Wednesday Swim on Misery and Joy

Very humid tonight. Heat indexes during the day hovered around 105. I'm not sure what it was at 4:45 when we headed off. Three of the MLC gang were there to run I was hiking. Under the tree cover of Misery and Joy the air was thick but still better than the open desert conditions elsewhere in Valley Forge Park.

I set out first along the Valley Creek Trail to begin my climb on the Wolfinger Trail. This was much easier to climb than it was to descend last week. But I will master the descent eventually. I  climbed on Wolfinger, Misery and the Horseshoe Trail to the top of Misery before turning around and following the HST all the way down to route 23. From there I crossed 252 to go up and over Joy back to my car. This outing was measured in miles, time and sweat (felt like gallons).

I experimented with short running steps on the downhills today. In hiking mode I catch my toes on the rocks often. Short running steps keep my feet higher off the ground which seems to help. I felt more stable on the downhill this way too. There are portions of all these trails where the obstacles are too close together but I did what I could. On the few smooth downhills I let gravity take over and jogged down. I had to switch between jogging and high stepping a lot but it worked.

A day off tomorrow whether I planned to or not as it is supposed to be rainy and stormy all day. Friday a bunch of us are walking to Independence Hall. It will be fun to do that with company this time.