evening class - there were only 3 of us there, and 2 instructors :). It was pretty fun, some jumping exercises. Our parking lot is being repaved, and no one is back there, so I did it outside. Today I did an hour and a half class, which reminded me a lot of crossfit. And of how out of shape I am. We did a 10 minute AMRAP that included 12 crunches (where your feet and head never touch down), 6 high plank-to low plank-to high planks, and then 3 burpees (one can never get away from burpees!) I did almost 5 rounds in 10 minutes, but I had to put my knees down on the planks after the first one. Then we did EMOM plank jumping jacks, which I can't do because of my toe, so I just planked. We started at 15 in a minute, then added one for each minute, for 11 minutes. I started with 15 sec of plank and added to it - I got to 21 sec and was done. So then I did wall sits and squats.

The sad thing is that is the less fun part of crossfit - I always liked the lifting more, and the WOD less. But, I guess you do what you have to do.

I was going to go hiking yesterday, either Garfield, Willey, or Sandwich Dome, but when I looked at the weather it was supposed to be HOT, like 90, with a possibility for thunderstorms. Also, it's black fly season. I could not force myself out the door. And, I'm so glad I didn't go - I saw someone posted that they were hiking and a huge thunderstorm rolled in, with giant hail - the white mountains definitely isn't the place I want to be in a story. Hopefully next weekend I can try again.

2 mile run/walk

I was at socially distant parkour on Sunday and we played this game that was basically red light/green light, and I kept getting caught because I was so slow, and breathing so heavy. I am fat and out of shape. Pandemics aren't good for fitness goals. I decided I have to try to do better, and so yesterday I went for a kayak and today I went for a run.

I am so excited that they opened the canoe and kayak place again! I've already been 3 times in the last 8 days :) First I went kayaking in Newton, then paddleboarding in Allston, then kayaking again in Cambridge/Boston. It's been so nice out, it was perfect on the water! This year you have to make a reservation, and I decided to get my own life jacket so that I wouldn't have to wear one that someone else recently had on (I felt OK about this expense, because also the rental ones often smell). I also cleared the dill out of my garden - there was soooo much. It was hard to pull it all, but I had to. It isn't really good once it gets warm out, and it shades the other plants.

Today, I decided that I would go for a run after work. I did a bunch of mapping, trying to figure out a good route, but in the end decided I would do a 2 mile run that's an abbreviation of my 3 mile run - the bridge is still out, and I wasn't sure I was up to 3 miles. And, I wasn't. I have some new paper surgeon's masks that I got for outdoor exercise in the city - I wore one of them, but it was still difficult to breath with it covering my face. After not very long, I pushed it down so my nose was poking out when I wasn't near other people. And then so my mouth was out too.

I made it less than a mile before stopping - about .8 mile. Then I walked a little, and then ran again, and then walked and so on. I ran more than I walked, but still it took 26 minutes and 27 seconds, according to my Fitbit. I did have to stop at a couple of lights, so maybe 26 minutes, which is a 13 minute mile average. Which isn't so bad.

I'm thinking about getting an online subscription to parkour and doing their online classes - they have a noon class every day, and then they also have two low impact evening classes. I've been ok about weekend exercising, but during the week I've been such a slacker!

Mt. Monadnock

I was going to do a 4000 footer today, either Garfield or Willey, but then I woke up at 8 am, not feeling inspired for a 10 mile hike. So, I went for Monadnock. I was going to do it last Friday - I have 5 Fridays in a row off (!) but then I woke up with a migraine last week, and didn't do anything. Part way through the day on Friday I thought about how I often get migraines when I'm sick, and had a little freak out. Fortunately my city now has free covid tests for anyone who wants, you just have to make an appointment - so I called and got one that day! The test itself was a little uncomfortable - they do shove a swab further into your nose than I knew they could put one. The woman who did the test was really nice, we counted down together from 12 as she twisted the thing, and I only teared up at 2 -1, and then it was fine. It all kind of ruined my weekend because I was sick Friday and Saturday, and then paranoid Sunday. But I got a negative test result on Monday, so all is good.

The one bad thing that happened is that I lost my map for Monadnock, so I had to go to the main park to get a new one. You have to make a reservation now, which is a little strange, and prepay. I hate the two trails that go from the parking lot there because they're so crowded, but when I looked at the map there were a few other ways to go that were a little longer, but I thought would be more peaceful, and they were!

