Blogged After Waiting Out the Clouds

My day started with a quick #30for30burpees session and then a Yoga with Adriene video to continue my 30 days of April yoga. There were a lot of chest opener poses today and it was exactly what my body needed. I love when the workout feels like it was tailor made for me.

I was hoping today would be the day to take my iSUP board out on the water, but I woke up to massive fog invading the island. It eventually passed or rose or whatever it is that fog does, but the day stayed gray and glooming. Not my idea of a good day for SUPing.

Because of the fog, I took the bus to the North Plaza for my Bodystep class. Normally I walk, but the bus got me there early enough to also pay the gas bill. Win. I left Bodystep in a massive heap of sweaty clothes, but it was worth it. 588 calories burned. And I walked home, continuing to get sweaty. You're welcome bus people.

Just because they added some color (and we needed color) I thought I would share my favorite food from the day  ---> strawberries!

Every time I thought about going for a walk, the sky looked like this. No thank you.

Crossing my fingers that tomorrow's weather will be better!

Just an Ordinary Tuesday, Or Was it?

Today was just an ordinary Tuesday.

OK, not really because....I went for a run!

I LOVE SAYING THAT! Any day that I get to run now will be anything but ordinary.

I had sunshine, the water and a nice breeze...it was pretty much perfect. I didn't even mind the sweat getting in my eyes.

But let me back up a bit.

mrC got home from his trip in the middle of the night. While he slept in, I did my daily yoga session - you guessed it, more vinyasa flow. Does anyone else feel strange wearing shorts to do yoga or is it just me?

Since I was nice and warmed up (and feeling motivated) I got day 2 of 30 burpees out of the way. I've decided to track my time to see if there is any change over the 30 days. For the record: 2:28 and I burned 15 calories.

By this time, mrC was up and moving, so we headed out for our run. We mixed up our route a bit to do more on the flat promenade along the water. We did a couple of out and backs before heading up the big hill to our apartment for a total of 3.58 miles.

It's getting warmer around here, so I made sure to bring along some water and I love that I don't have to carry my Simple Hydration Water Bottle. See how nicely it hooks onto my shorts? Even this pair from Lululemon that has a no dig waist band can hold the bottle.

After our run, we took a cool down walk to pick up a full length mirror that I found on Discovery Bay's Facebook Moving & Selling page. It even has a nice little shelf on the bottom for the VIP shoes. I'm wearing the J.Crew finds from yesterday. This tee and these shorts. Plus my favorite recovery flip flops from Oofos.  PS - all my links are affiliate links and if you click on them I earn a few pennies, and you are not obligated in any way. I promise.

Later, I received a delivery from FedEx ---> I'm a Wearsafe Running Ambassador. I'm super excited to share this safety technology with everyone as I hike, bike and run around Hong Kong.

Before dinner we went for a walk and picked up dessert. I'm happy mrC likes these gluten free brownies as much as I do.

For dinner it was Taco Tuesday!!

What are your perfect running conditions?
Anything making your day extraordinary?
Are you a Taco Tuesday fan?

Go With the Flow and My Weekly Wrap

Today I woke up with a lot of energy.

I had a quick cup of coffee with my morning reading and then jumped right into day 2 of my month of yoga flow. There are a lot of different types of yoga (described well in this article), but flow or vinyasa is my favorite type of yoga. Which is probably why I like Yoga with Adriene so much.

Today's video class focused on some of the vinyasa basics. It was short and sweet. Perfect for a Sunday morning.

After yoga, I went out to hike Lookout Point Loop because it was an absolutely beautiful day to do it.

The hike can take under an hour to do if you don't stop for pictures or pause at the top to enjoy the view ---> I don't know why people would want to skip that part, but they do. I shared my hike on my Instagram story, posting as I went, but I also kept moving at a pretty good pace (which is why you can hear my heavy breathing in the videos). Since I was hitting up the grocery after the hike, I stopped my watch before returning to my apartment but I hiked the 1.67 mile loop with 676 feet elevation gain in 46 minutes.

This week I'm trying something new and linking up with Tricia and Holly for the Weekly Wrap!

Monday - Super fun bike ride with a group of AWA members on the outskirts of Hong Kong. It was a great activity.

Tuesday - I had a meeting in Central for an AWA committee that I'm working on and then mrC and I ran errands. Running errands in Hong Kong means a ton of walking even when we take the ferry and the MTR. Days like these that mentally feel like I didn't do much are actually pretty good LISS days. 

