Pictures from the road (Radium & Kimberley)

Mum and Dad

Mum and I hiked up to the top of the HooDoo Trail

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day everyone!!

My family immigrated to Canada when I was 4 and through the years I've hard good times and bad times with being separated from grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins but in the end I am forever grateful to my parents for making that very hard decision to leave family and all they knew for a country that intrigued them and promised more.

For those of you who were so incredibly fortunate to have been born here, take a moment today to be grateful and for those of who were accepted and taken in by such a great country, well, we are forever thankful.

Today George, Hubby and I are celebrating Canada Day by hitting the road for a 3/4 day road trip, to meet the great people that are responsible for me being Canadian, who better to celebrate with? Once we meet up with my parents, who will be on their bikes, the 4 of us will be doing some day rides and enjoying hot springs along the way.

225 earned?? time to check in..

so at the beginning of the year a friend at work and me agreed that by the end of the year we would have earned 225 stickers on our calendars for working out.

It is almost the end of June and time to check in and make sure that I'm going to reach 225. 1/2 roughly would be 112 by June 30th, today I'm at 115 with another 3 scheduled to end June at 118 :0)

Good Workout?

need a gentle but powerfully worded warm up song? or need a great song to stretch and celebrate your just completed workout to? do it to this song:

It's Amazing -by Jem (album, Down to Earth)

seriously...get it, listen to the lyrics, your amazing.

and thanks!! for the warm welcome back :0)

Hello!

so yeah I know I haven't been around for some time, look at that last post date, May 7th! I don't think I've ever had such a long break from the ol'blog and honestly it wasn't even a planned or an intentional thing. so what the heck happened then? well May was hellish, I got swamped at work, extra hours from home, deadlines that had to be meet and lots of changes in staff and staffing levels, however things are settling down now and thats all good. so how did the gym thing go in May then? well I got 16 workouts in for the month, definitely not a good number for me, but honestly with what was going on, not a bad number either, averaging it out, every other day = not the end of the world

so now its already 1/2 through June and I'm just getting around to posting, the honest truth? I just couldn't get myself motivated to post something, by the end of the day, the last freaking thing I wanted to do was fire up my macbook and look at anything, so I didn't. I really believe I just needed the break from anything to do with a computer, and I've enjoyed it.

so whats new? hubby and I went home over the may long weekend, visited the parental units, had a great time with some old highschool friends, it was a hoot! then we meet another friend 1/2 way between our house and his house, which is roughly Golden BC, we ended up in the most amazing 2 bedroom condo for the night and then the next morning went on a hike along the old transcanada hwy, under the new transacanada hwy and this impressive new bridge. it was just a great, get out of town, mini-holiday and hubby and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves..

George, my beloved bike had some issues at the beginning of the season, first his battery was dead and then a hose into the air-pumped cracked but now he is all fixed up and we went for an awesome ride by ourselves on Saturday and then another on Sunday with hubby and his bike, I realize what a great thing riding is for me and how much I have been missing that away meditation time, seriously when I ride I can't think of anything else I have to be in the moment and enjoy what I'm doing and be hyper aware of my surroundings, there is no time to think of chores waiting to be done, work projects or laundry piling up, its about the ride and the moment and I love that and I've so missed it

other than that I've made a decision to change things up at the gym, I still go 5 or 6 times a week but its always the same ol', same ol' I have been stuck in a gym rut, so last week I started doing things a little different, I have roughly 40 mins to work out during my lunch hour in the work gym (yes I'm super lucky and super appreciative of having a work gym) so I have been doing 20 mins of high intensity cardio and then weights. normally I would do 40 min run, at like 5.6 or 6.0 mph and some stretching or I would do a quick cardio warm up and then weights for 40 mins but now I do something like intervals runs, starting at 5.5 for 2 mins, then 6.5 for 2 mins, back to 5.5, then 7.0 for 2 mins, than to 5.6, then 7.5, back to 5.6, then 8.0, then 5.6 and finally a 8.5 push to finish my 20 mins.

What I notice about running intervals is that my cardio fitness level appears to improve quickly in response, maybe its just my imagination, whatever, I like the feeling.. anyone else find that intervals improves their running ability? Then I hop off the treadmill (or elliptical) and hit the weights, alternating days between upper and lower body and abs, abs, abs. I get drenched and drip sweat and I feel great for doing it... today I did cardio/weight intervals, I'm just trying to keep things changing and moving, increasing intensity, increasing weight and hopefully keeping my body guessing and never quite knowing what the heck is coming

and I guess that sums it up, and I wanted to send a special shout out to Lynn, who was kind enough to worry about me and check in, thanks Lynn! it was nice to have been missed by someone as great as you :0)

Taking a Gym Break

Today and tomorrow the gym at work is closed for maintenance, no access what so ever. Normally this would cause me some stress as I squeeze my gym time in during my 'lunch' hour at work (normally at 10am) but today and tomorrow, its a no go, so what could I do instead? Well I could go after work to my local gym near home, yep I could, or I could go outside and do something, a run or walk along the river? sure.. I could, even if its suppose to rain today and tomorrow, I could..

what am I going to do? well today I'm going to go for lunch with a girlfriend and enjoy, I love lunching with her, its so nice to catch up without the hubbys, kids and other distractions around us, and while I'm lunching and not gyming (nice word, lol) I'm not going to feel the least bit of guilt about it and I'm NOT going to my local gym after work either, sometimes I think I need the push not to work out and I'm just going to take this as a sign that for today at least, the gym doesn't need me ;0)

Time to Reflect

So last night I'm watching Biggest Loser on TV and I see the contestants struggling with fitting their new lifestyle into their actual home life and it occurs to me that the whole time I've watched this show (this is the 2nd season I've watched) I have always watched them and thought, wow are these people lucky to have the opportunity they have on the show and how much I wished I had, had that same opportunity.

but, after seeing them all struggle trying to fit the new healthy lifestyle into their existing lives, (anyway else feel that they could have been Helen last night? when she told Jillian that she is so tired, tired of being all and doing all? wow talk about relating) I thought to myself, I am so freaking fortunate that it took me 4 years and 15 days to reach my goal at home, because while I have without a doubt struggled with the same issues of fitting the new very important things to me into my life at home with my hubby and family, I have had a total of 6 years to do exactly that! I am lucky, I am fortunate and I love that I can see and appreciate it and I am so thankful that watching a program like this can remind me of something that important.

and I never thought I'd say this but last night I was cheering hard for Ron, I loved that he wanted to turn it around and not give up to show his kids that it can be done, after all those years of setting a poor example for eating and health, don't get me wrong I think he was silly to risk his knee like that but I was very inspired by his reasoning.

* PS I want to give a shout out to Vanessa, as I'm loving the pre-writing, and scheduling posts for later thing, thanks for pointing that out ;0)

* PSS, there were a few people who asked to see the HRM numbers, scroll down as there are 2 posts below about exactly that, of course that is if you are into numbers, that is