Conduit Blog
Read on for fitness tips, sprinkled with musings and motivational tidbits.
The Conduit to Fitness
Avocados and Exercise
Avocados are one of my favorite fruits. For the past few months, I have been making a lot of guacamole. Lately, I’ve been getting better and better at telling when my avocados are ripe. Despite making more guacamole in the past few months than I ever thought I would in such a short time, I still make mistakes and cut into one every so often when it’s not yet ripe. I’ve also missed the prime moment of ripeness and cut into many (many!) avocados that are starting to go bad or are not salvageable. At. All. (Yuck.)
Applied Knowledge Is Power
In a normal year, July 4th always seems to arrive too quickly, and then the rest of the summer is suddenly over. I’m not sure I’ll feel that way about this summer in a few months…but who knows? 2020 feels a bit (okay, more than a bit) surreal, and, as we move forward, we are still adapting to the many changes occurring around us. Regardless of our ability to impact these changes, we each have the opportunity to engage in activities that improve our health and reduce our stress.
Tracking Your Goals to Success
As I was looking over my calendar for 2020 this past weekend, I thought about how we (humans) sometimes use arbitrary dates for setting goals. Though I love the promise of a blank calendar at the beginning of a year, I am not (usually) one to delay starting a new goal until a new month or year begins.
Exercise to Manage Stress
Exercising can serve as a way to center yourself and take a break from the ongoing stressors of the world. Whether you are experiencing stress from personal factors (such as your job or family situation) or you are experiencing stress from things outside of your immediate radius of control (e.g., the pandemic, politics, human rights injustices, environmental concerns, animal abuse, etc.), exercise can serve as a healthy and effective tool to care for yourself and manage your stress level.
Pacing the River Run Half Marathon (Unofficially)
Last Sunday, I ran the River Run Half Marathon for the eighth time. Seven years ago when I ran this for the first time, I never would have guessed that I would be (unofficially) pacing the same race for my fellow Fleet Feet Cleveland runners. Then, it was about finishing and not being too sore or too hungry afterwards. Now, it’s about hitting a target pace (and associated finish time) in a doable fashion and, when given the opportunity, being the pacer that I wish I had in some of the many races I’ve run.
Do You Go Through Fitness Phases?
I go through phases where I’m very much into one activity or another. With a few exceptions, most things capture my interest for at least a little while. From a summer of Zumba classes to five months of boxing lessons to two years of swimming lessons, usually my interest in an activity also wanes when the schedule becomes inconvenient or the friend that I was going to classes with isn’t able to attend consistently.
Tapping into Pure Joy
Gravity-assisted sprints (e.g., running down hills as fast as possible) are the best. There was a time when I used to fly down hills on Rollerblades, semi-protected by the helmet, wrist guards, and knee/elbow pads. My sister and I would blade through the Metroparks, taking the flat curves easily and being careful to stay upright when navigating down hills.
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