6/27/09 – The Big Day! July 5, 2009

Pennsylvania Grand Canyon

Last weekend was the hike event, and it was great!  Most of the Team in Training events involve many chapters, and can have hundreds or thousands of participants.  But this one was an experiment in doing a local event – it included only our chapter and wasn’t far from home.  Our chapter’s staff did a great job of planning this, and we had a beautiful hike.

The Pennsylvania Grand Canyon is an amazing sight.  My sister thinks we went there as children, but I don’t recall that at all, so I was seeing it with new eyes.  We hiked about 10 miles, on a part of the trail that sometimes went near the rim for stunning vistas and other times went through the forest.  It was incredibly peaceful.  I enjoy the other exercise I’ve been getting, but nothing calms my mind and reduces my stress quite the way hiking does.  Getting exercise and being immersed in a natural setting simultaneously is so restorative.

I even ate well during the weekend – the chef at the hotel actually understood what vegan means and made me great meals!  I was very impressed.

Now to tackle the fundraising.  Whenever I feel tense about that, I’ll look at these pictures of the hike and chant the Frank Costanza mantra:  “Serenity Now!  Serenity Now!”

[See some more photos by clicking here]

6/14/09 – Excited about the event June 14, 2009

Our event is only 2 weeks away, and I’m getting pretty excited about it.  We’re hiking together in the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, and it promises to be a very beautiful day.  I’m trying to get my gear together and make sure everything is ready.

We’re making final plans as a group too – choosing a roommate, making transportation arrangements, etc.  Although I still haven’t been doing any hiking, I’ve added a pretty regular exercise regimen to my routine.  Nothing too exciting – just some yoga and DVDs at home.  That’s on top of walking the dogs.  We just picked up another foster yesterday since the others have been adopted, and he looks like he’ll keep me active.

I’m still pathetically behind on the fundraising, but I won’t lose my determination!  I’m confident that things will work out, even on the fundraising side.  With this Team in Training program, I did definitely get into more than I could handle time-wise.  But once I signed that recommitment form, I had to decide in my head that everything would work out.  I don’t want to stress – I want to enjoy this and raise money to do good!

5/31/09 – On an upswing May 31, 2009

Things are definitely looking up!  Once the semester ended and grades were turned in, I felt a huge relief.  Work is still busy – I have a number of end of academic year or end of fiscal year projects.  But I’m starting to feel like a human being again, getting over the exhaustion.

I haven’t managed to do much long hike training, but the dogs sure do keep me in shape.  We have our own dog, and we just picked up a foster dog yesterday.  They walk at vastly different speeds, so I find myself walking them separately – this means I’m walking for at least 2 hours a day!  And this seems like a good way to transition out of that awful state of exhaustion.

5/9/09 – Should I stick with it? May 10, 2009

This weekend is a huge crossroads for me as far as this Team in Training “project” is concerned.  This weekend we are asked to recommit – to sign a paper saying we will participate in the hike event.  The reason this feels so huge is that we also provide a credit card, and if we don’t meet our fundraising commitment by the event date, we pay the remainder ourselves.

This makes me nervous because I’ve barely touched the fundraising.  This semester has been brutal – I ended up teaching a class, but work is so busy that I don’t really have time for teaching too.  I’ve been suffering from exhaustion (hence the turning back last week).  So this is one more stress, especially since I’m generally very nervous when it comes to money.

So how do I decide?  Well, it may be the less prudent choice, but I’m pushing forward and signing that form.  I feel it’s important for my integrity for me to commit to this and see it through completely.  Since this program is about raising money for blood cancers, I often think about the treatment process – when someone is sick with cancer and the treatment gets difficult, they don’t have the option of quitting.  I am nervous and stressed and exhausted, but I’m not giving up.  It’s important to me that I take a lesson from those who have more courage than I do.  I’m committing, even if there’s a financial consequence.  I want to be the kind of person who finishes this rather than running scared from it.

5/2/09 – Serious problems May 3, 2009

Okay, my body is betraying me.  I had to turn back from today’s hike.  We hiked about 20 minutes on flat ground, and I couldn’t go any further.  I felt like I couldn’t lift my legs, and my chest was tired so I couldn’t stand upright.  What the hay???  I haven’t experienced anything like this since I had pneumonia!  Maybe I’m getting sick.  Whatever’s happening, I’m not feeling physically good lately.

4/25/09 – Migraine again April 25, 2009

I’m so frustrated.  I work at a college and I’m teaching a course this semester, so right now things are crazy busy.  And when I’m stressed and tired, I start getting migraines.  Friday evening I prepared all my stuff for our Saturday hike.  Then Saturday at 5am I woke up with all the normal signs of migraine, so I had to miss the hike.

