April 18, 2010
Today’s weather reminds me of spring time in New York. Sunny, the temperature is at the upper 50F, just a beautiful day for a long hike. The annual CMCNY 26-mile hike event should be over by now and for the first time in nine years, I could not attend this marathon hike. I do miss it!
I have started this strenuous exercise since 1991. For the past nine years, my loyal hiking partner Mr. Chen was always by my side to reach the finishing line. Last year, we got lost in the trail and ended up hiking 30 miles. We finished the hike just a little more than 12 hours. I was happy with the result for I had made another record for myself. A year ago, I was in an excellent shape. Just one month after the hike, I went to Utah with other friends and did a 10-days backpacking. With only 103 lbs, I could carry half of my body weight and climbed up and down with the 45-50 lbs backpack. Life was full of excitements, challenges, and rewards. Besides, I quitted my very stressful job in Wall Street. For the six months, I was living a healthy life and enjoying what I was doing. Afterward, I left for Peace Corps.
Today, my routine exercise is an hour’s walk inside a park by the Caspian Sea and half hour yoga afterward. There is no mountain here in the city, only a long flat shoreline. Occasionally, I can find some stairs climbing up to a small hill. The Azeri people avoid those stairs but for me they are treasure. I think I have climbed every stair inside the park, and my favorite one is the 125 steps stair leading to a statue. If no one is watching, I go back down and repeat the climb. Once, an Azeri man caught me doing it, he looked at me with a wide open month. He thought I was nut!
I do not know why I like exercise and I surely do not know why I enjoy mountain climbing so much. Twenty months from now, I will be back doing those things again. It may take me a few months to tune up my muscles. I may suffer with lots of pains in order to get back to the “excellent” shape, but I am looking forward to it. I just hope my hiking and backpacking buddies will still be there when I return.
This evening, I think I am going to take a 2-hours walk.
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