Fit After Little Bits

eat right..work hard..play harder

Nov 13

Committed

by LeeAnn

Hi there and happy weekend! I hope that you are having a great start to November. We have gotten a pretty good amount of snow in the last couple of weeks making it feel far more like winter than fall.

Over that last couple of weeks, we have been doing all the normal things: work, homeschool, play dates, working out…the good stuff. Halloween snuck in there and we were delighted to head to a lovely pot luck and trick or treating with some friends! Brooke has been loving all of her time spend with new friends!

On the workout side of things, I have upped my running game substantially. Part of that has to do with the fact that you cant really ride bikes outside anymore 😉 And part of that has to do with some goals that I have for next year. (More below) We have not really completed our “home gym” in the garage yet, so all of my miles have been outside. While I am not one to escape often to the treadmill, there were definitely a couple of runs in the last week that I could have used it. Better get on figuring that out 😉

Last Saturday, I did a 10 mile run and while there were a few areas of ice, the roads were mostly just wet.

And then it really snowed! Haha. Let me tell you how fun it was to do a hill workout on this. Thankful for spikes, but was still slipping around in places. It was also cold. And shaded. Woof. But, 9 miles later and I was very happy that I had finished the workout!

Brooke is doing the Nordic Team/Lessons this year and I am really hoping she can then teach me how to skate ski properly. Yesterday, I swapped out a 5 mile easy run for 50 minutes of skate ski time. It was pretty soft and I could definitely use some pointers. Maybe I can swap my road hill workouts for skiing uphill?

Okay, so why the increase in miles?

In 2019 I ran my one and only 50 mile race (and fell in love with it), I have wanted to do a 100 mile run race ever since. Then all things Covid, injury and life kind of got in the way. BUT my desire to complete one of these ultra events did not go away. Fast-forward to the end of 2022 and the itch has gotten so crazy that I have started the beginning stages of training!

There is an event in Oregon in August of 2023 and I am planning to sign up for it when it opens. (Excitement and terror all in one!). It looks gorgeous and I have read that it is a pretty good “first 100”. More details on that when I bite the bullet and actually sign up. But for now, I have started running. I definitely need to get back to some weight lifting because just running a bunch of miles isn’t going to cut it at (almost) 40 years old 😉

More to come on the plan I am working off of (and adapting) and what training will look like, but for now…snow running it is! And some treadmill time coming my way. Now that it is in writing, it feels a lot more real!

Cheers to big dreams-however crazy they make us feel!

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Oct 28

Girl’s Trip and Fall Pics

by LeeAnn

The last few weeks of “Fall” felt a lot like summer-which was amazing! There was a solid amount of time spent on trails-both riding and running. That has quickly been replaced by strictly running-on snow. Ha. Things changed quickly this year.

Brooke has been taking skating lessons for about a month and a half and it has been so fun watching her improve. I spend her lessons sitting on the bleachers grading assignments or preparing for lectures (and really trying not to freeze). The first few weeks, we headed to the boat for wake surfing after her lessons. This past week, it was warming inside the rink and snowing outside!

Before the snow, we soaked in every last moment of the blue sky and warm temps!

One of my favorite places to run is the Huckleberry Trail that goes out and around the point at Ponderosa State Park. The views are spectacular and the trail is nice and flowy with a couple of technical sections. It is about a 7 mile run depending where you start and stop. Just enough (with some good climbing) to make your legs feel a little like Jello by the end.

In addition to workouts, Brooke’s social calendar and you know, actual work, I have been working on our master bedroom. Someday I will post some after pictures…but this was during the painting process. We definitely slept in the middle of all of that mess. Kind of like camping? Anyone need a very ornate fan?

Last week, Brooke and I had a girl’s trip to Boise (well, mainly Meridian). Brooke has very little experience with “malls” and big stores other than Costco, so she wanted to experience them. By the end of the day, she was exhausted and happy to take a break from shopping for awhile. But, in all fairness, it was a blast. She picked out some fun clothes and looked far too grown up doing it.

Another fun outing involved taking fall pictures. Last year was nuts and we didn’t make it, so I was very happy to bring back the tradition. We headed to Ponderosa and snapped away.

It feels really funny to finally be feeling some decent fitness…as we roll into winter! Ken assures me that it will be helpful for all the Nordic skiing he has planned for us 😉 Brooke is signed up for the Nordic ski club lessons and will also do Downhill. I guess that will leave some time for us to get you there, too! For now, it will be some muddy season running and the ski machine and rowing machine in the garage.

