January 24th

What does this guy (pictured below), 

Neil Diamond, Aaron Neville, Nik Wallenda, Ernest Borgnine and John Belushi have in common? They all share the same birthday - January 24th - but none are as cool as this guy (pictured below).

Happy 45th Birthday to my 
favorite person on earth!

First's

• Our first race of 2015. 
• Our first snowshoe race. 
• Fittingly, we both took first place in our age group.

Folks, let me tell you, running in snowshoes is hard as hell. It's totally fun, but taxes your legs and cardio system to the max. Today we ran the inaugural Wisconsin Trail Assail Winter Series Snowshoe 5k (3.1 miles) at Minooka Park. This was held in conjunction with the weekend long Waukesha Janboree (a winter festival with events all over town), and offered three races - a 10k Ski, a 5k Snowshoe and a 10k Fat Tire Bike. 

The race, 5 minutes from home with an 11:00a.m. start time, was an ideal way to kick off the 2015 race season. The spiffy running-specific snowshoes we bought on clearance last spring were put to the test for the first time and passed muster. 

Under mostly cloudy 35°skies, we met Rosanna at packet pick-up and waited around a warming fire for the race to start. This was the first time in 6 weeks that I didn't have to monitor my heart rate (HR), which is not to say I didn't bug my eyes out when I saw my HR was in the 160's just minutes into the race (my average HR was 165, Rosanna's was 164 and Joe's was 170). Kicking up snow, running with legs wide apart and covering the 40 floors worth of hills this course offered, was a feat of Herculean strength. 

Joe, badass that he is, even ran up the Grinch's Mount Crumpit-like sled hill, finishing the course in 27:17 (8:55 pace), good enough to take 1st place in the Men's 40-49 age group. I surprised myself finishing in 40:33 (13:04 pace), good enough to take 1st place in the Women's 40-49 age group, and as if we live in a perfect world, my best bud Rosanna, finished in 2nd place in the Women's 40-49 age group. 

After a taste of running faster and performing well, it's back to the shuffling of my Low Heart Rate training regimen ... until the next race at the end of March!

FitBit L♥ve

Christmas 2012. Rosanna and I are catching up over lunch and she tells me her sister gave her a FitBit. "A what?", I asked. Rosanna explained that the little device clipped to her bra strap was meant to motivate people to become more active through monitoring their daily steps, miles traveled, floors climbed and calories burned. Being a highly driven fitness freak, I nodded, but wasn't overly interested in having my own until she said it could measure sleep efficiency as well. I was fascinated by the idea of knowing exactly how long and how well I slept, and decided this was a gadget I needed ... I mean, I did have a birthday coming up in a few months☺

I began using my FitBit March 1st, 2013 and have never been separated from it since. While I enjoy monitoring my sleep efficiency (the device will show me a graph of my night with lines indicating when I was "restless" or awake", how long it took me to fall asleep, and spits out a percentage of efficiency for the sleep session - my sleep is typically 97-99% efficient), I really love the way it motivates me. Yes, I know I said I didn't need motivation, and I really don't. Maybe what's more accurate is to say I love the way the FitBit taps into my OCD to make me extra conscious of my activity level. Health forums are ripe with news of how sitting kills. You can work out for 2 hours, and then sit at a desk for 8 hours and negate any of the good you did for yourself. Being on your feet and/or in motion is what the body needs. 

Driven by seeing the quantitative data FitBit shoots out has made me hyper-aware of opportunities to move. Instead of bringing a stack of client charts to my desk, I get and return one at a time. For lunch I read and walk in circles in our group exercise room, I park at the far end of parking lots, I always take stairs when possible, I go through my email and check-in with Facebook with the iPad in hand while pacing through the house, and when I'm headed to bed and I see I am 200 steps away from the next number (i.e., I'm at 21,802 steps), I zoom around the house until I flip that number over. In return for my efforts, FitBit sends me encouraging badges and notices of achievement. Last week I was pumped to receive 2 milestone awards:

1) Since 3/1/13, I have walked the distance of the Great Wall of China. That's over 5,500 miles, or an average of 8+ miles per day. (Factoid: The Great Wall of China has actually just been found to be over 13,000 miles long!)

2) Since 3/1/13, I have climbed over 20,000 floors (one floor =10-12 stairs), which is about the height of a shooting star.

FitBit also allows for friendly competition with friends who have one. Being a highly competitive person, I enjoy checking the leader board daily to find myself in 1st place. I have 9 FitBit "friends" at present, but honestly, only my 73-year-old mom gives me a run for my money. I end most weeks with 130,000-140,000 steps (50-70 miles), and my mom is usually in 2nd place with well over 100,000 - no one else gets close to 6 figures. 

And while I like competing with others, I like my own company best for challenging myself to greater heights. This week FitBit sent out a 2014 Activity Summary (see below). My numbers totally rock (and how fun is it to think back to what was going on to make one day the most active and another the least? FYI, my most active day was an 18-miler on vacation), but with my OCD and competitive nature, I will now be pushing myself to new levels for 2015 - Must. Get. 4,000+ Miles. 

 

2015 Lottery

Happy New Year's! It's my favorite day of the year, January 1st. Tradition dictates that Joe and I use this day to formalize vacation ideas that have been brewing for months. We've set our sights on Montana's Glacier National Park for 2015. We spun through this park in 1999 with day hikes, but no backpacking trip. Now we want to hit the trails and explore the wilds it has to offer. In order to do so, we will need you readers to pray, cross fingers/toes, or offer a sacrificial something-or-other. Why? The backcountry in Glacier is highly coveted, which has led to a competitive permit reservation lottery system. To keep the wilderness wild, the number of people allowed in the backcountry needs to be limited. To give people a fair opportunity of getting their requested trips, the park has established the following protocol. Any advanced reservation request (this is a request for the dates and backcountry campsites you want) received between 1/1 - 4/15 will receive a random number. As of 4/16, those requests will be reviewed and granted (or not) based on the lottery system. In theory, we could be the first request the backcountry office receives, but be assigned #300 and not get the sites or dates we're requesting. But that won't happen - we are lucky and things work out for us...

We're requesting one of the most beautiful and challenging loops the park has to offer in the Many Glaciers area. It's 5 days, 4 nights, about 55-60 miles. The picture above would be included in our route. The application is ready for tomorrow's mail, and until we receive a yay or nay notification in MAY, we must put it out of our minds and hope for a lucky number!