Colorado Climbing

One activity that helped get me re-motivated to run and get in shape is climbing 14ers and hiking in Colorado. From 1994-2008, I managed to climb 4 Colorado 14ers. In 2010, I managed 6 more on 3 trips, including 4 peaks solo from Oct 2-3. During that solo trip, I had a fairly light pack with bivy sack, only prepackaged food, and only the bare essentials. Over 2 days, I climbed four 14ers in the Collegiate Peaks wilderness, gaining (and losing) 11,568 feet of elevation, and hiking 20.3 miles. Only about 1/2 of the hike was on trails, the rest felt like I was discovering territory for the first time! I was definitely gasping for air since I averaged about 12,000 feet for the whole trip.

Motivation to climb and do the best I can at altitude helps encourage me to stay in shape.

Working!

So, I haven't posted in almost a year... I managed to get close to my "all-time" heaviest weight. That was a shock. I watched what I ate for about a month and cut 20 pounds off, but still want to knock some more off. In the meantime, I've worked through a couple minor injuries and managed to become more consistent with my exercise again. I realized the big thing is motivation... if you want something enough, you don't make excuses and you get it done. I wasn't doing that with running/exercising, because I think I just didn't want to do anything!

I run about 12-15 miles a week now, I do upper body medium weight workout twice a week, occasionally play a pick up game of basketball, and am trying to "hike a stadium" once a week - 2000-3000 feet of elevation gain is my goal to keep me ready for mountain hiking/climbing. Don't know if I have road racing in my sights anytime soon, but the fact that I can run a decent pace on a 4 mile run is definitely a good thing!