hike

Crisis Averted? Crisis Continues? Crisis Not a Crisis…

/ Sloan / Leave a comment

If you are my Facebook friend and/or follow me on Twitter or have the pleasure of having hung out with me recently, you’d know that I’m in the middle of some sort of crisis. Not actually sure if you could dub it a true existential crisis, a freak out, quarter life craziness or what, but something is going on within me. I’ve since reached out to friends that I find to be wiser, more creative, have it more figured out than me, for advice. And what they’re telling me is and isn’t what I want to hear.

From what I’ve gathered this feeling never goes away. We never know what we’re put on earth to do, so we should just enjoy it, damnit. My friend/professor/fellow Bianchi lover said to me:

“The journey IS the destination. There is no “there” out there.”

SO true. In a figurative sense such as life and in a literal sense, like when you’re actually in the woods on a journey.

My run/hike today was a 9ish mile loop to a place we call 4-corners, (yep you guessed it, four roads meet up at the top of this ‘hill’) I went with one girl who is in great shape and another girl that hadn’t really every been on the trail in years, (I hope we didn’t scare her away.) Today was sunny, warm and the woods were clear and crisp. We took three hours to do our loop—it really shouldn’t take that long but we took our time, ran, walked, hiked, talked about why each of us live in Southern Oregon. We’re all in different points in our lives, moved for different reasons.

We got to the top, our destination, and really, 4-corners is rather anti-climatic. The view isn’t that great, there’s a big hole in the middle where water pools and it’s all muddy and gross, or frozen if it’s cold. We stretched, hydrated, chatted a bit more and then ventured back on the trail. The run down was FUN—kinda like a roller coaster for our feet only without the nausea and long lines of some lame theme park in Florida.

At one point we stopped and just looked at the setting sun beaming through trees. Winking a quick goodbye before lowering behind the mountain. We all took a mental snap shot and someone said “This is why we moved here girls, this.” This journey is just some thing we have to ride, enjoy and absorb I guess.

It’s hard not to get caught up in the race of moving to the top, being ‘successful’. But then that makes me question the definition of success—and that will be a whole other blog post. For now, I’m going to revel in my tiredness of a longer run, a good day with friends and feeling a bit calmer about my life because I have great people all over helping me from all corners.

 

 

February the new May?

/ Sloan / 3 Comments

I’m not sure what’s happening. I look at a calendar and it says it February but then I look and walk outside and it feels like May. 65 degrees, sunny, birds chirping—pure bliss if you ask me! So what do I decide to do on a 65 degree February morning? My friend and I thought it would be appropriate to go up the mountain and find snow!!

Just a 20-minute drive from town and the temperature dropped a bit but it was still gloriously (is that a word?) warm, sunny and snow covered! We only had an hour and half so the plan was to hike/run around, but our plans were bosched when we realized we didn’t have a parking permit and everywhere on the mountain you need one so that your car doesn’t get towed or get a ridiculously huge ticket. But we didn’t give up!

Instead of hanging up at Mount A, we cruised on over to the base of Pilot Rock and just hiked up and up for a solid 30 minutes, didn’t really make it to any destination, but we were both over dressed and sweaty by the time we decided to soak in the view and head back down to town. We both kept shouting “THIS IS WHY WE LIVE HERE”

Moutains

Be jealous

Not having got my cardio fix in at altitude I threw on some shorts, (yes, shorts and a t-shirt) and headed out for a run/core workout. The core workout consisted of me laying in a grassy field doing a few planks, a few crunches, but more so slowing down and basking in the sun, soaking up the free vitamin D mother nature was handing out yesterday.

My legs felt heavy and the hill never seemed to stop, but being outside and just enjoying the day was exactly what I needed on my day off from work. Being able to slow down and just be is something I’ve struggled with and I think living in the mountains is helping me learn to take a deep breath and appreciate what I have right now.

So, whether you’re in a town that’s covered in snow, a sunny beach, or some weird mix like my winter has been, figure out how to breathe. Live and love each moment that you have right now. It’s hard, but that deep breath is worth it, I promise.

RICE

/ Sloan / Leave a comment

RICE: who knew it actually worked?

 

Thursday last week was my only day to get in a long run. Needing to go somewhere new, my running partner and I set out to climb to Ostrich Peak. If you know me at all you know that I have my dads sense of direction: AKA I’m always lost, always getting myself more lost, not afraid to ask for directions but usually mess them up anyway. In my running life this has become more of a blessing in disguise. My runs are usually longer than I anticipate with even knowing it!

So when I told my partner that we had to turn right on Strawberry, then right again on Hitt Road I figured she knew where Strawberry was… a few miles later we figured out where we needed to go—basically we just needed to up, up and up higher! So needless to say our run turned into more of a five-mile hike, which is fine, the trail was great, the day was perfect—until we reached the top and started back down.

The view was great. I could see Mnt Shasta (I think) and some other mountain in the distance…I’m horrible at identifying them! On our run back down it was just a straight shot down hill, rocky terrain, and with my awesomely weak ankles I stepped on a rock in just the right spot to feel like I tore all the ligaments and broke the bone. (DON’T WORRY, NEITHER OF THOSE HAPPENED. They were just my first thoughts that entered my brain.)

Sweet View

Beatuful View

I limped along for a while and when I decided nothing horrible actually happened we started running again. But when I got home I used the RICE (Rest Ice Compression Elevation) method to get better as soon as humanly possible. Along with taking fist fulls of ibprofen it was feeling better soon. Who knew that by actually doing what all those running magazines tell you to do you can actually reduce the time it takes to get better? CRAZY!

Roommates frozen peas

My roommates frozen peas

I haven’t run yet, it’s still tender, but I did elipt my heart out today and plan to run tomorrow morning. Still icing it to keep the swelling down, and not doing anything too crazy this week. I’d rather be hurt a bit now then totally injured later!

 

Had any injuries lately? How long did they last?

 

What did you do instead of run or impact?

I actually started doing some of my work out DVDs at home. Friday I did a Denise Austin pilates total body thing…it was good! Denise is super annoying, but I got a good work out in. On Saturday I did a yoga burn DVD with my friend–we opened all the windows and doors in her house so it felt like we were outside, SO GREAT!