Alright, boys & girls, I'm finally all rested up. Actually I also had to get all my materials together to post about it. So our trip...

If you click the image it'll take you to Flickr, where you can see the full sized view of the topo map for the trip.


We actually made REALLY good time driving up to Tahoe, and the Brockway Summit trailhead came up faster than I expected. It was probably the shortest drive to any of the TRT hikes I've had. We left my car here and drove onto the Mt. Rose plaza in Bob's car.

A bit about TRT logistics. Each hike is one way, and there's not a shuttle between trailheads, so you have to have at least two cars. When hiking with the Meetup group we always have plenty of people, but in our case with two people, we just had to drive up to Tahoe separately.

Anyway, we were actually moving on the trail around 8am. My original plan was to, at the end of the trail after we'd come back for Bob's car, to hike to Mt. Rose then. That would give us a chance to look at how we felt after hiking, in case we didn't want to continue. Since we had such a good start, we decided to go ahead and do Mt. Rose first. My apology for the lack of real pictures.


The wind, the wind, the wind! It was tough walking around up there, but the view was great. We could see Reno, which is like 30 or 40 miles away. It helps that Reno has all the casinos or it'd just be some nondescript town. We spent all of about 5 minutes up there.


We headed down off Mt. Rose and took the connector trail from the Mt. Rose, .7 miles back to the TRT. Then we got to climb up all over again to the top of Relay Peak!


At this point I think we'd hiked about 6 miles, that sign says Brockway Summit is 15 miles. The views at this point were getting better and better, as we came across the ridges and finally in full view of Lake Tahoe, which went on for at least half of the hike, maybe more. BTW, I promise next time around I'm bringing my DSLR. These pictures suck.



As I said earlier, the trail went on along the ridge. At one point we needed water, but the only spot with available water was Mud Lake, which was down a bowl from the trail. We really had no choice, which added another 120 feet of elevation loss/gain. Once back on the trail, we came out onto the ridge again.


Past the ridge, we descended down into a more forested area, where we hiked the last 7 miles or so. We ran into a few backpackers, who were asking us where to find water, and who told us about how much farther we had to the end. From that point on the trail was mostly downhill, which made the going much, much faster.


Back at the car, the GPS said we'd gone about 24 miles. Back home in the National Geographic TOPO! software, it turned out to be 23.86 miles. Elevation gain +4920, max elevation 10,776'. Calories burned: 5055!

Today at lunch I ran 4.5 miles. It was supposed to be a tempo run, and I did run as fast as I could for most of it. It just wasn't near as fast as it was supposed to be. I think my "goal" is 8:27/min., but overall it was more like 11:20. In part it was because I walked about 2/10 of a mile, but even if I'd run the entire thing it would have been 10:00.

I could blame the heat, the water getting hot in my bottle quickly, the fact that I was running without gel. In the end though, it was mostly a lack of effort on my part. And you know what, that's ok. I was comfortable running today, compared to last Thursday when I had to stop after a mile and a half.

So anyway, I ran 4.5 miles in 52 minutes and burned 601 calories.

I just realized I didn't post yesterday's workout. Silly me.

Yesterday's Workout, 3 circuits, 3 sets of 5
Warmup
* Overhead Squat
* Squat
* Good Morning
* Barbell Lunge
* Romanian Deadlift
* Bent-over Row

Workout, 2-exercise supersets
* 1A: Dumbbell Alternating Lunge, 30lb dumbbells, 3 sets of 6
* 1B: Squat, 155lbs, 3 sets of 6
* 2A: Incline Dumbbell Fly, 30lb dumbbells, 3 sets of 6
* 2B: Incline Dumbbell Bench Press, 30lb dumbbells, 3 sets of 6
* 3A: Rear Lateral Raise, 20lb dumbbells, 3 sets of 6
* 3B: Bent-Over Row, 85lbs, 3 sets of 6

Calories burned: 179

Now, today. Today's different, it was... intervals, yay!

