WT High Altitude

Less than two weeks to go until Tough Mudder New England.  I kicked my training up a notch this weekend with some ‘high altitude’ workouts in the Colorado Rockies with a fellow TM Teammate.

I talked a big game before the weekend telling him that I’m excited for hiking and work outs galore while I’m in town.  In hindsight, training at higher altitudes is a huge advantage over my sea level lungs.  Although I was sucking wind and hugging trees on the way up the Ute Trail, I still managed to make the trek up to the top of Aspen Mtn in just over 2 hours.  Thankfully the Gondola was still running to take us back down to the bottom (during each I booked my deep tissue massage for the very next day).  Shockingly, I wasn’t as sore as I though I’d be and attribute it to the massive amounts of Stair Treadmill hours that I log each week at the gym.   The following day prior to the massage, I climbed the stairs for 20, ran at intervals for 20, lifted and did 100 crunches.  My last day we hiked the Ute trail again shaving at least 5 minutes off our time from the hike two days earlier.  It was still an ass-kicker but felt great.  (Pic is of me at the top…. still smiling)

The weekend wasn’t all about working out though.  As you’re probably aware from previous posts, I’ve been on quite the health kick the last few months.   I haven’t had a piece of meat or chicken in 4 weeks, pretty much stopped having dairy (an occasional pat of butter or weekend cone at Marvel but whose counting) and have been pounding veggies and fruits along with fish, good carbs and natural fats.  However, I am not one to deprive myself and if you know me, you know that 5pm on weekends (7pm on some week nights) is cocktail time and if it’s chocolate and in my face, chances are I’m gonna eat it.   This weekend was filled with lots of naughty pleasures – i’ll just fill you in on the oral pleasures (actually that doesn’t sound right either) – wine, mojitos, squid ink pasta, fried calamari, rock shrimp tempura, a nutella and banana crepe, a hot dog (I only took a tiny bite) and certainly one of my favorites…. BACON (which in my humble opinion should be its own special food group).   And I enjoyed every moment of my gluttonous indulgences.   From now until the big day, I’ll be cutting back (notice I didn’t say ‘out’) on the bad stuff and pushing the limits on my workouts.

So while some of you may think I’ve lost my mind and transformed into a health freak, my philosophy is this….. If your foundation is rooted in a healthy lifestyle of eating right and exercising, then go ahead and indulge when that sweet treat or sugary cocktail calls your name and by all means….. enjoy it…. you deserve it.

WTHayley

Tags: aspen, bacon, cocktails, colorado rockies, healthy, hiking, Tough Mudder, training, ute trail, womens health