Active In Retirement

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Working Harder

Another week of working out. I am exhausted by Friday. The workouts are definitely making me stronger but also making me sore. My legs are sore, my feet are sore, my back is sore. This is what it takes to get in shape and lead an active life. This week I started a couch-2-5K plan. The app is on my phone and it tells me win to walk and when to run. It is a 3 day per week plan. But I am only doing 1 day a week. It will take me months to be able to complete the 30-minute run. But the first day was easier than expected. I was able to complete it. This makes 5 days a week of exercise. Monday and Friday are mini cross fit days. Tuesday and Thursday are treadmill walking at Planet Fitness. Wednesday is a kettlebell workout followed by C25K. Growing more active every day! 💪

Still working towards a goal.

The picture is not me! But this is what I am hoping to become after age 60. I am currently 59 and not retired. The process begins with working out 5 times a week and doing gardening on Saturday. Monday is mini-cross fit at the dog park. I am able to do 20 repetitions of jumping jacks, squats, pushups, and squat-jumps. There is a very short distance of running but mostly walking around the dog park for now. Tuesday is a 30-minute treadmill walk/run at Planet Fitness. Wednesday is a “killer kettlebell workout”. The internet calls it that. I am using a 3-pound dumbbell and few reps. Those will increase over time. Thursday is another walk/run on the treadmill. Friday is another mini-cross fit workout. How long will it take to become a fit-retired-lady. Who knows? But I plan to keep working towards that and hopefully one day my picture will be posted on this site.

Gardening is hard work!

Gardening is one of my favorite activities. It can be hard sweaty work but I enjoy it. Beginning this past spring I began reworking the backyard. A few men were hired to do the heavy lifting and digging. They began a retaining wall, dug out a new patio and a firepit. I have finished the retaining wall including a bridge and steps. Added pavers to the new patio. Planted hydrangeas and lavender. Still need to backfill behind the retaining wall with dirt the men threw up onto the hill. The hydrangeas are becoming a problem. One is blooming and doing well. The other two are suffering from root rot. I dug them up and made the hole bigger with gravel in the bottom for drainage. But the soil is clay and the water has nowhere to go. I pulled them out of the ground again and will be working on making the hole bigger with more drainage. Hopefully this will be the last time. I may even put in a drainage pipe and connect it to a French drain in the yard. Maybe. It probably would be a lot of h

Back at it!

My life has changed again. My mother under went a hospital stay and is now living in a skilled nursing facility. She is receiving excellent care and I am able to return to my old life. This means returning to activities. Currently I visit my mother most Tuesdays and Thursdays then go to Planet Fitness for a 30-minute walk on a treadmill. It is surprising how much stamina is lost in six months of staying home. It feels like starting from the beginning again. Thirty minutes and a 3.0 speed makes me sweat. So, sweat I do. Hopefully the speed will begin to move up as time goes on. Additionally, I am doing a mini cross-fit workout on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. There is a pet park two blocks from home. It has a circular track which I walk around one time then do 5 jumping jacks. Then walk again followed by 5 squats. This routine continues through pushups and squat jumps. It adds 3,000 steps to my day. The plan is to add one repetition each day. Yesterday 6 repetitions of each cal

Hiccup in Activity My active lifestyle has been through a bit of a hiccup. My 89-year-old mother moved in with me. She cannot be alone so I spent most of my time at home. I stopped hiking. Stopped going to Planet Fitness. Started waking up several times a night to help mom get to the bathroom. I spent a lot of time on the couch resting from lack of sleep. But all journeys end somewhere. After six months of living with me Mom went into the hospital for an impacted colon. She is now living at a skilled nursing facility. She receives 24-hour care from very nice people. I can sleep all night and all morning if I chose. I went back to Planet Fitness this week and realized how fast fitness vanishes. A twenty-minute walk on a treadmill got me up to 10,000 steps for the day. The long-range plan is to run a 5K by New Years. With the help of a Couch to 5K app and an air-conditioned Planet Fitness with dozens of treadmills, it seems doable. Maybe not a 10-minute mile, but something not

Hike #15 at Moss Rock Preserve on October 14, 2017. 2.75 miles, 2 hours 16 minutes. Today’s hike began at 7am on a cool morning. I traveled the white trail beside a stream then uphill for a mile. I turned off the white trail onto a cut through to the green trail, also called the power line trail. The green trail is a slim path through tall grass underneath very high power lines. I took the green trail to avoid the rocky stream beds of the blue trail. Little did I know the green trail had two ravines of rock covered streams. After hiking the green trail for ½ mile the path ahead seem to drop straight down out of site. It dropped down about 10 feet to several big rocks with a small stream running through. I slowly made my way down the hill and stepped onto the first rock, then stepped on the second 4x4 foot rock only to lose my balance and fall backwards onto the rock. I struggled to get my feet back on the ground. Then I continued by crawling across the remaining rocks. Safel