Rattlers on the road – sunrise hikes at south mountain

While there was contentment with sleeping in till 6am today I knew that getting out on the trail was the best thing for me right now. After a few snoozes the sister knocked on the door:
“you up?”
“yeah” with a considerable amount of meekness I croaked.

Not much conversation in the car we listened to NPR talking about how the best paying degrees are still for engineering. More of the vocationalization of higher education. “lookie all my stuff!”

Hit the trail and every fiber of my body complained. Took a deep breath and strode on into the blue light of pre dawn. Started feeling better after a few minutes and conversation about what’s going on flowed as we meandered up the road. No EMD this morning as he is recovering from a skin irritation.

Ran into a nice surprise a bit more than halfway to Mormon Trail when a baby rattler made it’s way across the road. Snaped a shot of it for evidence and we made our way on up.

The ridgeline greeted us amicably with the first fingers of sunlight crawling over Four Peaks as we made the first summit. From there it was downhill and we started talking about rim to rim. Thinking of walking Rock and Roll to prepare.

Happy Tuesday!

Edited: July 28th, 2009

Summer Shift – From cycling to Yoga

There has been a severe degradation in my posting frequency as of late. This is due to a few external factors that have thrown my routine off a bit.

The biggest shift has been away from cycling, at least for the time being. This is mainly due to the recent rash of severe temps seen in the PHX area. Over 10 degrees above normal temps along with some mild heat stroke a few weeks back have forced me to hold off on the bike for a while.

In its replacement I have started back into the yoga quite extensively. I have also found a new studio in the Central PHX area: www.gravitycenteryoga.com taught by Erica. This place rocks, it is literally just a studio, no lounge or retail action here. Just a floor and restroom. Erica is over 10 years experienced in a number of Yoga traditions and works well with novices as well as experts. She loves to kill the abs, which I need, and really adds a lot of variation to the routine everyday.

I am off to Vail for a wedding this weekend so there will probably be little coming from me till next week. So keep the rubber side down and hold them mudras!

Edited: June 25th, 2008

Century Training Ride #2

Went for a 12 mile ride at ‘Pace’ meaning I rode at the speed I want to ride the Century in. Right now the goal is 20mph, which I did easily and even had to back off a little.

Edited: June 4th, 2008