Find Your Mountain

My Mountain Hike

In my first post, I mentioned how I'm not the type to do heavy cardio workouts.  I won't be in the step aerobic class or boot camp.  It's not that I wouldn't want to be, but an injury when I as fourteen caused some internal damage to my knees.   This put a stop to any jarring or high impact sports.   I do use the machines like the elliptical but mainly I hike and swim.

The workout which I feel helps me the most is my hike.  I am lucky to have a great hiking trail literally in my back yard.  I try to get there as much as possible and I would hike it everyday if I could only find the time.   It's about a 2 - 2.8 mile hike round trip, depending which trails I take I can do the hike in 50 minutes or 90 minutes.

What is great about the hike is that it's a natural endurance course.  I go up for about 30 minutes, in some areas steep enough that I would not recommend going down that way.  The trail then levels off but then naturally goes up and down on the way back down, keeping the muscles working relatively well until the cool down for the walk home.

View from Top of Mountain

I do think, this hike in particular, helped me lose the weight to my first target goal in the fall.  The weather was great then and I could literally go daily because of the long hours of light.  Once the time changed, so did my workout :-(.  I then started swimming at the health club and doing a yoga class here and there.   I maintained my weight, but didn't really lose any more.

Now that the time has changed back, I'm trying to get back in the swing of the trail.  There still isn't enough light hours yet for me to make it everyday, but I am looking forward to when I can.

There are many benefits to the hike, I don't speed through it or listen to my favorite music, I mainly listen to myself.  Think about things, I normally don't have the time or quiet to think about when I'm surrounded by my family or my work.  It's a good feeling, a refocusing moment, helping me to keep going.  I highly recommend finding a mountain and visiting it frequently.