The last time I attempted to go hiking was during the summer of last year. I went with my boyfriend and a couple other friends. Normally, I am not an outdoor person, and I’m very much a “city girl.” At the time, I had also forgotten that there are more hills along the east coast than in the Midwest (where I’m originally from) and hadn’t anticipated how much more difficult hiking would be. Long story short: I ended up saying, “hey guys, I’ll meet you back at the car,” after only about half an hour and I turned around and waited for the group to finish.

This past weekend, I decided to tackle the hiking thing again. My boyfriend assured me that it would be only an hour and a half (I had a feeling it would end up being longer). After we started, I found that I was actually moving faster than my boyfriend much of the time (hills included). We had some difficulty with our sense of direction and ended up hiking for three hours by the time we made it back to our car. It’s so good to know that I’m in that much better shape than I was a year ago and it’s easier to move when you’re not carrying over 30 extra pounds.

It’s funny, the scariest thing about hiking now is being away from “civilization.” At one point, I saw a girl coming toward us on the trail and sped over to her to ask directions, I even said, “We haven’t seen human beings in so long!” (…such a city girl) Later, my boyfriend said that when he saw me go toward the girl, he was afraid I was just going to rush up and give her a hug because I looked so happy to see her.

So in closing, I’m extremely happy to be back in civilization, and that I can go back to my gym and work out indoors.

My husband and I love hiking. We're about a 10 minute drive to a battlefield park that has mountain trails and we go every weekend morning and in the evenings when we don't go to the Y. On these trails there's a lot of people hiking and jogging though, so I don't have to miss civilization!!

Congratulations on your 35 lb. loss!

That sounds really nice; I'd probably start hiking more often if that were my situation. The nearest place to hike is a 20/30 min. drive away. I would definitely feel better knowing that if I broke my ankle or ran into some sort of trouble, I could yell out and someone would come to help. Where we were this past weekend, I was envisioning corpses left along the side of the trail (I tend to be a bit overly dramatic at times ), although we did find a skull that looks like it belonged to a fox or possum. I haven't transformed into an avid hiker, but I do think I'll go more than once a year.

I love hiking I try to go hiking every weekend. I used to have a lot of trouble when I started. Now I can do some strenuous hikes for over 5 miles. I'm also getting faster in my hiking.

Last weekend, I did Patapsco State park which is near Baltimore. It was fun but I did a pretty steady climb there and it exhausted me.