Archive for Fitness
Spring Time Trail Run To Mt. Allison
Posted by: | CommentsLast night I made sure that I packed up all my trail running gear so I could hop out of bed and hit the trail. I was in bed by 930 PM. I woke up without an alarm at 430 AM`. Read More→
Spring Wild Flower Trail Run Up Rose Peak
Posted by: | CommentsI made the trail running trek up to Rose Peak this morning. The spring wild flowers were still magnificent Read More→
Life Time Fitness
Posted by: | CommentsI can remember vividly the the day that my father gave me my first ice skates. They were a cheap pair of strap-on plastic skates with 2 blades on each skate. Our family skated on a a frozen pond in a vacant field in Minnetonka. This marked the starting point of my craze for fitness. My father quickly followed up with a pair of real leather hockey skates that I could lace up.
When the ice skating season was over and it finally turned warm in Minnesota, my father gave me a used green bicycle with a fake crank up motor mounted on the handle bars that made a vrrrrooom noises when I pulled it. I beat on this bicycle so hard that Dad bought me a Schwinn Sting Ray bicycle to withstand the punishment that I gave it.
I don’t think my father understood exactly what he was doing. I was a kid and he was making sure that I was having fun. As I got older, my addiction to being active increased. I played baseball, hockey, football, track, broom ball, basketball, cross country, wrestling, and cross country skiing. I was in excellent shape without ever having to “work out”. Exercise seemed so boring and foreign to me. I heard grown ups talking about it and I vowed to never participate in it.
My point is that staying in shape should be fun. I avoid painful activities at all cost. If a person detests going to the gym, he will stop going even if he has paid a few thousand dollars for a membership. I dare you to look at attendance rosters at your gym on January 1 and July 1. I bet the attrition rate is greater than 50%. The clubs bank on this and hope that you stop coming (as long as you keep on paying).
I have 3 fitness activities that I absolutely enjoy. My first love is long distance bicycle riding, followed by in-line skating, and running. I tend to run more than all the others combined because I can run just about any where.
Pick a fitness routine that you enjoy and you are guaranteed to stay in shape. Additionally, it must be convenient and readily accessible. This is your recipe for success to life time fitness.
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Running with the Stars
Posted by: | CommentsHave you ever watched Dancing with the Stars? I have to admit that I have been forced to watch it several times with my wife. I watched the episodes with Kristy Yamaguchi so it was not all bad. This morning I had a chance to run with the stars. No, Kristy nor anybody famous that I know of were running on the trail. I am talking about the real stars.
It was a clear, cloudless, starry night. We hit the trail at 5 AM. While ascending the first hill, we were greeted with a falling star. I know that a shooting star is not really a star at all. A “falling star” or a “shooting star” has nothing at all to do with a star! “These amazing streaks of light you can sometimes see in the night sky are caused by tiny bits of dust and rock called meteoroids falling into the Earth’s atmosphere and burning up. The short-lived trail of light the burning meteoroid produces is called a meteor”. (This is from NASA)
Who cares as long as what we saw were natural fire works. It’s some rocking burning up as it passes through Earth’s atmosphere.
As long as we continued to look up into the sky, we could see the shooting stars. It must have been a combination of no moon and a meteorite belt that we were experiencing. I saw no less than 15 shooting stars. One even appeared to explode. As night gave way to dawn, the fireworks show ended.
Up near Mission Peak, the ground was frosty white. It was a picture perfect winter day. Even if it had been rainy, the east bay hills always manage to take my breath away. The sun rise was amazing over the San Francisco Bay Area. The City (San Francisco) had a yellow glow to it as the morning rays descended over it. Visibility was at least 60 miles. Cold nights tend to open visibility possibilities. Mt. Tam loomed ominously in the distance like a sleeping bear.
This mornings run included Dan L., Nadia C., and Andria H.. We had only one cancellation. There were no stars in our group. All of us run because we love to run. Even more important than the run is the time spent together. It’s a special slice of time for all of us to run and let loose. We leave the fast pace of Silicon Valley in another compartment. It’s not like we can leave it behind. It’s more like putting it away in the closet for a while. It’s always there. But so is our run!
