Long underwear-check, rain jacket-check, hand warmers-check, down sleeping bag-check….
H-m-m-m-m, somehow all this stuff
Has to fit in this!
Can backpack #65 really be almost here? Just a month ago, with frozen fingers and toes, I swore off cold weather backpacking forever. Yet this feeble mind seems to have forgotten the numbing pain. Tonight I am busy attempting to stuff my very survival into a small, sturdy bag to be hoisted on my shoulders and carried into the wilderness. With the weather looking iffy at our destination, I have my fingers crossed and eyes open for another location. Forecasted rain-sleet-snow and temps in the low 20’s will bring back some chilling memories. A big, open bald at 6,100′ is no place to be camping in bad weather. What happened to the me that once eagerly anticipated cold weather camping?
On the exercise side of life where it is always cozy warm in the gym, my legs are officially jello. I crawled out of bed at 5:30 AM and headed to the gym for a short 3-mile run. What I lacked in distance I made up in intensity. I ran 11:06 minute miles, which is 26 seconds per mile faster than my January 5k. The run was topped off some 12 hours later with spin class. Oh and…I cheated a little. When the instructor said to crank the tension up, and up, and up for the last 15 minute hill, I cranked once, cranked twice and then pretended. It’s gonna take a few classes to get my legs back to their pre-Christmas spin condition.
