Liteguard

If you don't understand the title of this post, then stay tuned because I'll explain it in due time.  First the hike information.  Today my group went to the beach for a hike.  I'm always in the mood for this hike because it is at the beach, overall easy on the feet, yet still challenging enough for a great workout.

Today was very windy, and the wind at the beach was no exception.  The wind was blowing pretty hard consistently, then there were some gusts that would blow the sand up.  I found out later on another hike that one of the ladies indicated she was being blown around sometimes near the edge of the cliff on her hike.

The beach hike is in three sections.  The first section is walking the length of the beach on the sand.  The second part is the hike up the cliffs and all the way up to Point Dume`.  The third section is to take the stairs down the other side of the cliff to another beach section.

Any time we repeat hikes, the goal is to make it further than we did the previous hike.  Remember that most of the hikes are "there and back."  At the end of the first beach section, we noticed there were several brown tents set up on the beach.  There wasn't anyone around and we didn't know exactly what was going on.  Despite the wind I made it a lot further than I did on Saturday.  Nancy and Sandy, if you are reading this, I made it all the way to the boat.

The boat is a small boat that somehow washed up on shore and capsized.  It is located in the middle of the other beach section mentioned above.

So let's get to some pictures.  This first picture below is taken from the boat.  This is the second beach section.  The very top of the cliff in the middle is Point Dume`.

Now for a couple of pictures of the boat.  Note that the guy inside is one of the hiking guides who just wanted to be funny.

Then, for those that don't really believe that I made it to the boat, here is a victory picture.

At this point, we turned around and hiked back.  Remember the brown tents that I mentioned above.  When we came to the top of the cliff where we hike down to the first beach section, we noticed there were lots of people there, so we stopped for a few minutes.

It was obvious that they were shooting a commercial for Miller Lite beer.  The theme for the commercial was liteguard, which is a play on words from lifeguard.  At this point I took a picture from above, and here it is.

If you look closely on the right side, you can see women in blue bathing suits and a volleyball net.  With the temperature and the wind, they had to be very cold.  Later on the beach section we came across another part of the shoot where they were filming a close up of one of the girls.

While the crew was setting up, she was dressed in the blue bathing suit, but had a coat on.  Just before the director said "action" she took off the coat, did her speech, and immediately put the coat back on.  Due to the wind, from where were standing, we could only hear the first sentence of what she said.  Her first line was "If I can only save one guy..." and that's all we heard.

So, if you see a commercial for Miller Lite with the theme of Liteguard with women in blue bathing suits, be sure to please let me know.  You may want to remember the coldness during the filming.  No one knows if this is a Super Bowl commercial or not, but in my opinion, if it is, they are cutting it close to gametime.

The afternoon classes today was something in the pool, kickboxing, and mountain.  Obviously kickboxing is self-explanitory, so let me briefly explain mountain.  Get on any cardio machine that you like and warm up.  The purpose of the class is to "climb the mountain."  This is done by 12 x 3-minute levels.  Start slow on the first level, and every 3 minutes increase the speed, resistance, incline, or a combination.

Today I chose the treadmill because I wanted to see how far I can get the incline up.  I also think that large inclines will help me on the hikes.  I put the speed at 2.0 and started off at level 1 incline.  Every level we went up, I increased the incline.  So, in theory at the top I should be at an incline of 12 and speed of 2.0.

Well, the instructors are always pushing and challenging us, so he asked us to make level 12 the hardest we can go.  I decided to put the incline all the way up, which is 15, and I also increased the speed to 2.2. Did I last?  Yes, but barely - I can tell you it was tough.

Closing thought for the day:  If the purpose in repeating exercises and hikes is to go further that the time before, then today was good progress.  I made it to the boat on the beach hike and maxed out the incline of the treadmill.  I never thought I'd be able to keep up 3 minutes on the max incline level of the treadmill, but I did it and actually slightly increased the speed as well.  It was an excellent day!!