Yesterday was an exercise in artful scheduling and preparation. I work until 10pm in East County San Diego. I hit the highway at 10:05 with a well-prepared cooler. My target was the rest stop on I-10 just past the 111 exit, and I arrived at about 12:15am. Slept in my truck, woke at 5, got to museum around 6. Fortunately, the ice cubes I brought with me were intact and I added these to my reservoir. Hit the trail at 6:10.
I purposely took it slow going up to the picnic tables this time and got there at 7. My body is used to waking up at 9 and this is not my ideal warm-up. But here I decided that I could actually do this and got over the back-of-the-mind nagging question of why am I doing this by myself?
By 10, I was at the 4,000 ft marker with a 1.1mph overall average, which increased to 1.2 in the high desert section, so I was feeling really good about that. Two other groups were out there walking at about the same pace and we kept bumping into each other. Trail buddies!
Around Tombstone Rock I started feeling sleepy, but I did have caffeine pills with me.
At Flat Rock I laid on my back and watched the clouds. Between that and the distant hum of the tram, it was a calming mix of serene and surreal. After this point, my stellar 1.2 dropped back to 1.1.
The going was slow and steady, but I really started to feel it at Coffman's Crag. I couldn't catch my breath and kept having to stop. This last section took me over a half hour. Still, I got to the top at 4:30 so I'm proud to say that I improved my time by 2 hours!
As I stumbled to the base of the evil cement walkway, I bumped into Steve, who'd hiked a gazillion miles. At the station I wandered around aimlessly for a while and also bumped into a representative from one of our health care providers from work, who was there with her family. I can't tell you how much fun it was to answer her when she asked me where I'd been hiking. We were out on the balcony so I pointed to the city as I said it. Good times. And then, waiting to board the tram, I saw Ellen and Patrick and we chatted on the ride down. I was pretty out of it and the whole time up there is a total blur. I hope I didn't say anything stupid in my half-consciousness. I do remember everyone's congratulations however. Coming from the likes of you, it really means a lot! I have an enormous amount of respect for your speed and endurance.
On the drive home I figured I'm a long way away from doing this back to back. But I'm closer to doing a full C2C!
Jay
