Nature's Gym or how to stay fit

The David Suzuki Foundation published an article the other day about joining nature's gym to hit your fitness goal's this year. Not a bad idea. Better still is to live a lifestyle that keeps you fit. I know that from experience and I happen to have proven it recently too.

On Sunday I ran the Re-Fridgee-Eighter, the first race of the year in the Waterloo Running Series. I chose the 8 km over the 8 miles. I took running up again since coming to KW but I still at the most run twice a week for half an hour. Luckily, I have a toddler and no car (and no sitting-around in the office job either (yet)) which seems to keep me on my toes very well. I finished 39. overall, as 5. woman, and 2. out of 19 in my age catergory, in just under 38 minutes (my chip time was even less but gun time counts) Re-fridgee-Eigther results. I was surprised myself. After all we had -5 C and gusts of over 20 km/h which thankfully only blew into our faces on the last mile. I never run that fast on my own but once I am in the group I can't help, got to go. By the time I crossed the finish line I was pretty much out of breath but two minutes later I was back to normal. I did not even get sore muscles! My "secret": I walk and/ or cycle every day many kilometres and I take the stairs whenever possible and stay active in whatever way possible. On a regular day you won't see me sitting around much.

The one thing that did annoy me though was the fact that the location of the run is not served by buses on Sundays! Start and finish were at a huge sports complex with at least 6 ice rinks, several indoor hockey, baseball, volleyball and other courts; and on all the courts and rinks competitions were taking place at the same time. All these people had to come by car! The closest bus stop was 4 km away which I know so well because we had run that way and km-markers showed the distance. So I walked to the bus stop afterwards but in the morning because there weren't buses to get me there early enough I had to ask a friend to drive me. Oh yes, it did piss me off a ton. I am not mad at Grand River Transit though, I am mad at all those people driving!