Saturday, July 24, 2010

Highest "M" Hikes :)


The last 2 weeks I have hiked the "M" twice and each time I have gotten higher than the last. This picture is of me the first time I went up to a rocky out crop, which let me see on the other side of the mountain. I got up there in 59 min, which I was really happy about. It is almost straight up for 3/4 of the way.



This was the view of the first hike on the other side of the mountain. It was a beautiful day, but boy was it hot!



Here I am on my second hike which I did this morning at 7 am. I was trying to beat the heat and I did. It was a beautiful morning and the temp was cool on the mountain. I also decided to wear my cowboy hat I bought about 3 years ago and never worn, it was great to keep the sun off my head :) I got to the rocky out crop in 51 min so I took 8 min off my time from last week!


This is part of the trail farther up from the rocky out crop. I went to the second highest point on the ridge today so the trail was new to me. And some of it was scary in spots if you tripped. It was a straight drop down! Needless to say I watched my step very carefully.


Here is just one of the beautify hill sides I saw this morning.


Now this is a picture of the mountain tops I am trying to get to. The one in the center of the picture is called Baldy, because there are no trees up there. This is the highest point on the ridge and it is what my goal is to get by the end of the summer. Now the mountain top to the far left of the picture, behind a dead tree, is the one I got to today.



And this is the view from the top. Now I had to go off trail to take this picture, because the trail looped around this rock and went back down to go to Baldy. I made it in 1 hour and 34 min. I am really proud of my time and I cant wait to go farther. Our Associate Athletic director made it to Baldy in 1 hour and 59min. Crazy! I don't think I could ever make it in that time, but I just want to make it :) Soon!


Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Lucky Man

This morning I got a call from my boss, Doug, at 5:10am. Now since I am up at 4am every morning to get to work by 5:45, it was not that big of a deal. But he never calls me early so I was worried. It turns out that he hit a deer out on I-90 headed to work on his motorcycle going 70mph. He is fine and one lucky man.
He just saw it in his head lights and did not have time to slow down, and you cant swerve on a bike going 70mph so all he could do was to grab the handle bars as hard as he could and brace for impact. He hit it just behind the shoulder so the body of it came around and hit his right side and the impact popped his legs off the bike and off to one side. He skidded about 1/2 mile to a stop hanging onto the handle bars while dragging his feet on the ground (well not dragging more like surfing on the bottom of his feet). He walked away with a sprained ankle and a few scraps on his foot and leg.
So this happened at about 5:10am and by 7:00am he was back at work and still working now. Doug is one lucky man and a great boss. I am glad he walked away from it.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Stairs

I just got done running stairs with my volleyball girls in our football stadium. It felt great to do and I am glad I did it, but it just reminds me how much older I am getting :( Some of the girls flew through it, but I kept up with over half of them, so I guess it is not too bad :) If I just keep it up then I will be in great shape and can keep up with all the young bucks, if my body can handle it.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Odd Encounter

A weird thing happened to Dan and I yesterday and by weird I mean creepy. Dan and I went to our usual hill to run after about 45 min of throwing at the track (I did not have a good day throwing, but running hills sounded like a great way to get my frustrations out). It is a park/trail head in town on Pete's hill, it is a great run.

We walked up the hill right when we got there to warm up our legs a bit before we ran up. On our way down we were walking side by side and taking up the whole path, I turned my head to spit (I know real lady like, I cant help in when I am working out) and I saw a man behind us in a long sleeve shirt, a hat, and long pants. I thought nothing of it and stepped in front of Dan to get out of the mans way. Dan had turned around and looked at the man in the eyes, and slowed down a bit so he could pass.

We got down to the bottom of the trail, which at this point was only about 50 feet from where I saw him and he still had not passed us, so Dan and I stepped out to the side getting ready to let him by and start our run up the hill. As we both turned at the same time we saw that no one was there? He was gone, in 50 feet he was gone. There was no were for him to go, it is an open grass hill and would have taken him more time to get out of site that it took for us to walk 50 feet and turn around. And we would have heard his food steps speed up if he would have ran and we did not.

Dan and I were a bit freaked out about it. We both saw him and Dan made eye contact with him. After this we talked about it for a while, then continued our sprints up the hill. The whole time I was looking in the bushes for a man with long sleeves and a hat, who had passed out or looking for bugs. But he was not there?

After our sprints Dan and I walked up the trail a bit to cool off and made a loop around to get back down the hill. As we were walking I saw and realized that at the top of the hill only about 150feet away from our hill was a cemetery. That freaked Dan out and I was tripping out too.

So take this story as you will, but Dan and I think we saw a ghost. There seems to be no other way to explain it for us. I guess we will just keep our eyes out for weird things every time we go running, you never know what you might see out there!

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Yellowstone Highland games


Last weekend Dan and I did our first highland games together and it was a blast! And it was Dan's first highland games ever. We had two of our lifting friends with us also who were doing it for the first time. They all had a great time and I think I got them in for life :)

Here is a picture of all the guys, Dan, Eric and Keith. I made all of their kilts, I think they look great!

Dan also wants to train more for the highland games. He got 3rd out of 5 guys in the novice class on this first day out. I am so proud of him and he got better on every throw.

This is Dan with his heavy weight for distance, 42 lbs.

Dan's first time with the sheaf toss, he did great!

Dan with all his bling :)

I had a good day, I got first, but got second in one event, the heavy stone. I need to practice :)

Hammer went well though and our friend Keith brought his girl friends camera for the day and got some great sport shots of us throwing. Thanks Keith!!!!!



Here is Dan after he found the weapons to play with. I think the sunglasses really make the outfit :)




Here is Dan throwing the weight for height.



Here is a video of me throwing the light hammer.

Over all Dan and I had a great time. I think Dan really found something he really likes. We met a lot of great people and it was a great day with friends. I am going to make it to one more highland games this year in Enumclaw, WA for sure and other than that we will see.