600 Miles!

For several various and a sundry reasons, I've been inspired to give my blog another go. Mainly in hopes that it will help to inspire me and push me to do more in 2011. Early on in 2010 I decided to make myself a goal to travel over 1500 miles in the year under my own power, like running, biking, paddling, etc... Soon into the year I realized that this goal was a bit lofty, but what good are goals if not lofty right? Unmotivating, that's what. So I adjusted my goal to a more reasonable 600 miles (50 miles per month). And so I've been shooting for that ever since. Today I passed my goal. I went for a 9 mile run this morning before work and halfway through I stopped to take this picture at the 600 mile mark (just so happened to be my favorite view of San Clemente).

One of the various things I want to start posting on the blog is my runs. I want to do this to help keep me honest, help push myself harder, and perhaps inspire others. Plus I hope to do some cool runs/rides, and thought people might be interested in those trails, etc...

Here is the GPS Track of my run.

I realize those may be hard to see. I will work on improving that in future posts... The blue line on the map was my route this morning. And the Red line is the elevation profile, overlayed with the purple speed profile.

Weekend (before last) Update

I skipped a few updates, but wanted to put up some pics from our weekend camp trip up in Idyllwild, its a quaint little town near San Jacinto. Our camping experience was a bit sub par, but we're kinda camping experience snobs. Meaning we like camping in the Sequoias, Yosemite, Zion, or any other place far far away from tons of people. So we probably shouldn't have expected the same peaceful camping just outside of LA and the OC. But we made the best of it anyhow, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. We went fishing on Lake Hemmet to teach Dani how to fish, and she caught her first fish ever! And the best part is she still wants to catch more! On Sunday we went on a fun hike that had 14 geocaches on it, and we found all of them. Good times...

Weekend Update (5 Day Weekend!)

Last week we went up to Dani's parent's ranch up in Oregon, for a 5 day weekend trip, and we took Holli and Huy Do with us. It was a blast, and were pleasantly surprised to find that we can spend that much time with another couple and we are still friends with them. We packed alot in. Rock climbing with Denver and Chelsea, shooting off the Linthicum's porch while Denver cooked a ton of ribs, Crater Lake, Bend, whitewater rafting the Rogue River in inflatable kayaks, scenic drive down the rugged Oregon coast, Rosburg, Geocaching, camping in the Redwood National Park, and an amazingly long drive home that was caused by Google Maps lying to us, causing us to get home at 5:30 in the morning instead of midnight as planned.

Here's a few of the best pics I ended up with:

Cowboys Stadium

Dani and I went to Texas last week for my 10 year high school reunion, and to spend some time with the fam. While we were there though we decided to take a tour of Jerry World. It was amazing!

Weekend Update

SATURDAY

Ran the Mud Run at Camp Pendleton with Rocky, Mike, and Chris. It's a blast of a 10k with lots of obstacles like walls and mud pits and stuff. Finished it in 1:09, and we placed 12th out of 78 all male teams, and 16th out of all 428 civilian teams (male, female, and mixed). Not bad! I'm doing it again with work in 2 weeks, which people at work think I'm "insane" to do it twice, "within 2 weeks!"

For the afternoon, we grilled some dogs and invited some peeps to hang at our place and since there was an intense marine layer over the beaches this weekend, we decided to play some of our favorite game, Monopoly Deal.

Dani had purchased Groupon for a gift cert to Peppino's Italian restaurant so we went and had a nice romantic dinner on the patio overlooking Lake Mission Viejo. Very nice.

SUNDAY

We attended Mariners Mission Viejo once again, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Then went back to our house with big plans of beaching or kayaking, but arrived back in San Clemente to the afore mentioned marine layer, and decided that didn't sound like fun anymore, so we called up our new neighbors in Ladera Ranch, Rocky and Jennifer, and went out on a hike with them. Snagged a few GeoCaches and then hit the pool. Multiple pools actually as we tooled around Ladera Ranch's many pools searching for just the right one for us. We had swimming races in the pool and discovered that Dani and I are very evenly matched when it comes to swimming, and we think we should explore that activity more often. Then they offered us giant steaks to eat, and you all know I cannot turn that down. Thanks JOCKY!

Weekend Update

So, its been over a year since my last post. I suppose life just got busy and this got pushed aside, but it's back after popular demand. At least I'm going to attempt to bring it back!

I realize it's Wednesday, but it was a long weekend. So here's the update.

FRIDAY

We went out on our 3rd whale watching attempt. We left for an evening cruise with Rocky and Jennifer out of Dana Point in hopes of seeing some Blue Whales, since it is the season for them, but alas, no blues, just a measly 40 foot Humpback!

Just caught the tail end!

SATURDAY

Dani had to work in the morning so I grabbed Mike and Nate and we hiked Mt. San Antonio, better known as Mt Baldy. Its the 3rd highest mountain in SoCal, and one I've wanted to hike for a while now. I scored a coveted permit to hike Mt. Whitney this summer, so I figure we better get some training hikes in. It was an awesome hike with some amazing views, but it was a windy day and we had to contend with 40 mph winds on the ridge line to the summit which was not fun at all.

San Antonio Falls

The Devil's Backbone

The Devil's Backbone with the Mojave Desert in the background.

The final route to the summit.

One view from the summit with Saddleback (highest peak in OC) in the distance.

Feeling Victorious!

We were a bit disheartened to see this little guy make it up there no problem.

This was partly to show the power of the wind, and partly to see how long I could get Mike to take off his jacket. Then we rested in our wind shelter before heading down.

Great Hike!

11 miles / 4,000+ ft elevation gain

SUNDAY

We decided that we would finally hunker down and do some spiffying up of the beach house since we don't have any plans to leave it in the foreseeable future. So we picked one room and attacked it! We chose to hit the office, and went at like those design on a dime shows you see on TV. A full day of work and an amazing $40 later, we had a much more inviting peaceful office to work in. I accidentally deleted the before pics somehow, but here's some after shots.

MONDAY

I finally got my first taste of the Zakaryan Wiffle Ball Day in Ladera Ranch. Had been invited the last few years, but each year we were busy backpacking in Yosemite or getting engaged in Sequoia to make it. I must say we have been missing out. It was quite fantastic, and way more official than I thought wiffle ball could ever be. And after we finished all 20 innings we had good times hanging out with everyone at the Z's abode.