日本語は英語の後にあります。
Stevens creek originates in the Santa Cruz Mountains on the west side
of Black Mountain in Rancho San Antonio. It goes to the Stevens Creek
Reservoir and also a branch runs north through Cupertino to Mountain
View and finally ends at San Francisco Bay.
There is a Stevens Creek Trail from Shoreline Park in Mountain View along the Stevens Creek
to El Camino in Mountain View. The entire distance is now about six
miles. Since 1990 the trail has been extending, and eventually it will
be connected to the origin of Stevens Creek in Rancho San Antonio.
I
run this trail from time to time. I see a lot of local people enjoying
the trail by running, walking, biking, and just relaxing watching the
scenery. This part is along the San Francisco Bay, so the view is
great. You can see the dry mountains in the East Bay across the water.
The contrast of blue sea and brown mountains makes an interesting
scene. This area is surrounded by slough, so you can enjoy seeing the
natural habitat, for especially several kinds of birds. This is why
this is a part of a nature study area.
This trail
is in the natural habitat area, but at the same time, it is surrounded
by a lot of famous industries and institutes, such as Google, Microsoft,
Linkedin, NASA research area, and Moffett Field.
The view and
the industries give me a sense I am in the Bay Area. When I am running
in this area, I always feel how lucky I am. Not everyone is able to
have an opportunity to live in a foreign country. When I am living in
the Bay Area, I almost forget that how fortunate I am to be able to
experience another country, because so many people here are from other
places. However, the vast majority of people in the world are never
able to live in different countries. I should appreciate all the people
who support me.
I like Stevens Creek not only
because it is scenic but also because it gives me an opportunity to
think about a lot of things.
スティーブンスクリークトレイルはカリフォルニア、サンタクルーズマウンテン、ブラックマウンテンの近くから始まり、スティーブンスクリーク貯水池へと繋がる。さらに枝分かれしたスティーブンスクリークトレイルはクパチーノ市、マウンテンビュー市を通り、サンフランシスコベイまで続く。ほとんどが舗装されたトレイルで、自転車、ランニング、ウォーキング等にローカルな人々に広く使われる人気のトレイルだ。山から始まり市街を通り抜けそして、半分以上がサンフランシスコベイの脇を通っている。
このスティーブンスクリークを私はおそらく200回は走っただろう。私が走ったのはマウンテンビューからパロアルトの部分だ。海（ベイ）沿いなので景色も良い。ベイの向こう側にはイーストベイの山が見える。
そしてこのエリアはテック系の会社も多い。このエリアは、グーグル、マイクロソフト、リンクトインなどを走り抜けることになる。そしてNASAの研究所もある。すごいエリアだ。
スティーブンスクリークトレイルを走っていると、あー私はベイアリア・シリコンバレーに住んでいるんだ！という実感が湧いてくる。そしてここに住めるのがなんと幸運なんだろうという気持ちになる。
日々の研究でそういったことは忘れがちになるが、ベイ沿いを走っているとそういった感謝の気持ちが湧いてくる。
How to stay in shape for big hikes: need muscle and stamina!
For muscle building and maintaining, core strength training is required.
For stamina, cardio training is required.
Mixing core strength and cardio trainings is important. The below table is my exercise schedule of week.
For core strength
I do BODYPUMP class once or twice a week. I am soooooo into BODYPUMP!
Bodypump is a program invented by Les Mills, a New Zealand company.
This is Les Mills's Bodypump website. You can get an idea if interested.
It is a 1-hour workout consisting of these tracks:
1.Warm up
2. Squats
3. Chest
4. Back
5. Triceps
6. Biceps
7. Lunges
8. Shoulder
9. Abdomen
10. Stretch
You see all the muscles are trained. Each tracks use a bar and plate and/or barbells, and a mat. It uses rather lighter weight and do repetitive movement.
For example, chest tracks have many ups and down of bar+plate, then do many push-ups. So this program is designed for not only building muscles, but also shape up the entire body. It also has cardio aspect by repeating the same movements. If you want to focus on only building muscles, you need to do lifting heavy weight without many repeats.
Another fun point of Bodypump is all the exercise is done with music. Now Les Mills released 109 versions. It is fun doing with music with rhythm. I LOVE Bodypump so much and actually I am addicted to it.
For cardio
Swimming is my cardio workout. Usually twice a week, each workout is 1.2-1.5 km in 45-55 minutes. I swim 50% crawling, 25% back stroke, 25% chest stroke.
I love swimming. I belonged to swimming club when I was an elementary school student. After I graduated junior high, I didn't swim for a long time. Actually I started swimming again after I joined the gym a year ago. Once I entered the pool for the first time in decades, I realized that I completely remember how to swim. I was surprised how body remembers things that are learned at early age.
I used to run 2-3 times per week for cardio workouts. I noticed that it was tough to do in Boston due to weather. Winter is snowy and icy. Summer is too humid. Also it is not good that a lot of street are not smooth and made of bricks which is damaging for feet.
Most importantly, my biggest and most fun cardio workout is hiking on weekends.
Walking for commute is also a part of my cardio workout. Commute is a great way to exercise. Commute has been always my workout time. For graduate school I biked 20 km/day. For postdoc time, I biked 20 km/day. Now I walk 6.4 km/day.
The key of training is to enjoy it. I love swimming and Bodypump. Also it is easy to have the gym 5 minutes from my place, also it is on the way to work/home. If my gym was outside of commute route, I would feel lazy to go there.
日本語は英語の後にあります。
There are a lot of kinds of maps, but my favorite is trail maps.