Workouts this week have included a 5 mile snowy trail run, 4 mile road run (that was hard and fast, uphill and downhill) and another 4 miles on the snowy trails. Ken has done all of them with me….guess he is a runner again 😉

Tire season is also in the beginning stages as we try to start that business up here. Going to take a little bit to get the word spread, but hopefully we get busy here soon.

Have a wonderful weekend! We are supposed to see 50 degrees and I am not mad about it!

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Oct 12

Changes

by LeeAnn

Truthfully, I have toyed with the idea of shutting this down. With all of the hustle and bustle of the year, I have not really had time to sit down and share my thoughts and life…BUT I also realize that I miss the mental health aspect of journaling. I am not really good at sitting and writing things down in a book at night-mainly because I typically want to zone out and fall asleep! So, I am going to give it a whirl again and see how it goes.

First and foremost, this year has been a LOT of change. Like, A LOT.

It would take me pages to go over all of the details, so I am going to hit some of the big ones and go from there.

This year we said goodbye to our bestest friend, Jasper. On June 1st, he crossed the rainbow bridge. We are now 4 months removed from it and I still can’t say it without immediately getting tears in my eyes. He was the absolute best. He went quickly and in my arms and I am forever grateful for what he brought to our lives.

We also moved. After much deliberating (we loved our home in Steamboat) and good market timing, we sold our home and made the adventurous journey to McCall, Idaho. There was a lot that went into this decision and even more that went into making it a reality. We are really grateful for our family and their helping moving all of our small *cough cough* belongings hundreds of miles!

In mid-June, we arrived in Idaho and lived in the RV park for about a month and a half. Now that was an experience. 😉 I cannot say that I miss it, though there was a good amount of relaxing and many mid-day bike rides!

McCall is an adorable town of somewhere around 4-5 thousand people. It sits on a lake and really just has a magic about it. It definitely grows in the summer and winter as a travel destination, but it is currently mud season and we are loving it!

There is just something about fireworks over a lake!

We also purchased a boat (after selling our Steamboat house) and spend a solid amount of hours out there. Having never done much driving, it was a learning experience of a summer for me as Ken tried out his hand at wave surfing (and of course he is good at it).

We just pulled the boat out of the water as it is starting to shift into cooler fall temps.

The biking doesn’t suck here either 😉 We have been able to spend a good amount of time exploring the trails, gravel and roads. There is a little bit of everything and we cant wait to find it!

Brooke is basically living her best life. She has made a bunch of friends at church and through soccer. She is doing Basic 1 Ice Skating and trying out ballet for the month. Living closer to down has meant many more activities for her and she is not mad about that! We have purchased and moved into a wonderful home. It is beautiful, but needs a bit of updating to make it our own. I will definitely be sharing more on that and some of our “before and afters” on the rooms as we go along. We are blessed to be on 7 acres and very close to two of our ski areas. Bring on winter 😉

The hiking and trail running are basically unreal here also. We are continuously finding new trails and I have not ran on pavement since we moved here. The singletrack trail running has my heart. I look forward to sharing more as part of the actual “FIT” in the title of this blog. Somehow, through all of the craziness, I have managed to get back to a place where I would say I am pretty fit! (Though still nursing a chronically swollen ankle but you cant have everything, right? 😉 )

Ken and I have been blessed to also find some awesome friends here already! Ken has a few buddies that he gets to ride with and I have made some girlfriends-crazy, right?! 🙂

I actually went on my first ever “girls trip” just over a week ago. We traveled to Bend, OR. It was my first time there and it was gorgeous. We tent camped (it has been a hot minute-or decade since I had done that) and did a LOT of adventuring. From a 14 mile hike to No Name Lake and the Bend Glacier, followed by a 12 mile trail run along the McKenzie River to a solid 20 miles on the mountain bike, it was a jampacked 3 days!

I was happy to get back home to soak up a bit more of our fall weather. Brooke did a good amount of ball hitting this summer and it was fun to sneak one more in!

I am currently still teaching my online courses and getting ready for tire season to start up. Since it is our first season here, it will be interesting to see how it takes off.

For now, I will continue to get in my workouts and enjoy the 70 degrees and sunshine 😉

After an 8.5 mile trail run chasing Ken up 1000 feet, today is a bit low key. Maybe a trail run tonight, but maybe just some relaxing 🙂

Looking forward to writing and being much better at taking pictures of what we are up to in our new home!

Lifestyle

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