My Hiking Journal

I have been feeling so much better this year. I’m off three medications I had been taking. I’m working more days now. I am feeling much better. Our children are wonderfully taking care of themselves and busy, busy, busy.
So I have found myself at age 66, feeling good, and feeling free and wanting to do something different. I thought about what I would like to do. Already I read, sew, visit with my friends, study Spanish for my work, help people with their Family History. One of the things I thought I should begin doing is exercise. I hate exercising. I’ve only been able to do it when I needed to be fit for something else like volleyball, my Cub calling I had for 23 years, vacation or what have you.
So, now that I have a little time and feeling some freedom I began to think about how I could incorporate exercise into my life. I thought of how much Merlin likes dancing. We could take a dancing class, that would be exercise. Merlin wasn’t as interested as I was. I thought we could play tennis or get baseball mitts and play catch. Merlin said this sounded sort of fun, but we never actually moved in that direction by looking at tennis rackets or gloves.
My friend, Eileen, has consistently told me about the hiking she was doing. She hikes, kayaks, skis, snowshoes, and scuba dives. I often tell her how proud of her and and how much I’d like to do what she was doing, but I am so out of condition. She has offered to help me get in shape. Finally one day toward the end of June this year, I took her up on her offer. I love hiking, the outdoors, camping, picnicking and everything out in God’s great creation. And this would also improve my health.
She first took me to a little hike across from the Le Callie Restaurant along Wasatch Blvd. It was beautiful with the trail running along side the Little Cottonwood Creek which was running full still from the spring runoff. There was a little hill probably 50 feet. While making my way up this little hill, I had to stop 4 times to catch my breath. The last time I stopped to catch my breath, I kneeled down and then I had a hard time getting up. I was really out of shape.

We went on this trail two times and I took Merlin once. It was beautiful each time and I improved each time and Merlin enjoyed it too. However, Merlin is in great condition because of his work. Never the less, he goes with me which is the best. I also began going down to our exercise room and working out on our machines. This helped a lot. The first time I went down, there was a woman working out on the elliptical. She had been on it for nearly one hour! After 10 minutes on the bike I was exhausted but thinking I should build up my leg muscles, I went over to the weight machines. I was like a beached whale trying to get in and out of the machines. The very beautiful, slim woman on the elliptical just laughed at all my maneuvers and groans. I felt humiliated. But I was in love with my new hobby, so I just took it and went on. My last time on the elliptical was 30 minutes. A big improvement for me. Plus I'm much better on the weight machines. I don't groan so much.