Category Archives: Vacation

Weekend Recap!

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I had the most wonderful weekend ever with my favorite ladies! We went camping (yea, we’re tough), built all our own fires with damp wood and without lighter fluid (except for the last fire and even our kindling was wet!), and went on an amazing hike.

The picture of our feet was on the top of one of the Blue Ridge Mountains last Saturday, about a 1.7m hike up from the parking lot. Since we hiked from our camp site, it was about 5.5 miles round trip. Since it wasn’t a super loooong hike, my friend and I went for a little run up the mountain… I’m guessing it was about a 4 mile run total. Either way, I’m really sore!
Camping with a bunch of girls was such an amazing experience, as we were all out their to prove to our men that we would survive, not starve, and actually sleep well. I can’t speak for the rest of the girls, but I did all three. Quite well. And even got a “I’m proud of you” out of my man for our awesome camping abilities!
Of course, we all missed our guys on the trip and talked non-stop about them… whether married, engaged, or dating.

The second picture is our feet when we had an accidental detour to Colonial Williamsburg as we were looking for a bathroom pit-stop. Of course, none of us complained and bought sandwich at the Cheese Shoppe!

Back to fitness… it was really great to switch up the running and biking and enjoy some hiking. It took us awhile to hike the trail, and I can definitely feel it in my legs today! Tonight I’m going to bike and spend some time in the weight room trying to strengthen my core doing the V-sit and planks… any other ideas to help me strengthen my core?

Get Back At It

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It can be especially challenging during the summer months to keep a regular exercise routine, and my excuses vary from being on vacation, the overwhelming heat, to too much BBQ last night to get up and get an early run in before work.
But when the break from running is more than a day or two, and grows to weeks or even months, it’s hard to get back in the rhythm.
Here’s how to approach those first runs, no matter how long you’ve been away to avoid injury.

The break -> a week or two
On your first couple runs back in the groove, just take it 2 or 3 minutes slower than usual and run about half of your usual distance. Also include walk breaks.

The break -> about a month
Alternate your workout days with a walking/running routine. On Monday run 15 min and using a ratio of 60 seconds running, 30 seconds walking. Tuesday: Walk 30 minutes. Wednesday run 20 min sing a ratio of 60 seconds running, 30 seconds walking. Use Thursday as a rest day, and Friday repeat Wednesdays workout. Saturday: walk 30 min. Sunday run 25-30 minutes using a ratio of 40 seconds running, 20 seconds walking.

The break -> 60 days or more
It’ll probably take about a month to get back on track. Follow the routine for week one listed above, and on week two run 30 minutes three times a week using a ratio of 40 seconds running/20 seconds walking. For week three use the same running routine, 25 seconds running/35 seconds walking. On week four, go back to week two’s plan, running three times using a ratio of 40 seconds running/20 seconds walking.

If you’ve taken a break from running, I Hope these tips were helpful!

 

Source: Running World, “Back on Your Feet” August 2012 edition.

 

Back from Vacation!

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Just came back from the best vacation ever! Tyler’s family is much more relaxed on vacation than my family was, so it was an adjustment… and I had to FORCE myself to slow down! We didn’t even have Internet.  Even though it was more relaxed than what my family does, we still did a lot of stuff, and kayaking was one of them! We went twice last week, and I got stuck a couple times because the water was so low- AND I almost died getting stuck over a water fall with rocks jutting out at the bottom! Don’t worry; we only had class 1 rapids on the first two miles, and the rest was pretty calm. :)

Since we were nestled in the mountains in the middle of nowhere, there were plenty of hills to train on. Not that I’m actually training for anything right now, but I can pretend. :)   I was seriously sore every day that I ran. I did a couple four-mile runs, but on those mountain trails, it felt like twice that! It was so awesome to run on such gorgeous trails.Williamsburg Run for the Dream

I did terrible on not eating sugar during our trip, and I’m going to have to pay for it for a couple days. So back to the strict diet from here on in! :) How are your summer fitness goals coming along? What do you find the hardest to maintain during the warmer months?