I slept in relatively late this morning (Saturday). 8:30 about. I was out the door around 9:30 am for a hike in the my local coastal hills. Around 10:00 am I was parked, had paid for my parking at Aliso Wood Canyons, and had already paid a visit to the outhouses where I noticed that my back was drenched from my pack. Originally, I thought that it was just condensation, as I had packed ice into my pack (I heard it was going to get to the mid 80s which is still way too hot for me). But then, when drips of water ran down my legs I knew that I had a problem.
So, let me begin with this. I hate, no . . . I despise and always have despised the Camelback bladder. It really sucks. It requires some kind of crazy engineering just to seal it correctly so it doesn’t leak in the first place. But I had already been through that ritual in the morning, so I knew that I had the seal right. What I had at Aliso/Woods was a genuine leak. And frankly, I was so glad. I wasn’t glad about wasting my money on parking, though minimal it was, and I wasn’t glad that I was going need to postpone my hike-run. I was glad to finally end this relationship with a crappy-ass bladder that Camelback produces. (Sorry to insult Camelback buyers)
I put the parking ticket that I had just paid for at the Kiosk, hoping that someone else could use it, and headed off to Road Runner Sports in Laguna Hills, hoping that they had something better than a Camelback bladder. Turns out they had an Ultimate Direction bladder, which is what I used for years. They leak too. And contrary to their claim that they replace leaky bladders, they do not (I submitted claims twice and followed-up with emails, to no avail). Still, the Ultimate Direction bladder is about 100% better than Camelback. So, I happily purchased the 70 oz. for approximately $33, knowing full-well that it would eventually leak, and that Ultimate Direction would do nothing about it. Still, my new bladder was not a Camelback, and that was worth something. I also threw in two tubes of Nuun tablets for another $12.
On my way home, my middle son texted me, asking if I wanted a breakfast burrito -- he was cooking. I said yes to that, which put off any further notion of a hike-run today. At that point, being close to noon and because I’m such a wuss when it comes to heat, I decided to get my workout at the gym (though I prefer gym workouts during the week, when I cannot get to the trails). I must say, the burrito was delightful. Afterwards, I took the extra time to do my husband’s billing, some laundry, and other chores. It was about 2pm when I finally made it out to the gym.
Because I had intended to run-hike today, I decided to first off, run an hour on the treadmill. I cannot tell you how painful this was for me. Within the first five minutes of the dreadmill, my thinking was, “Oh fuck man!” Well, being as old as I am, I have learned a few things that there is absolutely no denying. First and foremost is this: I cannot focus on how fucked something is, or how much I hate something, while trying to get through it. I HATE the treadmill. But there’s no way I’m gonna get through an hour of it focusing on how much I hate it. And so, I play the mind games because I’m not doing this because I enjoy it -- I’m doing it because I want to get into shape. So, I blasted my Ipod to loud. Not just a little loud, but LOUD. And I put on the hard stuff, the rough, I’m tough as nails music. And then I forced myself, FORCED myself not to look at the clock or any stats for an entire song. I was barely able to do that. Constantly did my eyes stray to the stats. It was terrible. Really. Just terrible.
Hitting the 30 minute mark was a huge relief. I only had to do again what I had already done up to that point. At the 45 minute point, I lied to myself (and I believed myself) that I could start walking at the 50 minute point. When that hit, I lied to myself again and said, “No, just five more minutes and you can knock it off five minutes early.” But then when 55 minutes hit, I just grossly chuckled and said, “No, I lied again. You HAVE to do five more minutes.” And five more minutes I did, allowing myself only to walk during the five minute cool down period.
Happy was I to have that hour completed. I spent the next 60 minutes on the stationary cycle, which was relatively easy, though not actually easy. I got a bit of reading done and some games played on my phone during this period.
And that was my day at the gym, which had I had originally planned to be a run-hike day.
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