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!

Sunday Rest Day

Today was a rest day and with the wind blowing as hard as it was, thank goodness for that!

I despise running in the wind especially in the winter when it always seems to kick up after I've worked up a good sweat, freezing me to the bone. The only long run I've ever quit on was supposed to be an 18 miler last February. I hit the bike trail along the Potomac River just as the cold wind picked up and with 11 miles of sweat clinging to me, I got a feel for what real cold can do to me. After 3 miles of toughing it out, the thought of finishing the run was too much and just as I started shivering I had to stop and jump on the metro. For shame...

The memory of that run is the reason I was glad to have a rest day today.

However, I did do both yoga and strength training with the Wii Fit and spent much of the day cleaning and straightening up the apartment. Before dinner, we took a walk around the neighborhood as the pot roast cooked in the slow cooker. All in all, a relatively active day for a rest day.

A New Toy

I woke up this morning with a stuffy nose, sinus pressure, a (very) slight fever and a very sore throat. Yesterday's plan for a hard hill interval workout went right out the window. Unfortunately, I couldn't get back to sleep after my alarm went off so I missed out on an extra hour of sleep.

I started to feel better as the day wore on but when I arrived home from work, Mike had a surprise waiting for me - Wii Fit! :-)

First things first, I did the Wii Fit test to find out my Wii Age for the day. Standing on the Balance Board, the game tested my Center of Balance (good - 51/49%), weighted me (126 and a little bit), and tested my balance (keeping the dot in the blue box - not as easy). ...And my Wii Age for today...40! Freakin' FORTY!! How rude?! Ha!

Not letting that deter me, I tried out a bunch of the yoga and strength moves. I wasn't really looking for a workout but was curious about what the game had to offer. The moves were fun and definitely working my body and muscles but I can see how easy it would be to cheat the game. However, the Balance and Aerobic games were the most fun.

I really enjoyed the Hula Hoop games (I am awesome at it!) and the ski jump game. I'm bad at the agility/balance game like the soccer header game and the roll-y-ball game. Really BAD! Ha!

Still, it's a fun game and it'll be one more thing to do instead of just sit in front of the TV in the evening after work.

Today's Daily Dozen:
1 hour of Wii Fit