Treading

The word for the day is treading.  I'll explain what that is a little later because I want to start off with the hike update.  I know that I've posted a lot about the hikes, but it is probably the biggest adjustment for me because we don't have hills like this in Houston.

Today's hike was at the beach.  Actually, it started off at the beach, then we went up the hills.  It was the best hike so far.  The new shoes work great and the spending time on the flat surface of the beach really helped my feet.  As we were walking down the length of the beach, most of us spent a lot of time looking at the water.  We could see dolphins jumping out of the water pretty close to shore.  I tried to capture a picture, but just didn't get any dolphins.  I was slightly disappointed because it was an awesome site.

Here are some of the first pictures from the beach.

Since this is Malibu, there was a steep hill just to the right of the above pictures that were lined with houses.  Can you imagine living in one of those houses with a view of the ocean and dolphins?

Alright, here is a picture of one of the houses.

At the end of the beach, we hiked up the hill, so here is a picture of the entire beach.  We started at the other end and walked along the entire beach.  The beach appears shorter in length in the picture than what it actually was.

From the top of the cliff, we looked left and could see a couple of rocks with animals.  The hiking guide said they were sea lions.  Here is the picture.

We continued hiking away from the beach, and shortly came across a sign posted by the Sate of California that said this is a lookout point for humpback whales between February and May.  Since I am off on Sundays, I will definitely come back here for whale watching.

At this same point we could see another section of a beach and in the distance to the right we could see the LA area, mostly Santa Monica.  All we could see over the LA area was smog.  Here are the pictures.

So as you can see, during today's hike I kinda acted like a tourist.  Overall it was a great hike and I can't wait to go back and watch some whales.  Maybe in future hikes I'll get some pictures of dolphins.

Now on to treading.  Treading is the name of one of the group classes, and it turns out that I had it as the first of three classes.  Here's how it goes and note that anyone can try this.  The purpose is to get the body into the anaerobic zone, which involves getting the heart rate as high as possible.  Pick a cardio machine, any machine you like.  After a good warm up, go all out 100% intensity for 5 minutes straight. Push the body to the limit with speed, incline, or resistance on the machine.  After 5 minutes, take a 5 minute break, but keep moving during this recovery time.  If you need to get off the machine and walk around, do so.

Then, repeat the all out intensity for 4 minutes, 4 minute break, repeat for 3 minutes, then 2 minutes, then 1 minute.  You can repeat the 1 minute level as many times as you want.  Oh my goodness, what a class it was.  Afterwords I'm surprised that I didn't throw up.  Yes, it was that intense.

This also set the tone for the rest of the afternoon.  The second class was in the pool, and I barely had enough energy to complete the last class.  I will get more detail on the group classes later.

One more note about treading.  I mentioned yesterday that I'm using trial and error to determine how much intensity I need to push myself that day to find the balance between getting a good workout and being able to survive 8 weeks out here.  In the treading class, I went all out 100% intensity.

Closing through for the day:  Sometimes, life is about stopping to smell the roses.  I did that today a few times during the hike.  Even though the hike itself was at a slightly slower pace, the treading class made up for it.