Category: Fitness

I’m Curious: Are you going back to the gym?

Source: Photo by Danielle Cerullo on Unsplash

With Maryland’s coronavirus numbers slowly decreasing, most of the state has fully moved into the second tier of the reopening plan. This means that fitness centers and gyms are allowed to reopen at a limited capacity. Our gym has been closed since March and fees have been frozen since April, so this means we would be able to start going to the gym this month and would pay our monthly fee again July 1st.

We are still in the middle of a pandemic, so they have made some changes. Members must wear a face mask upon entering and exiting the club. Members are encouraged to wear face coverings while exercising “if able to do so safely” or should increase the distance between themselves and others. Staff members will wear face coverings. They encourage members to wipe down their machines and weights before they use them. They are limiting the number of people who do group fitness classes so that the rooms are less full.

But here’s the thing; those small changes… yeah, they are not enough for me.

I just can’t imagine feeling comfortable going to the gym and hopping on a machine near/around some stranger who is huffing and puffing and sweating their potential virus germs all over the place.

And sure, maybe I can go to a machine without many people around. But what about when I’m in the middle of my workout and someone comes and starts working out near me. Huffing. Puffing. Sweating. We all deal with this normally, but with the coronavirus still out there killing people… NOPE.

We have been on a Stay at Home order for months now. We are STILL in the middle of a pandemic. States who have rushed their reopening plan are currently reporting record high numbers of coronavirus.

I DO NOT feel comfortable going to a gym right now.

However, when I look at the gym’s Facebook page the comments are full of people saying how they can’t wait to come back. There is person after person commenting about how happy they are that the gym is FINALLY open again.

And now I want to hear from you… are you comfortable with going back to the gym?

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The 2019 Wayfarer’s Annapolis 10k

We did it again! Well, mostly. Kind of.

Over the weekend, my friend Lindsey and I did the Wayfarer’s 10k in Annapolis. We ran it last year (read it here) and had a great time, so when it came up this year we immediately signed up.

Last year the race premium was a backpack and this year it was… FANNY PACKS!

Source: Vooray.com

How adorable is that?!

Our 2018 Wayfarer’s 10k was our fastest of the year, but this year we didn’t do as well.

I mean, we had the same amount of FUN — maybe even more — but health wise I wasn’t feeling great. I had two more moles removed a couple days before (the dermatologist flagged them as potentially being melanoma) and one of them was in that sensitive area where the back of your leg meets your butt. I didn’t even know that one was coming off, so it wasn’t until afterwards where I had the thought that this might make a 6.5 mile run uncomfortable. Add on top of that some lady cramps, and I was NOT feeling the run.

No biggie though, Lindsey and I decided to power-walk it and maybe jog a little if the police pacer car at the end got a little too close.

Yeah, that pacer car was STRESSING US OUT! We were just trying to chat and walk darn it! Unlike the Across the Bay 10k, the Wayfarer’s 10k had a faster pace. So, we decided to take a little shortcut through an Annapolis side street.

We ended up cutting off about ½ mile and it was just enough that we could power-walk the rest of the race without the pace car annoying us.  

My stitches were a bit sore for the rest of the day, but they felt much better than if I had powered through and ran the whole race. As it was, we had a super fun, fantastic time!

Afterwards we went and ate an amazingly delicious (and unhealthy) breakfast and did some consignment shopping. You can see a sneak peak of what I bought here:

I think we will definitely sign up for the Wayfarer’s 10k again next year. It’s a fun course and the premiums and medals are great. I’ll be sure to schedule any surgeries AFTER the run though!

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The Frederick Running Festival Kid’s Fun Run

This modeling behavior thing for your kids is really working! I’ve enjoyed running lots of races over the years and Jack even joined me at the Baltimore Running Festival in 2017 to do the Kid’s Fun Run race. However, he hasn’t really had much interest since then. It doesn’t help that they discontinued the kid’s race after the one he did in 2017.

So imagine how proud I was when he started talking about wanting to do another run like mommy!

I started looking out for a kid’s run that is 1 mile or less and finally saw that the Frederick Running Festival had their own kid’s run… and the $15 fee included a kid’s Under Armour shirt AND a finishing medal!

I had to work that morning, so I went back and forth on whether I should sign up for the 5k that night. I ended up NOT doing the 5k and we just drove down to the Frederick fairgrounds so Jack could do his run.

They divided the kids into two groups: 7 and under and 8 – 12. The kids who were 7 and under were welcome to have a parent run with them, so Jack asked daddy to run along. They ran the race and I met them both at the finish line. It was only a 1/4 mile race or so, which went very, very quickly. In the future, I’m going to try and find a 1 mile race for him.

Here are some photos from Saturday:

Oh and if you notice, there is something weird going on with Jack’s front tooth. It is literally hanging on by a thread and the kid refuses to pull it out. He keeps doing this gross thing where he pushes it out with his lip in photos and it honestly makes me want to hurl. Yay parenthood!

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