Picture of the week ~ Trillium April 2018

Noisy Creek Hike

This trail almost feels like home to me, we've done it so many times. I love it! 

Nothing like signing in and seeing Trillium in bloom below the sign in stand. ❤

Crossing the suspension bridge, we always stop and take a look up and down the river. Today the hills were still topped with snow and everything shone brilliantly in the bright sun.

The view up the river

The view down the river

  There were many Trillium along the trail, along with little frogs, a snake and a very large toad.

Also... to my surprise and joy a man leading his goats along the trail. Their names are "Adam" and Brownie". I don't know the goat herders name 😉. We stopped and chatted for awhile. I thought the goats were great.

My customary photo on the Hidden creek bridge.

Looking up at Hidden creek

 I found another "Heart" rock on the trail today!

We had 3 good sized creek crossings and 2 more puddle jumps along the way, nothing over my boot tops.

 We ate our lunch at the Noisy creek campground. We found our old campsite that we camped at last July. You can read about that trip HERE. We brought our cook stove again and enjoyed Chicken noodle soup with our sandwiches. After lunch we just relaxed along the shore and soaked up the weather, the views and the adorable little birds that flitted here and there in the tree branches above our heads. I looked in our bird book when I got home and identified them as Ruby-crowned Kinglets. The distinguishing markings I remembered that helped me identify them were the small thin beak, bars on their wings & light rings around their eyes.

Our views during lunch. The lake level was down quite abit, so there was more shore than we've had on our previous hikes here. Mount Baker looming over Baker lake.

Shuksan and it's reflection in the lake below.

After lunch we hiked out to the Noisy creek bridge. There was a small tree leaning against it, but there was no damage to the bridge that I could see.

Noisy Creek

What a wonderful day on the trail, the weather was like a summer day. The temperature was comfortable in the forest, with a nice cool breeze blowing down the largest creeks. Our feet enjoyed the cool creek water during our crossings.

Today was just as it looked - Bliss

Garmin stats:

total miles hiked - 10.34 miles

total ascent - 1178 feet

Mon Oeuvre ~ Feathers Quilt progress: 1

I'm making a quilt for my mom - "Feathers", a quilt pattern by Margot Languedoc. I just love it, I hope my mom will too.

Here's my first block. My mom's favorite color is blue. I chose blue as the background and I'm hoping it will look like a flock of birds in a blue sky when I'm done.

Earth day 2018

"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." 

John Muir

 (heart shaped rocks I’ve found in nature)

Picture of the week ~ 10 year Anniversary, overcoming Anxiety

This month is my 10 year anniversary of making the decision to come back to me. 

April 2008, was when I set my mind to do something about my weight and my fitness.

You can read about my history here:

220lbs. to 140lbs. - Getting fit & my 3 year goal to lose 80 lbs.

Medical benefits of weight loss combined with exercise

73 lbs. gone and I'm alive

Years ago, I suffered from anxiety that began after I experienced a panic attack while camping at Yellowstone with my husband. I was put on some anti anxiety meds by our family Dr. to calm me down. He then referred me to a counselor who couldn't prescribe meds, she then referred me to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist began prescribing different meds to "help" me, he ended up with a drug cocktail that pretty much zombied me out of life for about 7 years. A side effect of the medications was alot of weight gain. I was also going to counseling and group therapy sessions with him during that time. Even with the meds I was always in a high state of anxiety and paranoia. He told my husband  that I would never get better.

In the fall of 2007, I began seeing a Naturopath about some other issues. On a visit to him in February of 2008, he said, "what would be the worst thing that would happen if you went off of the meds you are on? If it goes bad you can always go back on them, as I see it they aren't doing you alot of good now are they?". I gradually went off of the pills under his supervision. I quit seeing the psychiatrist I had been seeing for all of those years. I searched out another counselor, and after a few sessions she said "you are O.K. You don't need to see me anymore”. It took a while for the effects of the drugs to wear off, when they did I slowly began to think about living "life" again.

