Torturing Amber 101 in 4 Steps:
1) take her out in the cold
2) take her out when there’s snow on the ground
3) take her on a hike
4) combine 1-3 for ultimate torture
Put these together and you get my day on Sunday.
11 miles for #11in11
My training has officially begun. I need to get myself in a semblance of shape before I leave for training camp and for The Race. Lucky for me, I have some great friends who are willing to push me towards that goal (even if it means I hate them in the midst of it).
A few weeks ago my friend told me that he was going to take me on a hike to prepare me for my trip and I had two choices. Either I come willingly, or he would kidnap me and make me go. I chose to go willingly, though that didn’t stop me from complaining about it! Until Sunday, I hadn’t been hiking since about sophomore year of high school, 9 years ago. My idea of a good, long hike consisted of 2 miles or less, and even that was a killer. My friends version of a hike is very different than mine though, and our Sunday hike was his idea of a short one. As the day got closer for us to go, the more nervous I got. I kept thinking “there’s no way I can go on an 8 mile hike, it will kill me.” But I was determined to at least try.
I was given a list of what to bring and a time to be at his house. I had no idea what I was doing, I basically just stuffed everything into my pack, made a couple of sandwiches, stuffed them in and ran out the door. When I pulled up to his house he was already outside waiting to go, so we put my pack in his jeep and off we went. About an hour later we pulled up to this dirt trail and I’m thinking “ok this just got real” because up until this point I had kind of been hoping he was kidding about it…he wasn’t.
Me near the beginning of the hike
We climb out, get our packs on and start heading up this dirt trail that as we go further up the muddier it gets…then snowier until we are walking through deep sometimes slushy snow most of the time. Now, you already read the steps for how to torture me, so you know that I’m not the happiest about this right about now. Up until that point I was trucking along just avoiding the mud puddles, but there’s no avoiding the snow, it was everywhere. I wasn’t going to give up though, I made myself a promise that no matter what, I was going to make it to the end of the trail and back down, even if it did kill me. Plus, I knew my friend didn’t think I would make it halfway and would give up and go back to the car. I was going to prove him wrong. I had to stop a lot to catch my breath, but I kept going. My feet were cold and wet, the wind was blowing and cold, and I was starting to cough but I didn’t want to give up. I wanted to prove, not only to him, but to myself that I could do it.
The further up we went, the harder it got, and me being the clumsy person I am on dry, flat ground, fell four times in the snow. I had a choice, I could say enough was enough, especially after that fourth fall, or I could laugh it off, get up and keep going. I’m so glad that I decided to do the latter.
The 4th time I fell I just had to laugh
Our goal was to make it to this gate that closes off the rest of the trail during the winter. When I finally caught sight of the gate I was so relieved! Thank the Lord, we were finally there!
The prettiest gate I’ve ever seen!
That’s when my friend looked at his phone to see how far we had gone and he says “I may have underestimated how many miles this hike is…” We had hiked 5.5 miles to get to that gate, which would make it an 11 mile hike by the time we got back to the car. Holy Cow! I could’ve strangled him if I had had the energy. I hadn’t even wanted to go 8 miles, but now I was stuck with 11. The only way out was to hike back to the car, because he wasn’t going to drive up the trail to pick me up. So down we went…
About 2-3 miles from the car I was just putting one foot in front of the other, that’s about all my brain could process I was so tired. I wasn’t even thinking about anything other than the fact that each step I took brought me closer to sitting down and taking a nap. My friend was extremely entertained by my facial expression around this time and decided to snap a picture. As you can tell, I was obviously thrilled to be there.
I was so tired I couldn’t even get excited about getting to the car, I just put my pack in the back, climbed in and zoned out haha.
It’s been 4 days since then and while I’m not as sore as I was the 2 days after, I can still feel it. I’ll be moving with no pain at all just in time for our next hike this Sunday. Let the process begin again. I’m going to be a beast by the time I head to training camp!
Here are a couple pictures from the hike. It was beautiful, even if it was cold.
The road we hiked up
Probably my favorite view of the day
