Showing posts with label FFSteps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FFSteps. Show all posts

Friday, September 18, 2015

Exploring on Foot: Shenzhen International Garden & Flower Expo Park

My trips with the SWIC hiking group lead to a Fitbit party on my arm quickly!


You can tell by my Fitbit stats (which are still sorted by US time) that I was up about 6AM and then walking with the hiking group between 9-12.


Today we explored the Shenzhen International Garden & Flower Expo Park. The park was created for the expo in 2004, but is still open to the public and free. We walked around almost all of it. 


Here's a glimpse of some of the interesting things we saw.




Near the end we spotted these. Not sure what they are called but it looked like the idea was to walk across them. It looked difficult and like it would be a serious leg workout!




What part of the day are you most active? 
What's the strangest piece of fitness equipment you've ever seen in a park?



Monday, September 7, 2015

Mountain Monday: 5 Lessons on a Rainy Day

The forecast for today was thunderstorms.

Approaching the meeting place for the weekly climb up the mountain, the sky looked rather ominous.


We always go unless it is pouring.

Here are some lessons I learned from today's hike:

1. Don't let a little rain scare you away. I would have missed out on a great climb and great company.

2. Mosquitos come out to party when it's wet and cooler.

3. I'm still afraid of thunder, but friends laughing at me make it better!

4. Athleta shorts stick to your legs when they are wet.

5. Sometimes you have to take a lot of breaks on your way to the top. It's ok.



It did start to rain on the way down the mountain. Good thing I also had an umbrella. It was still a fun hike and the post-hike chatting at Starbucks is always entertaining.

Climbing the mountain also helps me hit my 10,000 steps. I love the feeling when my Fitbit has its little celebration on my wrist.


In other news...the difficulty level is rising on my daily plank challenge. Today we had to do 10 second walking plank, 10 second spiderman plank, right into timed standard plank. Oh abs on fire!


And today I conquered the daily recommended 20 strokes with The Stick.




Tell me something you learned from your fitness today.
Do you exercise in the rain?






Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Exploring Shenzhen on Foot: Chiwan

One thing that I do a ton of here in China is walk! I can wrack up 10,000 steps before lunch time some days which is really good for my FitBit challenges. My friends in the hiking group know how to help with that.

Today we explored an area of Shenzhen (where I live) called Chiwan. From our Monday hiking summit on Nanshan Mountain, we can see the other mountain which inspired our trip today.

Xiaonan Mountain: aka Little Nanshan Mountain - 850 steps

I met up with the small group and after waiting out some rain underground in the metro station, we walked to catch a bus to Chiwan. From the bus stop we had to walk a little ways up the road to get to the entrance of the mountain. There was quite a bit of construction going on, but a friendly Chinese man on a scooter guided us through. We followed the road until we found the steps. 850 steps later we were at the top where we found an very large observation area and an old fort. Although this mountain is approximately the same climb, the mass is smaller than our regular hiking mountain. Hence the name, little.



Tomb of the Last Emperor:

Our descent off the mountain took us right by this historical spot. Song Shao Di Mu became emperor at age 7 in 1278. When losing a battle with Mongols, his protector Lu Xiufu took him and jumped into the sea. Legend says his body washed up in Shenzhen near the Tian Hou Temple in Chiwan.


By the end of our exploring, my feet were toast, but I completed day 2 of my plank challenge: up/downs and arm lifts. I did 3 sets of 5. Then I relaxed.


Are you a FitBit user?



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