The hills are alive...

...with wheezing walkers. (Well at least one - me.)

Usually when I go out on my San Jose Fit walks, I'm too busy walking to stop and look around and take pictures. Last Saturday when we walked 25K (15.5 miles or so), I was too tired at the end to even be trusted to point the camera the right way.

But today's walk was a bit different - we went up some dirt and hill infested trails that required occasional pauses for us to regroup. This gave me time to both rest and take a few pictures.

One thing that cannot be denied is that the scenery for our walks is generally pretty amazing. This is Lexington Reservoir. It's not easy to see, but Eve (not her real - oh wait, that IS her real name - my sophisticated code is foiled!) is wearing the famous "No Whining" shirt. We get lots of comments from people about these shirts (mostly things like "That must really make for quiet walks" and "How much faaaarrrrther do we have to go?").

This picture shows a group of us waiting for a few people to catch up. There was a competitive run going on this morning as well - the Dammit Run (because it goes over Lexington Dam, and the hills are steep, and it's really hard). As we were grinding up the hill, calls of "runner back" could be heard followed by a runner or two darting up the hill like it was nothing. Wow. At no point in my life could that have been me.

As a side note, see that yellow lab's butt in the center of the picture? He actually growled and barked at me. All of us standing around and he picks me out as the threat. Just because I wouldn't share my iPod with him.

As we left the wooded trail behind us, Enelram (not her real name, and thankfully, one that is secret code-friendly) helpfully pointed out this sign warning of mountain lions to our head coach, Luap, who was up for going back to try to find one. Instead, we finished up the 8 mile walk on the Los Gatos Creek Trail as scheduled.

And, thankfully, no more slobbery labs mistook me for lunch.

That's it - move along...