New Hobbies

I've fallen into two new hobbies, without totally intending to: hiking and running. Seems out of character, no? But this sounds about right: I had to buy new shoes for both endeavors. I bought some cool new hiking boots a couple months back, and I've been hiking twice now. The first was a 5-miler around Sugarloaf "mountain" in Montgomery County, and the second was a 7-miler on the Maryland Heights trail in Harper's Ferry. You can see the pictures here. I was planning a third (9-mile) hike up Old Rag Mountain in the Shenandoah Valley this weekend, but I realized that was totally insane, considering the in-laws are coming for Thanksgiving in less than a week! So that's on hold until after the holidays. I've also been running, and will do my 3rd 5K on Thanksgiving. I'm working on increasing my running distances, and today I actually ran 4.5 miles. My goal is to run in a 10-mile race next spring. All this is to prepare me for the arduous Longs Peak hike next August. An aside: the Longs Peak hike has sections with fun names like "the Narrows", "the Boulder Field", "the Ledges" and "Satan's Buttcrack" (okay, the last one might not be real). But the result of my efforts so far? I'm now only 8 pounds more than my driver's license weight (meaning, I've dropped about 10 pounds), and I can put my hands on my hips without grabbing hold of two handfuls of fat!