Is It Possible?

When I was a classroom teacher I would always map out my curriculum for the school year. This was reassuring to me to know that I could cover what needed to be taught during the year and how much time I would spend on each topic. Approaching this task in the same way makes sense to me. Knowing there are more hikes than weeks in the year and other factors involved, I wanted to determine from a scheduling standpoint: Is it possible????

So, with book in hand and a word table opened on my computer, I mapped out the hikes. I started by making a row for each of the 52 weeks in the year. Since there are 60 hikes, I chose the months of May and June to add an additional hike to each week. Hopefully, May and June will provide good hiking weather and if not, this gives me half of the year to make adjustments.

 60 Hikes within 60 Miles of Cincinnati is so well laid out. Toward the beginning of the book there are a variety of lists to help the reader choose hikes: Hikes Under 2 Miles, Hikes 2 to 4 Miles, Hikes 4 to 6 Miles, Hikes of More than 6 Miles, Kid-Friendly Hikes, etc. I know that I will need to take in several factors like my experience (mostly lack there of), weather, and best seasons for the various hiking locations. I figured winter would be the most difficult season - I am definitely NOT a cold weather person! Also, I will still be building up my stamina, so I went to the Hikes Under 2 Miles and started there. I filled up the weeks in January, February and March with the hikes under 2 miles. Then I went to November and December and did the same thing. Next, I went to the Kid-Friendly Hikes list and put those hikes into my planned two hike weeks in April and May. My thinking here was that I would need to combine a shorter easier hike those weeks with longer hikes. I am fearful that if I over do it, I will give up! Mixing up easier hikes with more difficult hikes makes this seem more doable. Finally, I filled in the rest of the weeks with the 4 to 6 mile hikes and the hikes of more than 6 miles. I did a little bit of shuffling at this point. For example, my son is getting married in August.  That will be a busy time for me, so I planned a "hiking weekend" in June to go camping and hiking and get 4 hikes out of the way. This allows me to take off from hiking the week of the wedding. I left the weekend of December 30 without a planned hike just in case I need it to serve as my "last chance hike out"! This boils down to only one week this year without a planned hike - this goal is pretty tight!!! So, from a scheduling standpoint it seems possible...taking into consideration other factors...the goal is challenging.

Next step: Planning for my first hike to Boone County Cliffs State Nature Preserve near Burlington, Kentucky. More to follow soon in case you want to join the fun!

60 Hikes in 2012

As part of my effort to live a more healthy lifestyle I wanted to set a fitness goal for 2012. My friend Cheri inspired me when she set a fitness goal in 2011 to bike, walk, or ellyptical her way to her sisters' front door steps out-of-state.  What an accomplishment when she reached that goal! I thought to myself, I need a fitness goal to get myself more active again, but what could it be...? While Christmas shopping at a book store I came upon the book 60 Hikes within 60 Miles of Cincinnati by Tamara York.  This is it! I have my fitness goal.  I will hike all of the recommended hikes in the book in 2012.  I purchased the book and got to reading. Then reality set in! Thoughts started running through my head: 60 hikes! That's more than one hike a week! What about the winter months and bad weather? I don't know anything about hiking. What makes me think I can accomplish these hikes with my already crazy schedule? Are you nuts?!?!?  Then, I thought isn't that what a fitness goal is all about? Setting a goal that is challenging and seems almost out of reach, so that there is a real sense of accomplishment once you've achieved it? I started sharing the idea with friends and family. I got several offers from people saying, "I don't want to do one hike a week, but I might join you on a hike or two?"

This blog will serve as a place for me to share about my transformation from being an inexperienced hiker to hopefully an experienced one.  I will share pictures, stories, and tidbits about the different trails that I hike. As I share pitfalls and successes, I hope that others will learn from them. I also hope that readers will comment and share with me what they have learned from their own personal hiking experiences and will thus make a collective contribution to my transformation.

Today I bought my first pair of hiking boots. This was a lengthy process. I wanted something that would keep my feet dry and would also be comfortable. The first store I went to (a large sporting goods chain) didn't have a pair for under $110. Wow! This is going to be an investment. I shopped around at other stores. Many didn't carry women's shoes. I finally settled for a pair of Columbia women's hiking boots that I got for a bargain at $69. I am hopeful to be blister free! I will report back about this after my first couple of hikes!

My next task will be to create a schedule for the hikes. With my book in hand and my calendar by my side, here I go!!!!