La Luz Trail

I'm an accomplishment junkie. I love to see something do it and then I especially love the feeling I get when I did it. Anything from finishing a project at work to baking a pan of cookies, to crossing off my last ToDo. I love the feeling I get when things are done.

Today I did something kind of cool. I climbed a mountain. I'm tdy to Albuquerque for the month and since Michelle and the Boys are still in Abilene I decided to do something I don't get to do very often.

This morning while talking to Chelle on the phone I was looking for a half marathon I could run. I've never run an actual race though. It's on my goals list for this year and so I decided to try and find an actual race to run in. Turns out there is one here in Santa Fe next weekend. "Don't you even think about it." Chelle tells me, "You need to train and I don't think you're ready to run that race yet." Truth be told, I wasn't ready for it. I love to run but I have been so busy lately that honestly I just haven't done it. So I told her I wouldn't run that race.

Instead I decided to go for a nice hike in the Sandia Mountains and hike 16 miles. Hey, it wasn't 13.1 and it wasn't a race. I even stopped for lunch and couple of chats with other hikers. I found something cool called the La Luz Trail and thought it didn't look to bad. So I threw 2 1/2 bottles of water and some other stuff in a bag and jumped in the Honda.

I only intended to hike for an hour or so but Every time I went around another switchback I just wanted to see what is up ahead or see that view from another 100 feet up. So I just kept going. And going. And going.

So here are the things I learned about hiking:

1) My desert combat boots are the greatest hiking boots I've ever had.

2) 2 1/2 bottles of water in 4 hours at altitude is not enough

3) Don't lug a 500 page book up a 10,000 ft mountain unless you really intend to read it

4) Going down you are far more likely to roll an ankle or three than going up

5) For every step you go forward you have to retrace that step going back

6) Never get out of the car and start when the last song you hear is "Your Love Is My Drug"

So here is what I did today. I hiked 8 miles up and then 8 back. I climbed from 7k' to 10k'. I didn't fall down any cliffs and I didn't kill myself.

It is done and it's a good feeling.