Easy Run!

We are doing a 5K race in Fort Worth tomorrow afternoon so we thought it would be a good idea to get out for an easy run this morning - especially when we woke up to see that it was a balmy 60 F and the sun was trying to peek out behind the clouds. The town where my parents live has all these nice wide trails that run behind the neighborhoods, so it's never hard to decide where to go:



An easy pace and good company mean an enjoyable run! I will say my abs are pretty sore from all those planks, mountain climbers and crunches at boot camp yesterday, but other than that, I feel pretty good. It's nice to have been able to participate in all this exercise - it helps to make up for the good food and wine we have been enjoying!

Hardest. Workout. Ever.

Christy, Stefaan and I went to bootcamp this morning and ended up doing the hardest workout I have ever done, the infamous Bootcamp Poker.


Shayla had a full deck of playing cards. Each card represented an exercise and the number on the card tells you how many reps you have to do:

• Spades - deadlifts
• Hearts - pushups
• Clubs - mountain climbers
• Diamonds - wall squats (10 seconds x value of the card)
• Jokers - 1 minute of burpees
• Red face cards - 1 minute of C-crunches
• Black face cards - 1 minute in plank
• Aces - one lap (1/4 mile) on the treadmill

She shuffled the cards and started at the top of the deck. Now my mom has done this workout before and blogged about it but I never fully got how hard it was until I had to do it myself. And yes, we did the entire deck of cards! At the moment my arms feel like wet noodles and I could barely get in and out of the car!

Bravo to Christy for doing this on her birthday. We were planning to treat her to Starbucks afterwards but we were all so starving we ended up going out for a late breakfast instead!

We are all kind of relieved to have a 5K race to go to on Friday so that we have a reason (excuse?) to not go to bootcamp! I think I will be sore for days...

Bootcamp and Yoga

Yesterday was bootcamp again with Christy and Stefaan. Shayla put together another tough workout for us and finished the session with a series of planks. It was a hard workout and I definitely am feeling it in my glutes today!

Later I went to yoga class with Mom, Jenny and Mark to get a good stretch. I loved Heidi's class! It was called "Weekend Warrior" and is specifically intended for people who run or do other sports during the weekend and want to get a good stretch in at the beginning of the week, which we definitely got. I've done yoga for many years but it is always fun to do something different - I always learn something new. "Shoelace" pose was a new one for me. (You lie on your back, pull your knees up towards your chest and cross your ankles, then grab your ankles with your hands and pull the feet gently towards you - gives a good stretch to glutes and hip flexors!) I also enjoyed that it was in a very warm room - the yoga class I do at home is in a pretty chilly room and it makes a big difference.

Running and Bowling

It was a very nippy 26 degrees (-2 C) outside yesterday morning but with lots of sun and a beautiful blue sky so Christy, Stefaan and I decided to go for an easy run together. We looped around the nice trails they have here that go between neighborhoods. It was pretty cold at first but once we got warmed up it wasn't too bad, and it sure helps to have nice conversation while you're at it! We ended up doing 6 km, but I won't post the Garmin map because I messed it up by turning it off when we bumped into Jenny and Mark who were returning from a 17 mile run, and then forgetting to turn it back on when we continued on, and then doing the same thing again when we took a quick stop at Starbucks. Duh!

Later we all headed out to Main Event, a place where you can bowl, play video games and even laser tag! We are all big bowling fans and had three lanes going for quite a while - it was great fun. My best score was a 124 - I was more than pleased! (Yes, I do jump up and down and whoop it up when I get a strike!) The last thing we did was field a ten man team in laser tag. I had never done laser tag before, but I paired up with my niece and we did pretty well watching each other's back and taking our opponents out best we could. Laser tag really brings out your inner beast!!! By that time we were all pretty hungry so we all headed out to Bari's, one of the family's favorite Italian places - yum!

Boot Camp

On Friday, Stefaan and I joined my mom and Christy for boot camp up at the gym where they work out, TransformU.

If you follow my mom's blog, you know she sometimes has some really tough workouts there! Because it was Christmas Eve, Shayla came up with a "12 Days of Christmas" workout:

just like in the song, we had to do the exercises on the board in a sequence where you added an exercise everytime (see picture)!

It was an excellent workout - and very creative! We were sweating buckets but having a good time, and by the end, my legs felt like jello. Awesome!

We are going to try to get up there for a few more workouts while we are here - and try to keep a lid on the damage being done with all the cookies around here!

Merry Christmas!

Have a wonderful day surrounded by those you love!

Best wishes

Amy

Meeting Kim Clijsters!

While doing a bit of last minute shopping imagine my surprise when I saw Kim Clijsters plastered all over the women's department at Kohls!!! Of course I had to get a picture - especially since Kim looks so awesome in the posters. And yes, I did buy that flashy top in the picture and a couple of workout bottoms. Kim, you rock!

PS: for anyone who doesn't know who Kim is, she is one of the top women tennis players and Belgian! (and we are proud of her)

Now we are about to sit down to our Christmas Eve dinner...everyone arrived safely! Hope you all are enjoying the evening!