Exercise

I understand the meaning of this 8 letter word, and the importance of implimenting it into our lives. I make goals every year to exercise more often becasuse I know how good it is for me. I love the feeling I have after I finish. I especially love that feeling if it was difficult along the way and I had to work really hard.

I had such an experience this weekend.

I've always said that, for me, the best way to exercise is to trick me into it. For example, when I go on a bike ride, I have a blast... but I'm still exercising. If I play volleyball and get really into it, I don't realize that I'm working out, all I'm think about is how much fun I'm having. Such has been the case recently for floor hockey with Briant and his buddies. I don't concentrate so much on how out of breath I am, but rather I engage myself in the game. While snowshoeing I try to focus my thoughts on the view.

It all started on Friday night...

Briant and I played floor hockey with some guys (and sometimes their wifes/girlfriends) that Briant works with.

This picture was taken last year, but we play with the same people. We try to play at least once every 1-2 months. I feel that I have learned alot about the game, and have improved my skill since I started. Don't get me wrong, Briant still kicks my butt big time, along with all the other guys, but I am starting to enjoy the sport. To be honest though, I never realized what a workout hockey can be.

It continued on Saturday...

Saturday morning, Briant and I went snowshoeing up at Kelly's Canyon. I go all the time, but I thought it would be fun to go with Briant who had never been. As we started up the hill, I commented to Briant that my legs were a little stiff from the previous night's hockey "workout". "Oh well," I said to my self, I do this all the time, I'll be fine.

The past week we've received a little bit of snow. Everyone knows that when it snows, you may only get a little in the valley, but you'll get a lot more in the mountains. That was the first thing we noticed when we got up there. Plus the wind was blowing, there was plenty of fog, and it looked like the mountain would be getting a lot more snow that day.

Because of the snow, a snowshoe trail has to be marked a little differently. Because the trail is constantly being snowed on and lost, they nail little yellow disks that have a picture of snowshoes on them to the trees. When you are in a valley with no trees, they have poles sticking up instead. But usually you just follow the path that others before you have made.

This first part of the trail is a pretty good climb uphill through the trees. The view was beautiful because of all the fresh fallen (and wind blown) snow. I couldn't help take this picture because of how the snow clung to the branch in such a way... It was really cool looking!Then we hit Cole's climb (an uphill stretch that has no tree cover and is rated 'most difficult') ... I like to call this suicide hill, because IT'S HARD! But once you get to the top and back into the trees, it is a breeze..... mostly flat. We passed another couple eating lunch, and soon found out that they were breaking our trail. Right after that the trail lead us to another little hill in the middle of a meadow. Because of the dense fog, it was really hard to see those little yellow disks and since I could see them better than Briant, I was up front breaking our path through the deep snow. But I lead us too far the right (because I couldn't see the marker) and we had to do a little backtracking to find the marker. By this time, the guy who was originally breaking our trail caught up to us and helped find the marker. I honestly thought this would be our only bump in the road because after that we continued on our way through the "easy" part in the trees. We were having a great time, talking and laughing, and I was noticing all the landmarks along the way that I'd seen before... Like Garney's Junction. Well, soon we came to the place where we were suppose to go downhill and back onto the service road. I look for those markers that would take us down but never found them. There are a couple hills that look like that one that goes down, so when I didn't see the markers I thought that it must just be the next hill, and we continued following the yellow disks. Pretty soon I started to not recognize the landmarks around me. I didn't really want to say anything outloud because I didn't want to worry Briant, but alas I did and we both got a little upset. There were still the yellow disks so we kept following them and later than I expected we came out on a service road. By this time, we were both very sore from all the trail breaking and tired from all the hiking... but very glad that we were not lost.

When I got home I went onto the internet and found this map. If you decide that you want to go snowshoeing up there, PLEASE print out the map... it could save you from worry. We traced our steps all the way and found the downward slope that we wanted to take early on (we found out it was called Corkscrew). But since we didn't see the markers we hiked an additional 1.5 miles or so. Toward the first part (when I couldn't find the markers in the meadow & the guys helped us), I said a silent prayer. I'm so greatful for a Father in Heaven who watches over us. I'm grateful that Heavenly Father answered my prayer and helping us see the signs, so that we didn't get lost! Next time I think we'll bring the map!

As I got out of bed this morning my body screamed at me not to move! Briant and I were so sore!!! I think that we got some pretty good exercise.