Oh my goodness! I just got home from the most intense walk EVER - if you can call it that. I decided that it would be a good idea to go for a walk... down in the coulees... For those of you that don't know what a coulee is, it's kind of like a valley (my dictionary defines it as a "deep ravine"). I dragged Ashlee along with me for good measure.
Going down wasn't so bad, neither was walking on the path when we got to the bottom (mind you the path was flat at the bottom...). But lord have mercy, going back up was an entirely different story! I thought I was going to die. On top of having to go up a very steep incline, we brilliantly decided to do this at night. Where I live, it's pretty dark by 9 PM this time of the year. The coulee probably isn't the smartest, nor safest, place to be walking at night. People aren't so much of a threat, but wildlife sure is! We have a very high population of rattlesnakes, primarily down in the coulees, which like to venture out at night. I'm pretty sure I heard one not far off of the path. On our way back up the coulee path, I saw a snake on the path - which made me scream like a little girl and start running. Thankfully, it was just a little snake, like a garter snake or something (I'm definitely not a snake expert and I didn't get that good of a look at it). Still enough to spook me!
Darkness, snakes and bugs aside, it was a good walk. I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly we were able to complete the path. We walked about 2.58 kilometres, which took us 32 minutes including a couple of breaks to catch our breath on our way up. My average pace per kilometre was 12:28, which I'm pretty happy with given that I was going up hill and stopped briefly four or so times. My heart rate monitor (I bought the Polar FT4, I'll write about it sometime) was getting cranky at me on the way up. For optimal heart health, your heart rate should be within a certain range for certain activities. Generally, when you're wearing a heart rate monitor you're doing so while performing a physical activity, so the monitor beeps at you if you're not within a certain range. My range is 126 to 165. At one point, my heart rate peaked at 189! Yikes! I'm sure running from the snake, whilst going up hill didn't help matters. Thankfully, I didn't feel like I was going to pass out or anything like that. I was a little winded, but that's to be expected. I'm also thankful that I didn't end up having an asthma attack (which has often occurred to me while going uphill).
So, in the end, would I do it again? Sure. I just wouldn't do it at night!
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