First Ride of 2014 on our Burley Tandem

I joined my husband Miles on my first ever group ride with a few others from the Snohomish Bicycle shop on our Burley Tandem bicycle. We started out on the Centennial trail in Snohomish, WA and then ventured up North into the northern part of Lake Stevens and then looped back down along the most northern part of the lake before returning to where we had started on the Centennial trail. This was not only my first bike ride since September 2013 (which was a trip to Bend, OR for some mountain biking fun) but it was my longest recorded ride to date clocking in at 25.1 miles with 550 feet of elevation gain in just under an hour and forty minutes. A few details of the ride included pain in my hands and wrists within the first 5 miles of the ride (due to a serious lack of upper body strength and conditioning), my husband telling the other riders that I'm a gear masher (because I like to spin slower in higher gears), and a state of Euphoria which was most certainly caused by the rush of endorphin's as we topped out our gears at 38 MPH wheeee!! I was pretty proud of myself for hanging in there with this particular group of riders but of course I owed that in part to my husband Miles who acted as a great Captain and I his little Stroker. :-P

Stretching my wrists and hands and overall just slacking as the Stroker :-P

 So I got to pet a Bobcat ^.^

Suncadia Resort - Snow Hiking!

I celebrated my 7th year wedding anniversary to my husband Miles by staying at Suncadia Mountain Resort in Cle Elum, WA. We had a romantic dinner for two on Valentine's Day (our anniversary), followed by a relaxing and rejuvenating day at the spa, and on the final day we went snow hiking. I say snow hiking because we ditched the snow shoes and went out in snow boots and gators instead. We hiked a little over two miles and gained 300 feet in elevation. It was a cold and windy start but once we got down and into valley along the snow shoeing trails the wind died down and the sun warmed us. We crossed a river via a snow covered log and hiked past the fishing shack. We turned around after we lost the packed down snow trail from the previous snow shoeing hikers. The hike took us about an hour and a half and was very fun way to end our trip to the mountains.

View from Suncadia Lodge

Yes, I hiked with my morning coffee!

My husband Miles

On the way home we stopped to visit the Snoqualmie Falls in Snoqualmie, WA

Twin Falls Hike in North Bend, WA - 1st hike of 2014

2014 started out pretty slowly for me due to an extensive surgery I had back in October, but that did not stop me from pursuing my first hike of the year on January 4th. I went to Snoqualmie pass in the North Bend, Washington area at Olallie state park to hike the infamous Twin Falls. The hike was short at three miles rountrip and had an elevation gain of 500 feet. Usually this hike would have been easy for me but other than a few short walks post surgery it was the biggest workout I had done since October 2013. So I suppose it shouldn't have come as such a surprise that I found it a little more intense and grueling than I had expected it to be. I found myself winded and unusually slow but didn't take any breaks other than to take a good long look at the two view points of the falls. It took me an hour and a half to complete and it wouldn't be until the next month that I found myself out and hiking again due to the toll the surgery and antibiotics had taken on my body. Unfortunately, the exercise just seemed to interfere with my recovery process which meant taking it slow and easing back into a consistent exercise regimen.

I couldn't find my pictures from that day, so this is a photo I pulled off of Google