Deceptively Active

Today I head back to Virginia on the train, nearly bringing the Christmas season to a close. I've spent the last four days in Vermont at my parents' house for the Christmas holiday. Although I brought my running gear, I'll be honest and admit that I didn't have much hope of actually getting outside to run.

Tuesday and today, Saturday, I will be more slug than active healthy person since they are travel days and I spend more than 12 hours on the train. However, Wednesday through Friday I was deceptively active and even if I didn't run a step it couldn't have been much worse.

Tuesday night and Wednesday I went outside to play in the snow and watched everyone else shovel snow (I did jump in once and shovel some snow). The rest of the day Wednesday I spent introducing the WiiFit to my Mom who was curious about the type of "workout" you could actually get from a video game.

Thursday, Christmas Day, I went for 2.5 mile walk around the snow-covered town of Northfield with my family and took up a great deal of the rest of the day, playing Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). The box states, "It's a great CARDIO workout" and I'm not sure about the "great" part but it definitely beats sitting on my butt watching TV. Plus, it is fun and you don't even realize that your heartrate is increasing and that you're being active and healthy.

The best part of my Christmas vacation came on Friday. As a Christmas present to my Mom, I bought her and the rest of us, a beginner's Cross Country Skiing Lesson in Stowe, VT. I plan on writing more about that later but I will say it was a great way to spend the day and even ended in some (pleasantly) sore muscles.

All in all, the WiiFit was only OK, DDR was a definitely hit and the CCS was an amazing "real" workout and the most fun. I know I more than made up for any of this activity with the cookies and chocolate and Macaroni and Cheese and the Turkey Noodle Soup (Mmmmmm!) that was consumed during my Christmas vacation in VT but I feel good about the decided lack of laziness. I am just going to chalk this week up as a week of Cross Training!

Happy Christmas All!