It's been 10 years since I broke free from that anxious/drug dependent life I was living. I am forever thankful for the positive reinforcement I got from those two professionals. It meant so much to me to hear them say "out loud" that they believed in me and that I could live drug free and learn how to manage my feelings without pills. They gave me the tools I needed to live life, instead of a bottle of pills. They taught me that feelings are normal and "human". One of the best things I was told was that we are never stuck, life is like a a conveyor belt - it just keeps going. A panic attack lasts about 20 minutes (not forever, as it seems when we are going through one), with the correct breathing exercises and meditative thoughts they can be overcome with time.

I would like to make a statement about Dr.'s that prescribe drugs as a first line of defense for mental health. Too many menopausal women are given anti-anxiety drugs instead of getting their hormone levels checked. I wish that more general family Dr.'s would check a woman’s hormone levels 1st, if she’s menopausal aged and that mental health professionals would prescribe a 3 month plan of better eating habits and a 30 minute walk outside in the fresh air, instead of pills with worse side effects than you’re already going through. Getting outside, moving around and getting the blood circulating is a far better drug than anything I was ever on. I also believe in getting into programs that take us out of our comfort zones. We tend to like our comfy lives and routine schedule, we can get away with it more when we are young because we have so many new things coming at us all of the time. I've noticed that as I've aged routines feel safe and if I step out of my routine the old nerves start up. That's one of the reasons I'm so committed to doing the Spartan races, they force me to stay one or "many" steps out of my comfort zone. I'm better able to cope with life and it's ups and downs because of these events.

I understand that there are some people that do need to take drugs to help them cope. I'm not saying that my way is THE way, but please let’s quit giving everyone a pill for every feeling or emotion we are overcome by. Emotions are part of what makes us human, we just need the tools to learn to manage them. 

My advice: Get out of your comfort zone and "live" your life.

I'm still moving forward and feel very blessed to have this life that I have. 

I savor every moment of every day.

"Just me - Alive"

Smith Creek loop hike

We are still in our Spartan training, even though we just finished the Seattle Super over the last weekend. We have several more in our horizon this year. In a couple of week's we will be going to Montana for the Beast/Sprint races. My husband and I will both be doing the Beast and he'll be doing the Sprint the next day.

We wanted to get an "up" hill hike in today, so we chose Smith creek. We parked at the North Lake Whatcom trail head parking lot and as we were preparing for our hike, several cars pulled into the lot. I began to recognize several of them as people I had hiked with when I hiked with the Senior Trailblazers. Sure enough they were the Button Walkers! After some fun visiting we went our separate ways. They were going to walk along the lake on the Hertz trail while we made our way up to the power lines.

We started at the trail head that is now marked "Chanterelle Trail", we used to call it Cub creek. A few years ago we began calling it Smith creek, we still call it Smith Creek even though the new section of the trail begins here now too.

We saw a couple of trinkets in trees along the trail, this one was the cutest, but I have an issue with people that do this. I wish they wouldn't leave "trinkets, painted rocks" etc. in the forests. O.K. end of rant.

We followed the trail to where it junctions. We then took the mountain bike trail that headed left and planned to come down the new trail on our return.

My first Trillium spotting of the year. Not quite open but so pretty,

We had a couple downed trees to crawl over, this one had a nice step notched out of it.

After marching up the very steep bike trail - I definitely had to use my mountain goat feet in some of the straight up sections, we made our way up to the power lines. We walked up the road a bit farther before we had lunch.

We saw some patches of snow still here and there.

Looking back to see where we had come from. To the right of the tower there is a small trail coming out of the forest, that's where we came out from the mountain bike trail.

After our road walk we went on another trail and joined it, the "Tower trail".

We sat under the power lines and had a great view.

My husband brought our backpacking stove and made Chili, boy did it taste good!

It felt so good to laze around in the sun before we headed back down.

We hiked back out the Tower trail and joined the road. We walked along the road until we found the Smith creek trail. When we got to the Chanterelle viewpoint we stopped for a snack and water break and enjoyed the views.

Now it was time for us to follow the "new trail" (some of it follows the trail that was already there, but there are some newly routed sections).

We saw some signs of spring as we descended:

Many more Trillium, yellow flowers (I don't know their names), and lots of baby ferns just coming up.

