Thursday, July 30, 2009
Day 10

The Hike
Fabulous 5 mile hike today named Slots. Lot of red sandstone, lot of up and down, and not too much sand – yehhhhhhhh! It’s amazing how your values change. Right now my favorite words are “Stop” – it means the end of the time trial; “Dip” it means that the next few hundred yards are downhill; and “cold wet towel” which means the hike is over. Nothing else matters – food, wine, TV are all of very distant secondary significance.

Today’s route took us past petroglyphs which are rock engravings and images that are created by carving into or scraping off the surface of the rock, not painting on the rock. They are supposed to be anywhere from 10,000 to 12,000 years old, although one of our party thought they dated from a 2nd grade school outing in 1998.

Today we also came as close to rock climbing as I want to do: down a ravine for about 150 feet that was so narrow that we had to leave our back packs at the top and then climb back out to retrieve them. I don’t know what was worse: climbing down or climbing up and out. And it was so comforting when the guide would point out hand holes for us with the reassuring words “Doesn’t look large enough for a rattle snake, but watch out for any scorpions.” You know, there are just some places and times where no joke is funny.

More Exercise Classes

Last time I talked about the exercise classes, I missed a few. With 80 equipment workstations plus free weights in the gym, it was easy to do.

Kick boxing – not that any of us were budding Bruce Lees, but this 45-minute session was a great cardio and strength building exercise ,and a lot of fun, how could it be otherwise when done to the pulsating beat of Dance Compilations of the 80’s, Vol. 892.

Exercise balls – I was going to leave this one to your imaginations, but for the avoidance of doubt, we use one of those large bouncy semi-inflated balls that you see a few people at work sitting on, to do all kinds of good stuff – using light weights and heavy weights, for strength – bouncing on it for core and cardio – and stretching over it, on the side of it, and under it for who knows what. You can even use it between your legs for that ever important inner thigh strength , just in case you should ever run into Suzanne Summers.

Yoga – I’ve never taken a yoga class in my life and this one I’m told was more stretch than yoga but I think that all stretch classes are built on classis yoga positions. I’m so inflexible that I barely made a distant approximation to any of the positions the instructor got herself into. However, over the week we all improved and I actually touched toes yesterday – they weren’t mine, but it was a start!

Close
Laundry night tonight so no great philosophical prognostications. Just remember, calories in, calories out, and similar to Mr. Micawber in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield: ““Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery“. Similarly, daily intake 1400 calories, daily burn rate 1600 calories, result happiness; daily intake 1600 calories, daily burn rate 1400 calories, result misery.