Lessons from Breakneck Ridge

I had an eye doc appt at 11 am today so I got to the gym earlier just to get something in today. Yesterday, I crashed and slept 4 hours after I put my son on the bus. I just don't do well with sleep deprivation. Because I'm at the gym earlier, it's got a whole 'nother crowd... the morning crowd. There's a Zumba class in session, and lots of people I don't recognize milling about the gym. I get my 30 min of cardio in, knock out the pull ups and core stuff, and then my 22 push ups. 22 is easy when you're used to muscling through 100 in one set.

We were very busy over the weekend... hiking with my son's Boy Scout troop up Breakneck Ridge on Saturday, and going to the New York Renaissance Faire on Sunday. I've learned some valuable lessons from Saturday's hike though:

1. It's not really a hike, but actual rock climbing for at least the first quarter of it.
2. I now know what it feels like to run out of calories. This is different from being tired, or muscle fatigue where you can feel the lactic acid burn. This is just a weird feeling of empty. Because I didn't have time to eat breakfast, and truthfully, my stomach's not awake at 8 am. Coffee, even with cream and sugar, just isn't enough.
3. Blue jeans do not make good climbing pants. I saw many hikers wearing gym clothes and yoga pants. In truth, I was worried about ripping big holes in my gym pants because while they are stretchy and elastic, they don't resist rockface very well, especially if you wind up scooting down a rock on your butt, or need to kneel onto a rock just to get up it. I didn't want to wear my "good" jeans because I only have 3 pairs that fit really well. So I put on a pair of jeans that I didn't care about. And they were slightly too big in the waist, which meant that my day pack kept pushing the back of my jeans down, especially after I got really sweaty. Also, I kept having to hike my jean legs up a bit to be able to get my legs up high enough to climb certain rock ledges. Jeans are too restrictive. But they wear well, and even though my legs are a bit bruised, the jeans don't look at all worn.
4. Leather fingerless lifting gloves work well to protect hands when rock climbing. My son was complaining that his hands hurt and were filthy to boot. 

My knees weren't definitely not happy on the descent, but at least it wasn't as steep as the first part of the climb. My husband took lots of photos, and we're both glad we managed to finish the hike. Tomorrow I plan to get to the gym early again, and get a Push Day routine done. I'm not quite sure about only doing 30 minutes of cardio though. The scale smacked me with 112.6 lbs this morning. Not a good way to begin the week.

Tuesday Workout

30 min elliptical
Program 1
286 cal
2.53 miles

HGPU 31
Knee-Ins 50
Crunches 3 X 50
Bird Dogs 2 X 60 sec
Elbow Planks 2 X 45 sec

22 push ups