Week 23 of 26

I thought I finished last week pain-free. Not so. By Monday morning I could hardly walk -- this time with pain in my left foot. I blame the new boots, and decided to go back to the old (new) boots, the Asolos. I had never tried them with the new pads the podiatrist put on the underside of the inserts, so I decided to give that a shot. What other choice to I have at this point? I contemplated hiking of Kilimanjaro with an Asolo on my left foot and a New Balance on my right foot -- but not for very long! The good news is that after all this week's hiking in the Asolos, I am pain-free. Both feet feeling fine, and I am thinking I will even cancel my follow-up appointment with the podiatrist.

Mt Rose is getting old. Poor Joe has been going up it every single day and he is heartily sick of it. I have thought all along that 6 months of training won't be enough, that I'd need another month or two to be ready. But at this point, this training is eating up our entire lives and I want this climb to happen, ready or not!

We are getting our stuff together. I sent back the mittens I ordered online, for a larger size. I've been hearing from a lot of people about friends who climbed Kilimanjaro and had problems with frostbite. The answer seems to be lots of chemical hand and foot warmers. We attempted to stuff all my things into a bag Joe thought would be great (sturdy and waterproof). The good news is the entire mess only weighed 13.5 pounds (we are allowed 35), but stuff was exploding out the top. Gotta figure that out. We are also contemplating changing our original plan to spend a couple of days in Nairobi. We may just skip that (and the hassle of getting that visa) and go straight to Tanzania.

I also had a hassle with my bank over paying the Zara Tour people. Wells Fargo used to have a policy of charging you a fee if you paid in foreign currency. They changed that in July, and now charge you 3% of ANYTHING you pay to a foreign company even if you pay in dollars. So my payments to Zara cost me $185. I called them and complained and they reimbursed half. I considered having Zara refund all my money and paying them on a Fidelity Visa, but it didn't seem worth the trouble. I also considered changing banks, but they're all the same.

This week:

August 16: Nothing
August 17: Nothing
August 18: 10.6 miles, Mt Rose (combination of sneakers and Asolos)
August 19: 5.2 miles, on streets in Asolos
August 20: 10.6 miles, Mt Rose
August 21: 9-10 miles, Mt Rose (did not summit due to 75 mph winds on top)
August 22: 5.2 miles on streets in sneakers

Total for week: 40.6-41.6 miles