Fitness Ridge 2011 - Wednesday

• 6 AM - Yogalates (we really need to stop being the last ones there!)
• 7 AM - Breakfast
• 8 AM - Hike - Saddle (only 4 miles but tough terrain with 1252 ft elevation gain, garmin stats here)
• 11:15 - Deep End Suspension (oh how I love the water classes!)
• 12:00 - Counselor (personal session with Christa who gave me some good advice to reflect on)
• 1:00 - Lunch
• 1:15 - Lecture - Emotional Eating
• 2:30 - H2O Circuit (Still loving the water class.  I even snuck in 40 laps before class started.)
• 3:30 - Kickboxing (Sharon rocks this class.  I tried hiding in the back but she pulled me up front.  What's up with that?!?!)
• 4:30 - Mountain (Pick a cardio machine.  Warm up, then every 3 min for 12x increase the power of the machine.  I choose bike.  Started at level 3 and went to the highest level.  During the stretch at the end, I jumped on the treadmill for a quick half mile run to experience the run after biking at such a hard level.)
• 5:30 - Dinner (yum!)
• 6:15 - Lecture - Intuitive Eating
• 7:15 - Laundry, Shower, Skype w/ daughter, get ready to do it all again tomorrow
• 8:30 - Bed, chit chat with roomie, and computer time....and then more chit chat.....then more computer time.  
• 10:15 - I'm FINALLY finishing writing and going to bed.

Wednesday Menu Board

 Breakfast

We are offered an optional snack of fruit and or a protein to take with us on the hikes each morning.  The protein is either a boiled egg or 12 almonds.  We can get apple or orange slices cut up in baggies for us.  Today I took an egg and orange.  It does add to the daily calories but well worth it.

We hiked Saddle today.  This is a hike that I remember not liking last July.  It was hot and hard.  The terrain varies from brush hitting your legs, lots of uneven rocky footing, to hands and feet climbing, walking along the edges of cliffs, and ending in a long bout of sand.  The views were phenomenal.  I was not looking forward to it because I remembered the difficulty I had with it last time.  My balance is still rather funky and uneven terrain and heights together don't work well for me.  There were many points today where I really had to tell myself I could do it, and each time I could and did.  It is such an amazing feeling of accomplishment at the end.  And it really wasn't so bad after all.  It was an excellent fitness hike climbing up over 1200 feet and climbing down another 1100 during the duration of the climb for 4 miles total.  Great hike, great views and great company.  Here are pictures from today's hike.

This shot below is at the top of the most challenging part of the hike.  

Do we look cool or what?  This is an area of the hike that I didn't get to see last summer.  Pretty cool.  

One of our three hiking guides, Jordan and Laura.  We have three guides with each group of hikers.  There are 9 of us in our group.  So no matter how slow or fast, you are guaranteed to have a guide with you.  

Yes, that is my foot in the picture. And yes, I need to get from up there, to down there.  Only one way and that is sliding on the bootie.  Not as bad as I thought it would be.  Diana actually got this one on video of me coming down.  

We did a bit of butt scooting today.

There's not much wildlife but we did see a paw print of some unknown animal.  

It's nice that our hikes seem to have either a water class or stretch class after them before lunch.  We actually get a couple water classes a day.   They say that we burn a higher percentage of calories of fat in the pool classes than we do in the gym.  Plus the low impact of the water allows us to exercise longer hours with less chance of injury from the pounding and impact of other classes.  I love the water so I choose water each time there is an option.  And when there is time to burn, I've been trying to get a few laps in.

Lunch - Tomato Soup and BBQ Chicken Pizza

 

 Dinner - Salmon with Orzo and Fruit Skewers that I forgot to take a picture of.

 New friend Laura with me in the dining room.  She's from Seattle.  There are people from all over the United States, Canada, and more.

This is lovely Emily in the front of the room here.  She is the dietician who gives talks each evening on nutrition.  She is wonderfully sweet and full of helpful tips for us.  Tonight's discussion was on learning to be an intuitive eater.  I haven't attended all the lectures but was glad I attended this one.  (Returning guests have the option of attending lectures.)  She maintains a blog about nutrition here.

Tonight we have terrible winds.  There is this HORRIFIC LOUD banging noise on the roof that is coming through our bathroom fan to our room.  Diana called the front desk and asked if there is anything they can do about it but they said no.  She told them she didn't know if they should come and check to make sure something didn't blow away.  But then she said, "Well, I hope it blows away."   For whatever reason, we giggled about her saying this for many minutes.  LOL.  I guess it's not so funny here in writing, but believe me, it was funny when it happened.  The front desk said they had ear plugs we could come get but heck, it's cold and windy out so I think we're gonna brave the banging and pounding all night.  Wish us luck.  Good night.