When I am looking at trails on a map, I can come up with hundreds of
ideas for day hikes and backpacking routes.
In the U.S., there are some big trail map brands. One is is National Geographic. In California, Tom Harrison maps are quite popular. I LOVE Tom Harrison maps VERY VERY VERY MUCH. Both are well made, so that
everyone is able to read a map without knowing special technique or
jargon. Both are waterproof, which is useful in the wilderness.
Before I went backpacking in John Muir Trail (JMT), I bought a John Muir Trail Map-pack from Tom Harrison Maps. The
John Muir trail is a 210-mile trail from Yosemite National Park near
Half Dome to Mt.Whitney, which I backpacked the whole trail in summer 2014.
It’s very long, so the map is printed on thirteen separate papers. I
had not been sure that it would be easy to read the continuous trail on
separate sheets. However, I found that the map looked very simple but
contained everything I needed.
On JMT, I looked at the map during break, during lunch to check where I was. Before going to bed, I previewed the next day's trail. Without the map-pack it was impossible to hike JMT.
Now I have so many Tom Harrison maps; Grand Canyon of Tuolumne, Ansel Adams Wilderness, Death Valley, etc...
Then I got
interested in who Tom Harrison was. I had expected that he was a
founder of the company but was not still alive. I looked it up on the
internet and found that he was a living founder. The company is in
California and he lives in San Rafael. He is actively leading some map
reading classes, updating maps, and making maps of uncharted areas. I
am glad because now every day I can follow his work and private news on
Facebook.
I was very impressed by his
work, and now I like maps even more. Maps not only provide directions,
but also giving excitement and hope.
地図。
色々なタイプの地図があるが、私が一番好きなののはトレイルマップだ。トレイルマップを眺めていると、デイハイクやバックパッキングのルートのアイディアがとめどなく溢れてくる。
アメリカでよく知られているトレイルマップといえばナショナルジオグラフィックのものだろう。カリフォルニアではもう一つとても有名なトレイルマップのブランドがある。トムハリソンのトレイルマップだ。私はトムハリソンの トレイルマップが、大・大・大好きなのだ！これらのブランドのトレイルマップはウォータープルーフなので山でも大活躍だ。
ジョンミュアトレイル（JMT）に２週間・３５０キロのバックパッキングに行く前に JMTのトレイルマップパックを買った。もちろんトムハリソンのもの（写真参照）。長い距離なので１３枚に分かれている。この１３枚に分かれているのが使いやすい。もし大きな１枚の地図だと毎回折りたたんで広げてを繰り返さなければならない。トレイルでは頻繁に地図をチェックするのでこれは非常に使いやすかった。そして夜テントのの中で次の日の予習をした。このJMTのマップは本当に思い出がつまっている。
私はこのJMTだけでなく、ヨセミテ、アンセルアダムス、デスバレーなどたくさんのトムハリソンの地図を持っている。どれも使いやすく大好きな地図だ。
トムハリソンはカリフォルニアのサンラファエルをベースにした会社で、もちろんトムハリソン（生きている人）が立ち上げたもの。カリフォルニア以外の地図もぜひ作ってもらいたいものだ。
地図。地図は楽しい。行く道を教えてくれるだけでなくエキサイトメントや希望を与えてくれるのが地図だと思う。
I love sakura. Sakura is a Japanese word for cherry blossoms. For Japanese, sakura is a national flower and it is a part life.
Today's post is not very "wilderness", but still about beauty of nature.
Sakura. It blossoms between end of March and mid-April in Japan. It is a symbol of spring. Living in a country with clear four seasons, sakura reminds us of coming of spring. Coming of spring is joyful and hopeful for people. The sakura color of pink makes people feel crisp deep inside.
Sakura is not only a symbol of spring. Sakura is a symbol of graduation and entrance to school. Academic year ends at the end of March and starts in the beginning of April in Japan. So saying goodbye to friends and teacher, then meeting new people are always with sakura. Some life events, such as becoming professional worker from students, breaking up with girl/boyfriend at graduation, or meeting future siginificant other come within the view of sakura. Sakura reminds Japanese bitter sweet memories. This is why sakura is very special to Japanese.
Sakura is everywhere in Japan. The biggest culture event related to sakura is ohanami. Ohanami is a picnic under sakura trees. Usually with friends, coworkers, or family put picnic sheet under sakura trees and eat and drink. Some people focus on eating and drinking (especially drinking), rather than looking at sakura (well, you know).
A lot of companies do ohanami at night after work. In these cases, the youngest person in the company has to go to sakura spot and reserve good ohanami place under sakura before other senior members go there. Many cases, that reservation takes place from noon or even from morning for the night. That's reservation is by putting sheet on the ground. In Japan, nobody removes it, if sheet is there. That is the culture as well.
Sakura in the mountain is also very beautiful. There are many more sakura strains in mountains. No crazy crowd for ohanami in the mountain, and it is absolutely specific in Japan to do sakura hiking. It is hard to go to the mountain in a perfect timing of blossom, but because of that preciousness, the beauty is even more appreciated.
I am glad to know that sakura is also famous in the U.S. Probably sakura gift from Japan to the U.S. in the Washington D.C. is the most famous. I have never seen them in person, but someday I would like to see them.
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Sakura in Boston
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This spring, I was surprised how many sakura is here in Boston. One of the prettiest I saw in Boston was a line of sakura trees along Charles river. Charles river is the iconic thing in Boston. Seeing sakura over Charles river was really appreciating walk for me.