This is several weeks in a row without any hiking, and I’m missing it terribly.  There is some chance I could become an “outdoorsy” person!!  I’ve been very environmentally conscious for years now, but I have almost no experience doing things like hiking and camping.  Too bad I’ve missed out on all those years now that I realize how awesome it is!

I think being part of a Team in Training hike automatically signed us up for a backpacking magazine, and I’m so into it.  The articles are about gorgeous places to hike (and do other outdoor activities).  And they have pages and pages of product reviews – I find my mouth watering over the gear! 

We don’t have a family vacation planned for this summer.  Maybe we will do a camping trip instead.  My significant other has quite a bit of camping experience and really enjoys it.

Anyway, I’m frustrated to miss hiking this weekend, and still worrying about the fundraising.  Not a great weekend in the scheme of things.

4/18/09 – Fundraising instead of hiking April 18, 2009

This weekend I had to be out of town on Friday, and knew I wouldn’t be back in time to hike on Saturday.  I was really sorry to miss another weekend of hiking – it’s my therapy!

But, I turned the loss into an opportunity and worked a fundraising table we had at EMS in Lancaster.  It was a gorgeous sunny day, so I think most of the people who are serious EMS shoppers were probably outside doing what they do.  That made for slightly slow fundraising, but every dollar counts.

Speaking of every dollar counts, I’m woefully behind schedule in my fundraising.  This is the result of slightly overbooking myself for the semester.  It’s easier to stay on top of the hiking, since it gives me such a positive physical benefit.  I have foolishly put off the fundraising again and again, and now I need to focus on that!

Hey, if you’re reading this, care to make a donation….? (the link is to the right)

4/12/09 – Rainy Easter weekend April 12, 2009

This weekend, because of the holiday, we had no organized hike.  On these weekends, we manage our own hike training, and lots of people in the group make their own hike plans.  But it was a rainy weekend, and we went out of town for Easter, so I didn’t end up hiking this weekend.  I get a fair bit of exercise each week without the hikes, but I miss getting out there in nature!

Unfortunately I already know I have to miss next week too, since we will be away.  It’s frustrating when things are so busy and hectic to miss the one event in my week that has such a calming and restorative effect on me.

4/4/09 – Revisiting our first hike April 4, 2009

Today we hiked again on the very first trail (path?) we hiked back in February.  It’s a paved, fairly flat 3 mile loop in a park.  In February it was covered in ice.  Today, it was like hiking in a different park, and that was a real eye-opener.  I went in thinking I had hiked this path before, but it was a totally different hike experience than last time.

 

I think that’s one of my favorite things about nature – the change.  The environment, even just that piece of it in this park, is so complex that there’s always something new to discover.  The reminder for me is to keep my eyes open and make those new discoveries.

 

Change is such a natural part of life, and yet it’s so difficult for many people to deal with.  Accepting change certainly didn’t come naturally to me.  But I think I must have realized in my late teens that resisting change on all fronts is one huge exercise in futility, and I worked hard to find ways to deal with change.  I now feel confident saying that I manage change pretty well. 

 

Still, we all need a reminder sometimes of the things that aren’t so natural to us, and today’s hike did that for me.

3/28/09 – How hiking feels March 28, 2009

Today we hiked another part of “the AT” called Hawk Rock.  This one was another difficult, long hike, with a steep incline in the first mile or so.  Unlike last week, I felt fresh and ready for this hike, and it was an exhausting but wonderful experience.  And it was a little lesson in perception.

 

As part of my job in higher ed administration, I usually teach once a year, and I often teach organizational behavior.  One of the chapters is about perception, with the big lesson being that the human brain puts “true” experiences or information through a lot of filters so our perceptions are not always correct.  Some of these perceptual biases or effects were at work during our hike today.

 

First, I found that the difficulty of the hike was tempered by the social interaction we had.  It was a difficult hike, but I didn’t feel it that much while we were actually hiking.  We had lots of great conversation going, and instead of feeling difficult it really felt fun.  However, I knew afterwards that it was physically challenging when I “laid down for a few minutes” upon getting home and fell asleep for 4 hours. 

 

The second funny perceptual effect is that the hiking out seems to take so much longer than the hiking back.  This hike was not a loop – we hiked one way on the trail for a certain amount of time, then returned back the way we came.  On the way out, I keep thinking about whether we’re to the turnaround point yet.  On the way back, I have no trouble zoning out a bit and socializing, and the time passes so much more quickly (it seems).

 

This is a great reminder to me that I need to be able to let things go a little bit.  I tend to be very task focused, and I have trouble relaxing or clearing my mind any time I”m doing something that could be construed as a task.  That can be good – it helped me get through school and college, and it often has rewards in the workplace too.  But sometimes it works against my mental state, and it certainly isn’t conducive to relaxing or unwinding.

 

Once again I find that the physical challenge of these hikes is wonderful, but that the mental challenge is so valuable for my self awareness and mental state.