We got the "up" we wanted, plus some solar warmth from that strange yellow orb in the sky along with signs of spring what more could you ask for?!?!?

Relive video of our route -

https://youtu.be/jK05u7L70IM

Garmin stats:

total miles hiked - 9.6 miles

total ascent - 2539

Seattle Spartan Race 2018 results

We drove to Monroe, Washington Saturday for the "Seattle" Super Spartan race - it's advertised as  as 8+ miles, 24 - 29 obstacles.

I always get excited when I see the first sign approaching the event. The traffic was backed up at this point, it was slow going to the venue. Stop and go all the way. Quite a ways from the race site at the Meadowood Equestrian Center.

We found out later that the delay was because the field where we park was very wet from all of the rain we've had lately and it was causing some issues when they parked everyone. Leaving was another issue, lots of people stuck and had to be pushed or towed out. 

Great fun!

Since we were delayed so long in traffic we were lucky to be ready at our start time of 9:15am. Registration and bag check went quickly so there we were, ready for our first Spartan race of the year with 10 minutes to spare.

Here's the course map, with a list of the obstacles. The Blue line is the Super course, the Red line is the Sprint course and the Orange line is the kids course.

The course was very wet and muddy in places. We had several barbwire crawls and one was especially long and full of water. I loved it. I dressed correctly for the day. I have some Merino wool long-johns, which I wore under my clothing. I stayed comfortable most of the time, my hands only got cold after trying the rope climb. They quickly warmed up while I was doing my burpees for failing that obstacle. 

I did better in the Super this year compared to ones I've done in the past. I didn't have any difficulty with the Slip wall. I ran more that I have in any Spartan race I've ever done. Last year at this venue I did it in 6 hrs. and 12 minutes, this year I finished in 4 hrs. 25 minutes. Quite abit faster. The courses are pretty much the same distance from year to year,  but never the same route and the obstacles are typically in different places so it's hard to gauge an exact comparison, but this was substantial improvement for me. Besides improving in time, I was also able to throw my Spear straighter, I still missed but this was the best I've done so far. I also made it up the rope climb about 6 feet. The rope was really wet and slick, so I was pretty excited about my effort.

Here are some photos from the day, courtesy of my brother and my dad - Thank you for coming and encouraging us and "bonus" taking pictures.

I was very happy after the Hercules hoist. I got to help a woman who had never done it before, so that she wouldn't have to do burpees. I sat her down and showed her how to do it. No burpees for her!

Spear throw

My husband rarely misses his Spear throw. He helped me with some of my 30 penalty burpees.

We have a tire at the gym where we work out at, and I was pleasantly surprised that this tire was lighter than the one I flip at the gym. Up and over - twice!

A frame cargo climb

Atlas carry

Our "Official" Spartan photos. We didn't get any from other obstacles, probably because the weather wasn't great for photographing with big expensive cameras:

Sand bag carry

It's always wonderful when we get to the fire jump!

Proud of my efforts for the Super this year.

We drove home, in the rain - of course!

Total miles - 9.07

29 Obstacles counting the start wall

Ascent - 1175 feet

My husband did the Sprint the next day, about 4.4 miles and 23 obstacles. Since I was spectating Sunday I brought the proper foot wear for the venue -

The weather and the parking was better on Sunday. They opted to park us all along the roads, pick up trucks and 4 wheel drive vehicles were parked in the field. 

Bag check -in for his day 2

Some of the photos from his day:

The start wall

Hercules Hoist

I found a heart rock on the path near the Hercules Hoist!

Spear throw

The Bridge (he's at the top, getting ready to cross)

An "official" photo:

Finished!

*Our daughter and her husband did the Super on Saturday also, and then came back and did the Sprint on Sunday with their middle daughter. This was her first year to qualify for the "adult" race. While they were doing their "Sprint" I helped their youngest get to her "kids" race on time. Timing wise it turned out pretty good. I missed getting to watch my husband do his fire jump finish, but she finished her kids race just on time for us to walk over to the fire jump and watch her sister, mom and dad finish!

We came, and we Conquered. 

Aroo!

WE ARE SPARTANS!