Starting Over

I had two main fitness goals from last week. I was going to start running again a couple of times and go on a hike. Well, I did go running, but only once on Friday. It wasn't until then that I felt ready to give it a go. The run went well and I really feel that the rest did me a world of good.
Over the weekend, I came up with a plan to prepare for the Provo Freedom Festival 10K on July 4th. This will be my third year running this race. I am on a short training schedule, but I went running this morning on the new plan. It was a bit aggressive after laying off for a couple a weeks, but it wasn't overly hard. If I keep on schedule, it won't be my fastest 10K, but I won't come in last either.
Gordon was game to go hiking so we did a 6.75 mile loop close to home. I have done the loop before and it had enough elevation change and distance to be a challenge, but not overwhelming. We got up early but it was already warm and muggy. The sky was lite up as the sun was coming up with splashes of orange all over the clouds. It was all but gone in the 10 minutes it took me to drive to the trail head so no pictures of that.
We did get a few pictures of the hike. It is still early enough in the year that everything is still really green and beautiful. We started off on a fire road for a little over a mile and then took a trail which took us up towards "the altar". As you can see, we had pretty good views as we climbed.

I even snapped a panorama view. I caught Gordon by surprise when I shot the last few and told him to hold still. I have taken a few panoramas with my iPhone lately and the AutoStitch program does a great job of piecing them together.

Here is a picture of "the altar". So named by the rocks that have been stacked up at a trail junction.

From here we headed up and over and took the adjoining Dry Canyon back down.

From that trail head, we took the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, back to the first trail head where we started. 
We were both a bit tired. Gordon is in better hiking shape that me so I need to keep after it.

Right after the marathon, I weighed myself and I was at the highest I have been in some time. I have gone on about how stressed out the training was on me. I think I was right about the stress because after weighing in this morning, I am down 9 pounds in the little over two weeks since the race. I still have a lot to take off, but at least I am headed in the right direction.

My son-in-law Mike ran a fast half marathon over the weekend. His training and weight loss really paid off as he came in under two hours! Way to go Mike!

I was also glad to hear that Michele (one of my blogging friends) completed her 62 mile bike goal at the Tour de Cure. Great milestone for her!

I signed up to be a volunteer at the Utah Valley Marathon which is a fairly new race, but has grown quickly to 7000 runners total. This includes the half and the 10K runners. I will be working the finish line. Just a little payback to the running community. I'll report in on that next week.

Hang in there and I will too!