Yes, I’m a bit late again today. I’m fixing that; I’m in the process of writing a bunch of articles for the upcoming weeks so that I will be ahead of the curve again. Things have been crazy with my National Guard unit, and it’s been keeping me pretty busy, even in the off-hours.

With that said, the hike yesterday went pretty well. It started off well with me feeling energized and ready. I was also operating on about 4 hours of sleep, however, and I figured that would take it’s toll on me at some point of the 6.8 mile course. I was right; it did.

We kept a pretty decent pace of around 2.5 miles per hour, and my heart rate fluctuated between a low of around 90 BPM to a high of 123 BPM when we were climbing some of the bigger hills. It was a pretty walk, and my legs felt pretty decent until the last two miles. That’s when my thighs started burning, and I began to really feel tired. It took every bit of strength and all my will power to finish strong. I never let the pace drop, and I was determined to get through without taking a break. I did it.

We stopped at the starting point and sat down for what Sherry calls our “Hungarian Lunch.” This consists of foods my grandmother would always bring out to the park when we would go on hikes or adventures: bread (in our case, fathead keto bread), salami, butter, peppers, radishes, and cheese. It’s amazing how simple this little meal is, and made up of very healthy foods that fill you up rather quickly. After finishing our lunch, we headed up to a local butcher who makes some amazing sausages without sugars or nitrites/nitrates, and we bought about 10 lbs to fill up our freezer.

I ended up taking a nap later that morning and found that my legs felt pretty normal afterward. I’m glad that Sherry was persistent in getting me to go out to the park and do some hiking. I think this is something we will start doing more of, including taking our mountain bikes out to some trails.