What Happened to Me!

Ok so get this...I have been exercising! I know, hard to believe! There are multiple things at play here. First, my dieting wasn't going great. I have been good still but not great. I wasn't loosing weight. So, I decided I needed to add in some healthy activities. Walking it is. Second, I am trying to make going back to work for a friend harder if not impossible. So, I took advantage of said athletically enthusiastic friend and told her she had to walk with me. 

I searched the internet looking for nice places to walk. Do you know it's impossible to find any cool places to walk around here?  I cross searched Google maps and mapmywalk.com to find some place relatively cool places around here. If I'm going to be sweating and using muscles I haven't used in a few years, I might as well be looking at something pretty...cause let's face it, Los Angeles is ugly. It's a cement jungle. I searched and searched for somewhere interesting to walk. We have the Santa Monica mountains. We have Griffith Park just down the street. We have beaches. We have lakes...wait, LA has lakes? 

I am a water person. I love to be at the beach. So, I zoomed in on the Google maps looking for water. I found reservoirs, ponds, creeks, and any blue spot on the map I could find, I looked at. I found a local "lake" that I hadn't been to in a while...ok it's a largish pond. I also found a couple of reservoirs. I found a nice looking hike in the Griffith park. I also found a nice little walk to the Hollywood sign. Turns out if you look, there are a couple of decent places to walk around here.

We started by walking around the Rose Bowl on day one. No water, but awesome setting. Tons of people walking and running. The weather was beautiful. I went from couch to 5k. Can I tell you my hips were sore, my thighs were sore, my calves were sore, the tops of my feet were sore...really? Even the tops of my feet are out of shape? Guess so. It was fun though. 

To recuperate, we drove around and checked out some of the other spots that looked interesting on the map. We checked out a reservoir that turned out not to be a reservoir at all...cross that spot off the list. Then we checked the spot in Griffith park...that spot looks like it should be nice. I'm excited to walk it when I'm in a little better shape.

Day two, we headed to Lake Balboa. Lake is used loosely. It does sound better than "Kinda Big Pond Balboa" though. It's a little over one mile around the pond. Lots of ducks, people, and cherry blossom trees. It was really nice. However, my body was reminding me that I had only worked out one day and my muscles weren't quite ready for all this shocking movement called walking. I figured I'd loosen up as we went...my body said not quite yet. Add in the swarms of gnats strategically placed around the lake and also the fact that Colleen was still fighting a cold. We only made it around once before we decided that it would be a light day of walking. 

So, we decided to use the next couple of hours to check out a few more spots to walk. On the list today was Encino Reservoir and Hollywood Reservoir. Encino was fun to look for. We knew we were close. Google maps told us we were close. Actually catch a glimpse of the water? Not a chance. We couldn't find any way into the area. We made a few passes at it before we gave up. I decided some more internet research was in order. I would figure this out! It looked like such a nice spot to walk!

The Hollywood Reservoir was kind of on the way home. Meaning that it wasn't on the way home at all but being only a couple mile from my house, we couldn't not go look for it. From what I had read online about it, my expectations were low. We were very very pleasantly surprised! 

It was beautiful! It took a bit trying to get to the correct entrance, but we made it and it was great. The lake is beautiful...and yes this is definitely more like a lake. There is a great view of the Hollywood sign. The weather was awesome. We ended up walking a little bit around it to check it out. It's only a few miles around the lake. However, part of the trail is closed off due to land slides. So, to walk from one end to the other and back is 4 miles or so. We went a little while before my bladder decided we had walked far enough. We turned around and headed back. I was so excited about this spot! 

I have lived in Burbank for 4 years, I had no idea this lake was minutes from my house! I can't wait to bring my bike out and ride around. It is most definitely on the list of places for us to walk. Now, if you have seen "It Happen One Night" with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, you have seen around Lake Hollywood. The famous hitchhiking scene was filmed there. 

When I got home later that night I was exhausted. When I mapped out our walk around Lake Hollywood, it turned out that added another 2 miles to our distance for that day...nice! What we thought was going to be a lazy day, turned out to be a nice workout! 

View from the damn

You can almost tell how sore my muscles are by the look on my face...but I was excited about the Hollywood sign far off in the distance...you know, the blurry blob above Colleen's head.

This is a better shot.

I have walked a few more times and am enjoying it for sure. We invited my sister in law to walk with us at a local park on Sunday...not doing that again! That shorty walks way to fast! Her legs are shorter than mine...but so much faster!! It was torture! Now that my muscles have recuperated I can say that I probably needed that push. I even went back and walked by myself yesterday. Although, I did find that it's easier to walk when you have people talking and distracting you from the muscles screaming in your head. I know quit whining...I'm already noticing the difference in my clothes...can't complain about that!