Training hikes and things

In an effort to be boring I'll say my training continues as usual. Lots of stairs, stationary bike, leg workouts and core work. Feeling pretty good. Have not lost an ounce in months. It's a strange thing that I'd rather not talk about....

I'm going to leave work a bit early today and head up to Iron Mountain for a training hike with about 30 pounds in my pack. It's only seven miles, and it's only 2500 feet gain, and it's at nearly sea level, but hey, I live in San Diego and it's what I've got... So I plan on pushing it pretty hard to get something out of it.

Looks like next weekend Kurtiss and I might get in a hike up and down Mount Baldy. As the weather changes I'm hoping to get out to Mt. San Jacinto soon too. Things have been pretty quiet over Gerry's way but I know he's been busy...

The Chiropractic continues. I can't say I'm pain free but I do feel changes going on, and while I still feel pain daily it's a bit different now. My confidence is raised and I've committed to about a year of working with this guy.

I have begun to consider details for Ecuador. Some random thoughts and questions I have:

*** I know we need about 7 lunches but I wonder if we will be able to do some shopping down there or should I pack 7 lunches and take em down with me. Since I'll want some fruit seems like I'll need to get that down there. But montezumas concerns me with that scenario...

*** I know airlines don't like shoulder straps on bags checked. So I was thinking about my backpack, there are many straps hanging off of it. I talked to Gerry about that and for his Rainier trip he bought a Travel Bag for his pack. Basically it's like a big duffel that your pack fits in and doesn't have any extraneous straps hanging off of it. And it's lockable. So I think I'll pick up one of those.

*** I was also thinking about summit days. We'll be staying in public huts the nights before summit day. I don't imagine we'll want to leave anything in the huts. That means we'll be taking nearly a full pack to the summit and back... Ugh...

*** During the period we'll be in Ecuador there is an "Excess Baggage Embargo" on by the airlines. This means we are only allowed two 50 pound bags to be checked. I can get buy with checking 100 pounds, but I wonder if I'll have to limit my souvenir shopping while down there because of that...

*** I have been wondering if my blackberry will work down there. I'm not taking a laptop of course so I want to find out if my cell phone and email features will work from my blackberry. It looks like the cell phone will work, with some hefty roaming charging but I'm not sure if the email features will work.

That's all for now. I hope to report how the hikes goes later today.

R