Nature

I like nature, but on Wednesday I realized how much of a wussy city girl I am! Since I've been such a lazy bum lately, and haven't started my Nike training, I decided on Wednesday that after work I'd go on a little mini hike after work. Every day on my way to and from work, I drive by a parking lot for one of the trails in Briones Regional Park. I've always been curious as to where the trail went, so I figured I'd check it out. Of course I had to pick one of the hottest days to go exploring!

After work I changed into my workout clothes and headed down the street to the trailhead. There were only two cars in the parking lot, and one belonged to a woman who was picking her kid up at the school next to the parking lot. Everyone else was probably in their nice air conditioned homes :( On the way out on the trail I stopped to grab a map of the park and read some of the notices up on the board. They had warnings about ticks, mountain lions and snakes. Great. On my way I went... up, up and up the trail (which at first was just a gravel road, and then branched off to a dirt trail). After a few minutes on the trail I saw a lady with her three dogs coming down the trail-- the other car in the parking lot belonged to her, which meant I was now all alone up there. I kept going for awhile and then figured that this probably wasn't the best idea... I started worrying that I would get bitten by a snake, trampled by cows (which graze in the park), attacked by a mountain lion, or just trip on a pile of cow poo and tumble down the hill and no one would be able to help me. Basically, I just freaked myself out! After almost a mile on the trail, I decided to turn around and head back to the parking lot :) It was a good workout since it's such a hilly trail, and the views from up there are amazing, but next time I think I'll go up there with a buddy!

As of right now I have plans to head out to Heather Farms to get in a run with the Diablo Valley run team. I think they're already up to 7 miles... but I'll probably do just 4. Not too impressive, but at least it's a start! Saturday night I'm off to the Dave Matthews concert with Amy (SOOO excited!!!!) and then on Sunday Claudia and I will be heading down to Santa Cruz at the butt crack of dawn to cheer on Phil at his first Half Ironman Triathlon!! GOOD LUCK PHIL!!!!!