Taking a Breather

Where to begin?

I ended up taking last Wednesday off (sorta.. I was still available by phone) in order to sleep in and attempt to avoid getting more sick and jeopardizing the hike Amy and I had planned for Thursday. To my surprise, Wednesday worked out beautifully. With plenty of rest, good food, and some last minute shopping for items to take on the day hike, I felt freaking phenomenal.

Wednesday night was a late night. We had to wake up at about 4 AM Thursday morning but neither of us got much sleep. Fortunately, after we got going in the early AM (by way of a home made breakfast sandwich and a stop to Sbux) we made excellent time up to the Paradise trail head. I'm not going to get into TOO much detail right now-- expect a full post with a new Picasa album. I'd be doing it right now, but work decided to fix the firewall rules to block remote desktop and all of my photos are already on the computer at home.

In other news.. I had my free 1 hour intro training with Brian at 24 Hour Fitness. The guy was great and showed me a lot of basic exercises to increase my core strength (which is terrible right now). The exercises I did on the previous Monday really kicked my ass, but I didn't feel the soreness until 2 days later. It wasn't a bad soreness of coruse, but holy crap he really showed me just how out of shape my mid-section is compared to the rest of me (legs are solid, and my upper-body strength isn't anything to laugh at =D ). I now have some fitness goals for overall strength and shedding a few lbs. I've laid some groundwork for eating healthier, so now it's just a matter of getting on track to meet the rest of my goals. Getting in shape will also help with more excursions up and around mountains, through parks, etc. in the future. Exciting!

A 5 day weekend full of adventure, relaxation, lunch with my Dad, some video games, some movies, plenty of sleep.. it was great times, and I look forward to my next 4 day stint in September. ^_^

Back to the grind though. Let's get this on call week out of the way!