* 2 mi warmup @ 10:35/mi, 21:18
* 4x800m, 2 min rest jog @ 10:00/mi in between
- 1: 8:32/mi, 4:16
- 2: 8:50/mi, 4:24
- 3: 8:59/mi, 4:29
- 3: 11:00/mi, 5:30 (I had to stop for about 20 seconds, traffic wasn't kind)
* 3/4 mi cooldown @ 11:30/mi, 8:19

Mileage: 5.38mi
~Pace: 10:27/mi
Time: 56:21
Calories burned: 695

It's been a little while, and I do apologize for not blogging for so long. The long and short of it is that I had severe bronchitis and didn't exercise AT ALL for almost six weeks. Since exercise was most of what I was blogging about, I just didn't have the heart to do it. After I recovered (and ran an 8k), getting back into the swing of blogging again has just been tough.

That said, I plan to be doing it regularly once again. This is a good time to start, what with all the training for Mt. Whitney, which is going to be just about 4 weeks from now. So without further hesitation, yesterday I returned from backpacking in the Warren Lake/Castle Peak area.

If you guys know how to read one, here's the topo of the weekend. Click the image to get to the Flickr page, and the full sized topo.


Most of the pictures won't be mine, btw. I haven't gotten the pictures from my pastor yet, but as with the other trips I did map them onto Google Earth...


Friday was 7.2 miles, Saturday was 8.1 miles. On the way in we accidentally took a use trail and veered off the main Warren Lake trail. We saw the errors of our ways pretty quick, but decided to make our own route down. Our first adventure!


The trail was pretty major. It came down off that ridge down about 1000 feet into a sort of bowl, then came back up again, then down to Warren Lake. As we got closer to the lake, we kept waiting for the elevation to go down again, but it wouldn't. Then finally when we got to 1/2 mile from the lake, the descent started. That's right, 1000 feet in a half mile.


Before we even set up camp, we jumped into the lake. :p One thing about backpacking and such heavy duty exercise is you can pretty much eat what you want. I must say, the Mountain House stroganoff was amazingly good, in part because we worked so hard getting to camp. The next morning, as I mentioned earlier, I had two of the Weight Loss Oatmeal packets.

After loading back up, we made it back up the hill in about half the time it took to come down! As we headed up, Bob commented that there was no doubt about it, we were all fit enough for Whitney. Ya think?

On the way to Castle Peak (9100ft), we took a little side trip and bagged Basin Peak (9017ft) as well.


Following the use trail along the ridge, we ran into my usual hiking group, whose destination was Basin Peak! I knew they were going to be in the area but didn't realize they'd be in this particular spot. We exchanged cameras and took pictures of each other.


On Castle Peak, Bob and I crossed from one peak to another. I took the chance and climbed the 2nd rock, which Rob flat-out refused to do. Back where Rob was, I snapped a picture with my Treo.


Finally, it was back down. The use trail between Castle Peak & the Pacific Crest Trail was AWFUL! Can you say scree? I knew you could. Slipping and sliding the whole way. Once on the PCT though, it was smooth sailing. At the end of the trail I zigged instead of zagged and ended up at the Donner Pass rest stop instead of the sno-park where the truck was. I called Bob and they came to pick me up.

So in the end it was a total of 15.3 miles, with a total elevation gain of 4355 feet. Calories burned: 5529.

Food for today, I'll give full disclosure. I figured I could get away with eating this way for the day. If I gain, you guys can explain how eating this way can be disastrous.

Breakfast: Atkins bar
Snack: Atkins bar
Lunch: 4 BBQ chicken wings, 1 chicken thigh, lettuce, ranch dressing
Snack: Big 100 Chocolate Chip Cookie bar
Snack: movie theater Peanut M&M's (translation: two regular packages)
Dinner(if you can call it that): Blue Bunny No Sugar Added Crunch Ice Cream Bar
Snack: 1 oz trail mix (leftover from the trip basically)

I estimate I ate well over 2000 calories today.

Anyway, thanks for letting me indulge myself, guys. Back to normal tomorrow! Next Saturday: 19 miles on the TRT.

Greg