Day 8 & 9: Why I love my town

Weight: 133.6

What I did today (and yesterday): Still focusing on low impact exercises. Yesterday I went to the gym and spent thirty minutes on the elliptical. I'm noticing a marked improvement in my stamina on it. Usually I have to slow down because my heart rate gets out of control, but now I can go faster without it getting too high. I also did three of the weight lifting machines (too embarrassed to say what weight I was at). Even after my workout I was full of energy yesterday, which has been an awesome side effect of all this working out. It's actually difficult to be in a bad mood.

I also think I look pretty hot in the new workout clothes I bought myself :)

Today, since the weather was nice, I hopped on my bike for a ride on the rail trail. Try as I might, I can only go about a 1/4 mile at a time and then I have to stop. I learned from a coworker this week that rail trail have a slight grade to them in one direction, which explains why it's so much easier for me on the way back.

When I was wrapping up my pitifully short ride, I accidentally clicked a gear while walking the bike and the bike chain fell off. Luckily for me Saucon Valley Bikes was only a quarter mile away. Not only did they put the chain back on (that made me feel a little silly) but when I complained about my quads burning with the fire of a thousands suns they readjusted my seat and handlebar height, saying it should help. We'll see tomorrow when I hop back on my bike :)

After that was done, I ambled over to the local coffee shop to grab some java and lunch, ran into a friend, then spent a few minutes in the park. All without ever having to get into the car! After years of living in the middle of nowhere I don't think I'll ever get sick of this.

When I got home I did Slim & Limber again, and I'm already noticing improvements in my flexibility. Stretching is vitally important to any exercise - if you don't do it you can injure yourself. I usually do a few quick exercises right after I warm up if I can, but I always make sure to do a good stretch after I'm done when my muscles are warm and stretch-able.

Then I took a nap. And it was awesome.