Hiking, Campfires, Fishing and a Little Stupidity Too!

The past few weeks have been a lot of fun for me, hence the reason I went a little MIA on the blog last week.

Well, aside for a flu and calf injury which I'll mention later.

Yes, I caught yet again another bug, and I was still trying to get over the one I had caught 3 weeks before that. This one got me down, and well I barely had energy to move, blah...

When we finally ended our streak of crappy spring weather and the sun came out. We went from cool temps to hot pretty much overnight so summer is here! That's Utah for you, 40 degrees one day and 90 the next, I am sure triple digits are just around the corner.

This means camping and hiking season has begun (finally), at least in the lower elevations areas. Come July the snow will be melted in the upper elevations and I can start camping up there too (can't wait!)

This year I decided not to buy a season pass to the local amusement park. My niece, nephew and sister who did are a little bummed about that.

My other sister and I decided instead we would take her kids out on weekly hiking adventures instead, and so we have been.

We hiked up a beautiful trail to Adam's Falls (first time for me on this trail.) We discovered a slew of mountain trails within a five minute drive of my sister’s new home. This being one of them, we have intentions to do all of them this summer.

I was still getting over my flu bug, and I had this idea I would hike it out of me.

Bad idea really, I mean I enjoyed the hike, but you'd of thought I was dying half the way climbing up my lungs and body were just not ready for that much exertion after a week of being sick.

We took ourselves and a 7, 5 and 3 year old on what was supposed to be a short 4 mile hike. But climbing 1,600+ feet in elevation on the way up, well it took quite a bit out of the kids. Probably not the best hike to introduce their bodies too for the start of the summer season, ha ha.

Because of that, when the 5 year old turned to me as we started down the mountain and said. "Kristy, I am tired I can't walk anymore." I being aunt wonderful couldn't resist letting him climb on my back for a piggy back down the mountain.

My sister ended up doing the same for the 3 year old. I told my nephew, this means he has to love me forever, and he said he would, such a cutie!

I carried him down about 1,100 feet then we told the kids there would be pizza when we finished. It gave them an odd sense of energy, off our backs they climbed and well they ran the last 500 feet down some switchbacks. I could barely keep up.

I wish we had mentioned the pizza 1,100 feet up the mountain earlier, I’ll have to remember that for the future!

At first I thought I was just overly tired.

Have mentioned in years past that when I get injured it's always from doing something stupid?

Well despite my good intentions. Carrying an extra 40 pounds on my back down 1,100 feet put way too much strain on my calves.

I could barely walk the next few days after.

Of course I thought it was only badly sore muscles.

The day after the hike we decided to take it easier and head up to a lake and relax on a beach and fish. The lakes are still super low because the snow melt hasn't filled them up much yet. So yeah, my calves loved climbing down to get to the lake... Not so much...

It was gorgeous there though!

I was starting to think my calves should start feeling better, but they were just as sore day 2 as day 5.

So dumb me decided I needed to get the tight soreness just worked out of them.

I mean that's what we do as runners when we are too sore after a hard running workout. Go do a less impact one to stretch out the soreness. So it made sense, theoretically at least.

We headed out a few days later, taking the same kids up to Rock Mouth Falls, a much shorter 1 mi. hike with only a 600 foot climb in it. The kids did great with it. On the way up I felt I was getting my calves stretched out a little. But then as I started down the mountain I realized I was just making them worse. This is a hike a short distance from my house, and oddly in all the years I have lived here I've never done it or heard of it until this year.

Turns out, I am an idiot I had strained both my calves and no amount of walking them out was going to help.  They needed rest, some Ibuprofen and occasional ice.

It took about 6 more days and I finally felt the soreness has faded and the strains healed quickly due to my eventual fast recovery action. I gave them a few extra days, and I think I will see about a light run on them tonight and see what happens.

So if you haven’t already put two and two together. Yeah, I haven't been running. Not only did I take a week off when I was sicker than sick. But I also took another week off running to let my calves begin to mend.

Which in short means I have yet to start fall marathon training, a little yikes I know.

In fact, this actually puts me back to almost square one on getting even back into running shape. Ughhhh

Oh well, I actually am not even going to dwell on it, as there is no point!

I became the world’s most amazing aunt in my 7 year old nieces eyes. We needed a fire one night to start dinner and I had sent her mom down the mountain to pick up some others and yeah, she took the matches with her. So as my niece watched me start a fire with no matches and no lighter in less than 2 minutes, pat myself on the back ha ha, she turned to me and was like. “How the heck did you do that that was amazing?”

I turned to her and told her, that when she gets older I would teach her the trick that not many can do, and she can be an amazing fire builder too. Of course she thinks I should teach her now, and who knows this summer I just might!

Despite the calf injury and the flu that I am still not 100% over. Geesh, you'd think after 2 weeks of it, it would be out of my system. It's actually been a beautiful past few weeks of hiking, relaxing, campfires and fun with family and friends. 

Thankfully I didn't let a little sickness and calf pain keep me out from enjoying the outdoors these past few weeks even if I did have to relax a little at times and just kick my feet up and enjoy campfires!

So that has been a little of what I did the past few week.

Tell me something you did that I may have missed while I was away from the blogging world.