First Ascent

On Saturday, our Team in Training Hiking group did our first actual on-the-trails practice hike. Two hours dashing around the hills of Edgewood Park, on the ridge between 280 and Redwood City, just north of Canada College.

The expected rainstorm held off for half a day, so we enjoyed sunshine instead of a drenching on this first hike. We woke up at 5:30 am (very, very early for me) to meet for carpooling at 6:45 am and and the whole team at trail head at 7:45 am.

I'd driven past this park many times but had never stopped there; didn't even know there was a park with trails. We both wore our new backpacks, and Christina her second pair of new hiking boots. And I tried out our new tiny camera. As directed, I drank lots and lots of water on the way to the hike. Bad idea!

Where's the bathroom??!! By the time we all got underway at 8:15, I badly needed to go, but there was nothing around except bushes. Uh Oh. Maybe there is a proper facility at the other end of the park, where the main public entrance is?

We divided into three groups, depending on what hiking pace we expected to match. Those of us who hope to qualify for the Half Dome hike were told to get into the fastest-pace group led by mentor Debra. We dashed off, with me trying to keep up. TnT hikers have a motto 'Hikers don't run!', but this was not walking like I'd ever done out in the woods. More like the fastest heal-to-toe scamper you can do without running, a bit like the Olympic walking race event.

We stopped at every trail intersection, to practice reading trail maps and getting un-lost. At our first break, another guy ran into the bushes to relieve himself, but I was too embarrassed to join, and we were soon on our way again. Debra reminded the group that we should aim to synchronize our pee breaks, so that we didn't need to wait for just one or two at every break. Two stops later, a second guy scampered into the bushes to pee, and I decided that just peeing was maybe better than nothing, so I found my own bushes and went. And went. And went. Longest pee in a couple of years. Ahhh, the relief! Thankfully, the need for #2 was now gone and I enjoyed the rest of the hike. I could even sip more water and try out the energy bar trail snacks.

I learned that this park is famous for massive displays of spring wildflowers and for butterflies. This early in the year, I spotted just isolated examples of four kinds of flowers: Lupine (Christina called these "blue ploopins" as a child), Hounds tooth, an unidentified tiny ground-level blue star, Indian Warrior. None of use knew what any of these were, but this page has helped me. We also saw a large jackrabbit 60 feet off the trail.

The fast hiking pace makes it hard to see what there is to see. If it weren't for the goal of getting up to Half Dome this spring and raising money this way, I would definitely not choose to be so hurried. I gather that TnT aims for a fast pace in the Half Dome hike partly because of the long duration of that hike, but mostly because of the traffic congestion that happens at the bottom of the final 45-degree 1050-ft-climb cables near the summit. We have to reach that point before the summertime crowds arrive: early birds, rush hour begins, and metered on ramp.
And so, I'll make a game of seeing what I can at speed, and stealing quick photos of what I've found. Others are already helping me at this.

Today, we both kept up with the fastest, fit hikers in our fastest group. It helps a lot to have long legs. This will hopefully get easier to sustain, as we drop weight and get in shape. I've lost 5.5 pounds of my -35 pounds target. Christina began earlier and has already lost even more. Fitness wise, I can already see and feel a huge difference from where we started and even since last week. No aches the day after! But I did have a three hour nap when I got home.

They Made Me Wear This Silly Hat

Duane and I arose at 5:30 am for our first Team in Training hike! For those of you who know Duane, this is HUGE. He gets out of bed for work grudgingly, but on weekends, don't even think about stirring him before 10:00 am. We got into our hiking clothes and I fixed us both some oatmeal with dried blueberries. We're supposed to eat breakfast 1-2 hours before the hike and drink some water. So we did.

We had laid out our clothes and fixed up our packs the night before. For this hike we were supposed to bring 40 ounces of water. We used our new hydration system and filled it up to about half full. Rain was still possible, we we made sure to include a poncho. For clothes I was definitely "stylin'" this time! I had my purple long sleeved undershirt, my Team in Training t-shirt, and I found in my closet an old pair of black workout pants that I had previously missed. My hiking pants won't arrive until next Thursday. But at least I wasn't displaying colors of fluorescent yellow, red and sky blue. Ewww!

We had stopped at the local Safeway the night before to purchase an assortment of trail mix bars. We read the labels on all the packages to find the product that contained as little soy as possible. Soy, while high in protein, is also a phytoestrogen. Soy raises breast cancer risk in post-menopausal women and is implicated in thyroid cancer. I wanted a few calories, and some protein, but without the soy. We bought several boxes of fruit and nut bars to try them out. My sister-in-law Rose, the personal trainer extraordinaire, has recommended a couple of good bars, but I haven't had time to pick them up yet. These will do in the meanwhile. I put two bars in the side pocket of my pack, as well as one bottle of G2 fruit punch, for electrolyte replenishment.

We arrived at the carpool area by 6:45 am, dropped off Duane's car, and then drove up to Edgewood Park together. The photo above is of our team assembling at the trail head. Right before the hike awards were handed out. Duane won a purple and green pedometer for being the third highest fundraiser of the week. Then our social event coordinator asked if anyone who hadn't previously hiked with Team in Training was wearing two purple clothing items. I was, so I raised my hand. For wearing team colors, I received a green and purple party favor. Since next Wednesday is my birthday, our social event coordinator pulled out this goofy fool's hat for me to wear while hiking. The incriminating photo is on right. So much for my fashion consciousness!

Today, I also packed my amateur radio. I taught part of a ham radio Technician license class right after the hike and I was hoping to give my students a demonstration of the power of ham radio while on the trail. The class was occurring at the Silicon Valley American Red Cross in San Jose, and I would be speaking to them from the trail in San Mateo, right off Highway 280. Not bad range for a handheld transceiver running 5 watts!

We did a few stretching exercises and away we went! So far, one of the most valuable exercises I have learned is the calf stretch. When I stretch out my calf muscle properly, I have no pain at all in my Achilles tendon.

The trail gently sloped up hills, through meadow and chaparral woods, in some places steeper than others. But what goes up, must come down and it was easy on the other side. Along the way, we stopped to admire the panoramic view of the San Francisco Bay, and the many wildflowers that dotted the landscape with color.

All of the steps we have been doing up Communications Hill must be helping, because I was ready to go on another hike after we got back to our cars! Go Team! Hike On!