From Park Headquarters I took the Parker Trail to Lost Farm Trail to Cliff Walk which goes over Bald Rock. Then I took Smith Connector to Ampitheather to the White Arrow Trail the rest of the way up. Definitely enjoyed! Good route up if you have to park at Headquarters. One of the guys going down said that he hiked it on Labor Day weekend and hardly saw anyone on it. Before I hit the White Arrow Trail, I saw two separate people going down, two dads going up with their tween sons, and a fast girl hiking with her parents, who had to stop at every trailhead. The White Arrow got busy, and then the top was packed. That place is always busy - once I hiked up with a meet up group for super moon on a Monday at Midnight, and there were a ton of people up there!

I decided to do a circle back, just to see how it went, and did Pumpelly to Red Spot (which was pretty hard, eventually I gave up trying to do my parkour moves, and slid down on my butt) to Cascade Link to White Dot. From when I turned off on Red Spot until I got to White Dot, I saw two guys going up, and that was it. It was a Friday, so less traffic than tomorrow I guess. Anyhow, as I was walking into the end, with my feet killing me, this trail runner flew past me. I have no idea how they do it!

I have 10 days at work until the furloughs go into effect. A few people shifted their furloughs a little, so they could be in for part of July, but for the most part we will be down to 10 people for the month. It will be weird.

Mt. Chocorua

It's Memorial Day weekend already - how did that happen? I've been itching to go hiking, and now that things are opening up again, I decided it was time. I decided I would drive from home to the trailhead without stopping, I wouldn't hang out at the trail head, I would stay 6 feet away from other people at the top, and after I would drive right home, or only stop in MA, near me. And that's just what I did!

I've driven past Chocorua a lot of times on the way to North Conway, and to other mountains that I've climbed. Every time I go up there, I look at it and think that it seems like a cool mountain to climb. It's pretty bald up top, and slabby. The peak is a rock that really stands out - it's bald and has a pretty interesting shape. It's not a 4000 footer, it's "only" 3475', but the loop hike I did was 8.6 miles, with 2700 feet of elevation gain (it starts in a valley), so it was harder than some of the 4000 footers out there!

Today was a perfect day for hiking - bluebird sky at first, and then these crazy awesome clouds came in when I was close to the top. I did a loop - the piper trail up, which is 4.2 miles and has some really cool slab to go up. There were a few spots with a snow monorail left, but no need for micro spikes (which I knew from other people's trail reports for previous days - thanks folks!). The first .6 mile I did in 11 minutes, and I felt pretty proud of myself and smug. The next turn off was .6 mile later, and I got there at 30 minutes. Then at was .8 mile to the next turn, and another like half mile to this cabin. I was really impressed with myself, because I got to the 2 mile point in an hour! But that's when things got dicey, and slowed down. The next bit to the cabin wasn't so bad, but then it was tough going, and my stomach alarm went off and I had to stop and eat something. In the end, it took me 3 hours to get up, which I felt pretty good about. Partly because there were switchbacks. I sat up top for about a half hour and enjoyed the view, and ate a cheese sandwich on this amazing honey oat bread that I've been making.

I sat looking at the view of the whites, and it was cool to know that I'd climbed the tallest peeks that I was looking at. Maybe this year, in addition to trying to do the last 5 solo, I will try to climb some of the subpeeks - I bet they'll be less crowded. There were a lot of people on Chocorua, probably a dozen passed me on the way up and the top was full. People were mostly keeping away from each other, it was a chill crowd (literally in some cases, there was a lot of bud on that mountain!)

I decided to do a loop because it looked like the downward part would be less steep, and I thought there would be fewer people going that way. I took Liberty to Hammond to Weetamoo to Piper, which is 4.4 miles - so just a little bit longer. It was super steep at the top, going down the first part took forever. I was using my hiking poles, and also trying to use my parkour moves, but the poles got in the way. Eventually I decided to put the poles away, and head down with parkour. I have to say, even though it took me 3 hours to get down, I still felt like parkour helped me to move faster. I got in some good tiktoks and definitely am better about trusting my feet and stepping on the balls of my foot instead of the heals.

