Thursday, August 13, 2009

Day 4 - Thurs, August 13

Our schedule today was as follows:
6:15am - Meet for hike
6:30am - Leave for hike
9:30am - Breakfast - bowl of mixed fruit and French Toast
10:15am - Workshop on understanding your body's anatomy
11:15am - Water Aerobics
12:45 pm - Lunch - tomato basil soup with a BLT - I was totally full and almost didn't finish it
1:15 pm - Lecture on Breaking Barriers
2:30pm - Body Toning with the Ball
3:30pm - Treading - intervals again - killer work out
4:30pm - Stretching
5:45 pm - Dinner - Stuffed pepper with Key Lime pie
6:15pm - Lecture on understanding the 4 workout regimes
7:00pm - Local jewelery artist display (bought a pair of beautiful earrings)

Before I talk about today's hike I have to tell you about this crazy 45 minute class today called Treading. You come to the class and pick a machine - treadmill, bike or elliptical. You have a 2 minute warm up and then for 5 minutes you have to put it to max and giver! Then you get a 5 minute recovery, then you giver for 4 minutes with a 4 minute recovery, then 3 minutes...etc. They want to get your heart rate up as high as possible and get you working at your max. I have never sweated so much in my entire life and for the first time in a long time I actually felt sick - but that is ok, it was amazing. The problem is that I have already hiked, swam, and body toned so my max heart rate only hit 167 - they really wanted it at 180 - we were all so proud of completing the class.

Ok, today's hike was amazing. Since I have done the "Stop Sign" route and yesterday I moved up 1 level to 101 which was the "West Canyon" route, today my buds Rauni and Kara from Vancouver told me to move up 1 more level and do "3rd Ravine" well turned out to be the best climb ever. We had Cody from Utah as our guide and he is awesome and kicked our asses for 5.5 miles up and around Red Mountain. I have a video below to show up at the top on "teeter totter" rock which was a great accomplishment for the 3 of us. I got great photos along the way too of this unbelievable ravine, caves and rocks that we climbed up and through.


I was so happy to have hit Target last night for more band-aids, sunscreen and lotion - it is so hot and dry here. The area is called a high desert for a reason - it is high and hot.

Did I mention there are 5 other Canadians here and 1 right from London who is also a teacher at Saunders - small world eh?

Another thing that I really like here is their pro shop. It has everything you need and you do not need money right away. They charge whatever you take to your account so you can grab and go like I did the first couple of days with band-aids.

I am happy to report that I finally slept last night - 10:00pm till 4:15am that is pretty good. Our alarm goes off at 5:45 anyways so I just puttered around till the alarm.

Tonight we are all doing laundry and then to bed early as we are moving up another level in hike and it has been a long week.