And Away We Go

This was a weekend full of wonderful hiking. My younger sister, Kortney, came to visit from Chico State, which was great. It was so nice to have her come to stay, and Ed and I got to show off one of our favorite trails.



Up in the mountains above Saratoga, we enjoyed an hour on the calming and relaxing trails. It was beautiful up there, and Ed and I noticed that it was much greener than the last time we had visited. The new grasses were starting to peak up beneath the golden grass of summer.




This morning, Ed and I were talking about our respective runs when Ed mentioned that he was thinking about going up to Mission Peak. I'd always wanted to go there, and asked it maybe we could make it a hike that we could do together. Happily, he agreed, and so we took off to the East Bay. In only 20ish minutes, we arrived at our destination and were impressed by the sheer number of cars there.

Ed tried to encourage me to run in the beginning, but I soon was committed to full on hiking. I was feeling very out of shape going up those hills, needing a few resting breaks, but Ed reassured me by saying that we were moving much more quickly than most of the other hikers. The higher we climbed, the windier and colder it became.



I was feeling great, despite the steepness of the hike, until we got closer to the top.



Suddenly the wind was incredibly strong, and we were freezing. The trail became thinner and more rocky and we knew we were almost there. We could barely hear anything besides the wind soaring past our ears, but now our eyes were excited taking in the views.

Finally we made it!



Since it was so cold, we spent very little time at the summit before we turned around and headed back down, this time running. Our own pause in the much quicker forward momentum was when we had to pass the cows - for that we walked slowly, so Ed could keep me safe :)



After feeling so out of shape on the way up, it was nice to feel much better about myself as we ran past all the hikers going up. With every step the wind got a little softer and we got a little warmer.




Two hours after we began, we were back at the cars. All that continuous downhill running made my legs feel a bit like jelly once we finally stopped, but otherwise I felt great. I was telling Ed while we were descending that doing things like this together has been this missing part of our relationship while I was injured. This is how I had always imagined our relationship being, us being an active couple together, and I've really enjoyed these past weeks of hiking and running.

This weekend we're off to Tahoe, and Ed's already looked up the distance to the Tahoe Rim Trail. It'll definitely be chilly, with lows in the teens, but it should be beautiful!

Happy Trails :)