By the time I was half way down, I was regretting doing an 8.6 mile hike for my first real hike of the season. Why don't I do a nice 6 mile, 2000 footer? My feet and legs were killing me! I wanted to just sit down and not walk any more - instead I tried to use gravity and run on gentle downhills so I could sit down sooner. One thing that I'm worried about is that I finally have almost grown my left toenail back - it fell off in a pool in Thailand in December, and it sooo close to being normal again. And it's really sore. If it falls off again, I'm going to be really bummed. Anyhow, it was a good hike, and I was so happy to see the parking lot, and my little Honda Civic.

There's another trail up the other side, Champney Falls, that's really popular. I think a lot of the folks today took that trail up - it's a little less elevation gain=2500 feet, there's a waterfall, and there are still switchbacks. It's 3.8 miles each way, 3.9 if you go to the falls (which I assume you should), so it would be almost a mile less than this route was. It's also an extra 25 or so minutes drive each way, it starts on the Kancamagus Highway (which is just fun to write). Probably a weekday hike one summer, if I ever have summer Fridays again (I bet they are going to be vacation days in the future).

Now that I'm done, I give it 2 thumbs up, but it's not an easy hike. Better for the second or third hike of the season. Final note, I made 8 full masks since I last wrote, plus cut a huge stack and did the first step in sewing them. No idea how many, I bet about 15. Anyhow, masks done, 129.

Masks

This isn't really a exercise update, though I did go for a walk on Crane's Beach this weekend (which was wonderful and made me wonder why I don't go to the beach more, especially since it's so close). I also did geriatric parkour - we have a new woman in our group who seemed pretty cool. I did yoga today. And, I've been learning to play the didgeridoo, because I have my brother's didj (as we didgeridoo players call it), and so I may as well try to play it. I think I'll try to go out at 7 every evening to play on the front steps. There are some people up the street who make a lot of noise every evening, it would be nice to join in.

I've been making masks, and I realized I should keep track of numbers, just to keep track. So, I've made:
1 for me
8 for my sister in CT
3 for my sister in MA
3 for my mom (who looses them)
5 for my sister's friends
2 for friends here
6 that I sent to MI
79 for my mom's peeps
14 that I dropped off at the library today

That's 121 total so far! Wow. I may be forgetting some. But I think that's a reasonable estimate.

Today at work they announced furloughs. I've never been part of a layoff or furlough, this was my first time. Right now, it's just for the month of July, and I am not affected. Out of our office of 30, they are only keeping 2 student facing people - I'm one of them, and the fellowships person is the other. I was really shocked, not that I wasn't furloughed because this is my busy time of year, but that they are basically closing up services for students for the month. I feel like there may be more furloughs coming, and that in the future ones I may not be working.

Wachusett Mountain

Sunday was another beautiful day! I slept in a bit, when to socially distant Parkour, and then to Leominster to hike Wachusett. We had a new woman in parkour - she usually does a more advanced class, so it was really nice to have her there to raise the bar. Holy cow - she can jump really far! I want to work on that, jumping far and landing with precision. I was talking about how parkour helped me with hiking, and could I say "I parkoured the fuck out of that?" I think I can. After class I climbed the wall that's there 10 times - I think I'm getting better at it. Climbing in my sneakers is becoming more comfortable, and I don't get scared at all, even though the wall is about 10 feet tall, and there's no cushion at the bottom.

After, I drove out to get a bigger hike in. Wachusett is a 2000 footer, with 750 feet of elevation gain on the trail that I did. I was thinking that I would go up to the top, over, down the other side, and then up again, so it would be 1500 feet of elevation gain, and much more like a mountain. But, it was hotter out that I expected, and I was low on fluids by the time I got to the top, so I just went back down. I did this nice little circle - up Stage Coach trail to Harrington which I took to the top. Harrington got pretty steep for a little bit at the end. Then I took Mountain House from the top to Jack Frost and then High Meadow to Echo Lake. The whole hike was probably a little over 3 miles and it took me a little over 2 hours, but I wasn't rushing. I felt good at the end, a little tired, but I could have hiked further (with fluids).

We still have no news about upcoming furloughs. Except we know that we could be part-time, not working or full-time, and our status could change with the amount of mission critical work that we have to do. And we will know about summer by May 15, but it seems very in the air, like at any time you could wind up having a change in status. Plenty to worry about!

On the bright side, the rhubarb is coming up in the garden, and I made the most delicious strawberry rhubarb tart last night. And then ate the entire thing! I will definitely make this recipe again, super easy and super delicious!!