Wednesday - I had another awesome interval run with mrC around the neighborhood. I'm so happy that I can get out and run/walk. It's looks different than it used to a couple of years ago, but at least I can do it. Doing it makes me happy!

Thursday - mrC had a trip, it was still gray and icky out, so I took a great big rest day. I did unpack and put away the groceries that were delivered from our shopping on Tuesday. And I also rearranged the furniture just for fun. So I guess it wasn't a great big rest day after all.

Friday - Worked off as many calories as I could at Bodystep: 597 calories GONE. My body craves this class every week. If I'm lucky I can go twice, but since it is only offered on Monday and Fridays, I often have conflicting activities. 

Saturday - My second run of the week ---> so cool that I can do this again ---> and the best run of the week: 4.72 miles. I finally had a sunny day for running and I'm pretty sure I was smiling the whole time. It turned out to be my longest run so far this year. In fact, the last time I ran anything close was in December 2015, the last time I ran a race, in Shenzhen.

Total miles for the week - 8.86

Tomorrow is the big day. I'll be starting my bad ass burpee challenge: 30 burpees a day for 30 days. There's still time to join me and then we can be bad ass together (or crazy)! Downloadable calendar here. If you join, give me a shout out @runningescapade #30for30burpees

And that's a wrap!

What was your favorite workout of the week? Mine was definitely my runs ;)

Sweaty Saturday, Funny Stuff and a BIG Challenge

Welcome to April!

Since I've been running A LOT more lately, it feels appropriate to talk about my stats up until now.

January - 3 runs 4.30 miles

February - 4 runs 9.80 miles

March - 8 runs 27.18 miles

Whoa, March! I like the way you look!!

I'm starting April feeling positive and healthy and I'm super excited to find a 5K to enter sometime soon. Oh, and I ran today.

Today's run was fantabulous! I finally got to run on a sunny day and I ran more than 4 miles ---> 4.73 to be exact. My longest run in 2017.

I ran the same route that I did with mrC a couple days ago, except today I also did an out and back on the promenade. My intervals were the same 90:60 seconds run/walk and everything felt really good. I think I'm going to stick with this interval for another week before increasing the run time again.

A funny thing happened in the beginning of my run. My phone rang. It was mrC calling from Thailand and since we hadn't spoken since yesterday, I had to answer. I love FaceTime. If you have it, feel free to call me 😍

After my run I did my 5 essential stretches for happy legs. I must not have stayed in my glute stretch long enough after Bodystep class yesterday because my butt was really sore when I got up this morning and it's only gotten worse since my run.

I'm really happy with today's run. The only thing that could have made it better is a running partner.

If you've followed this blog for more than a couple of years (first a BIG thank you for that!), then you know that I loved running with my dog, Booney. And boy, did he like to run, too.

I saw this on Twitter today and it made me think of him. He would have loved his own pair of running shoes. It's so nice of Brooks to think of our furry running buddies, don't you think?

We're taking our running technology to new heights. Introducing, Brooks Running shoes for dogs. Shop now: https://t.co/DcvqAuWCUU. pic.twitter.com/cSA6lp0kGd

— Brooks Running (@brooksrunning) March 31, 2017

In other (serious) news, I'm thinking of doing a burpee challenge. 30 burpees a day for 30 days. Seriously. This is not a joke. Want to join me??? I'm going to start on Monday. I could probably start today, but then I might be ahead of you. ;) 

When life knocks you down... pic.twitter.com/jxm30QDDXo

— Protein Pow® (@proteinpow) March 31, 2017

I made a calendar that you can download to mark off each day you do your 30 burpees with me. We should probably have a hashtag because all challenges have one. So share your progress with me on Instagram or Twitter and tag me @runningescapade #30for30burpees ---> I promise to cheer you on.

I'm also doing 30 days of April yoga with Adriene and her awesome videos. You can find all the details on this website or just go right to the video playlist here.

Here's a glimpse of day 1: 58 minutes of Shakti Power Flow. This is goddess pose near the end of the session and my quads were SCREAMING! I'm pretty sure my arms/hands are wrong because I couldn't hear over the pain in my legs, haha.

April is going to be a fun month, right?

Do you like April Fool's Day jokes?

What are your sweaty Saturday plans?

Goals/plans for April?