FITNESS

vertically inclined

heyitsbex · July 10, 2020 · Leave a Comment

When I was younger, I spent a great deal of time hanging around the hockey arenas at the local community centre. This place was great, so much to do. There was even a Little Rock climbing arena in it. Every so often my mom would splurge and take us. I remember LOVING it.

Fondly remembering these times, I put ‘go rock climbing (even if its just in a gym)’ on my beloved 29×30 list. It was probably the one thing I was most excited for. Then the good old COVID-19 pandemic hit and everything shut down. I basically wrote this one off as no way, no how is it going to happen.

My ninja sister however, had other plans. As Alberta slowly began reopening, she began planning little surprise adventure dates to check off the last few items on my list. Which brought us to Vertically Inclined, a local climbing place in Edmonton.

We began with a quick lesson on how to use the belay mechanisms and the lingo for climbers. The fella who worked there was extremely kind, quite hilarious, and very patient as we learned how to operate the ropes.

It was so great seeing Anthony try rock-climbing for the first time. He had so much fun and was so brave!

Overall, it was just as much fun as I remembered it being as a kid, and that’s another thing to check off the 29×30 list! It’s quite the work out and really tests your upper body strength. I could totally see myself making it a regular sporting activity. Maybe one day I’ll try climbing in the mountains… it just may pop up on a future birthday list!

Have you ever gone rock climbing? I’d love to hear your favourite places to climb!

Bicycle adventures.

heyitsbex · August 9, 2018 · Leave a Comment

Back in my college days, shortly after I had broken up with my boyfriend at the time, I found myself without a car and needing to get to work. Thankfully, I lived along Lake Ontario, so I strapped on my rollerblades and trekked the 14 kilometers to work.

Present day, I live a good 15 kilometers from my current job and I have a pretty decent hybrid bicycle that gets just about no use. So I thought it would be a fantastic idea to ride my bike to work one day (so it ended up on my 28×29 list!).

I faced two challenges:

Waking up early enough
Choosing a route that was safe enough

The waking up early was just going to take sheer willpower. The route took a little more research. I normally take two main highways to work and there was no way I was riding on those. There’s a township road that runs right along the highway, so I opted to take that way – not the most direct route, but it would do.

I roped my co-worker who lives around my neighbourhood to come with me. Needless to say, I was late in the morning so we ended up going along some neighbourhood streets and took the smaller of the two highways for a small stretch. Overall a good 10km ride.

The ride home we took the township road. It was so beautiful – farmland everywhere. So peaceful. A way nicer commute than the highway speeds and cars all around. The only downfall was the air quality was a tad bad because of the smoke moving in from the wildfires in BC. This route was definitely longer at 15km but by far the better option.

I’m hoping the weather stays nice for a little while longer so I can get some more rides in!

Have you ever taken an alternate method of transportation to work?

Run this city #edmonton10k

heyitsbex · July 23, 2018 · Leave a Comment

You know those hobbies that you don’t quite love, but can’t get enough of at the same time? That’s how I feel about running. I don’t overly love the act of running, yet I can’t seem to stop signing up for runs and pushing myself to improve my times.

After running my first half marathon this summer, the next one I signed up for with my awesome friend Kara was the first ever #Edmonton10K hosted by Lululemon. Unfortunately, Kara got a stress fracture on her first run of the season and wasn’t able to run the race with me.

So, I woke up bright and early and headed downtown Edmonton solo! The race atmosphere was one of the best I have experienced – it was so lively, and so well branded. They even gave us adorable little donuts with the race colours as decorations on top at the finish line.

My goal time for this 10K was under an hour. I juuuust missed my goal time, finishing with a time of 1:01:52. I’m convinced I would have got my time if I had started one corral up – my corral finish time was 1:00 – 1:15 – so there was quite a bit of congestion at the start line.

This was also my first run with my new Garmin! I’m officially a weirdo runner who swears by her Garmin – it’s definitely the best run accessory in my opinion. I love being able to look at my stats after the race and it’s so easy to check your wrist to see your pace time. I highly recommend getting yourself a Garmin if you’re going to be doing a decent amount of running!

Have you run one of Lululemon’s races? I’d love to hear what you thought of it!

My first half marathon.

heyitsbex · June 20, 2018 · Leave a Comment

42.2 km. That’s a lot. The length of a marathon to be exact.

For whatever reason, a marathon has always held such high prestige in my brain. The people who can run a marathon are superhumans. And therefore, it’s always been an overall bucket list item of mine to run a whole marathon.

But, let’s not get too ambitious yet. You have to walk before you run so they say. Or in this case, run 21.1 km before you run the whole 42.2 km.

I knew I wanted to run the Banff Marathon, or well half of it at least. I had seen it about a year ago and had the costs not been so high to spontaneous trek out to Banff for a weekend, I would have ran the 10k. But nevertheless, with ‘Run a half marathon’ on my 27 x 28 list, I knew this year was the year. There’s just something about running the mountains that made the attempt even more bearable.

I roped my most amazing sister into running with me and, unfortunately for both of us, we suck at preparing and tend to leave things until the last minute. My saving grace was the fact I’ve been playing soccer twice a week for the last year.

Our goal was not to finish in a specific time, but rather, just to finish! With this in mind, we embarked on the challenge, taking photos every 5km, trying to take in the views and play the mental game of running a really long distance with very little training.

In the end, we finished in just over three hours and my sister still likes me! We even had enough energy left in us for a friendly competitive sprint at the end.

There’s something to be said about a sister who will literally follow you to the end of the earth all because your ambition sets crazy goals. At the end of the weekend, not only had I checked another thing off the list, I realized my sister is by far my biggest cheerleader and I had a newfound appreciation for the lengths she goes to to support me.

Thanks J! I love you more than words could ever say.

Have you ever run a marathon? What are some tips and tricks you’d pass along? If you haven’t, would you want to?