Wicked Weekend Warrior

This view!  This view was an unexpected gift - a gift given to me by something disappointing. As any good Weekend Warrior does - I headed out of town last Friday for a much anticipated ski vacation.  My boyfriend and I were excited to try out Stowe - a change from our typical trips to New Hampshire for hiking and skiing. We looked at the weather and decided we would XC ski on Saturday and do a little downhill on Sunday when it was supposed to warm up about three degrees. Saturday brought us to the Trapp Family Outdoor Center for our XC ski adventure.  Limited XC ski experience and icy trails kept our adventure short - but it wasn't anything less than exhilarating.  I used to XC ski quite a bit when I was younger, and after enjoying it so much last weekend I look forward to spending more time on XC skis this winter - it's as hard as running, but differently fun. Sunday morning we decided it was too icy to be worth our while to ski - but we were in Vermont t...

Looking at my life from the outside you would think I don't miss out on a heck of a lot.  And at the end of the day, I have a lot of fun, I'm always out skiing or hiking or going to yoga, just to name a few things. At the same time, I miss out on the kinds of things that take more focused attention. Once upon a time I ran a few marathons.  I was in pretty good shape, and I had a lot of fun.  A few major (and in my opinion legitimate) obstacles got in my way and long story short I haven't run a marathon in eight years.  At the end of the day, I find myself missing something about marathons, like somehow marathons are the one who got away. Seriously, I've been thinking a lot about marathon running lately - searching for races, looking at training plans, trying to see how those plans might fit into my life.  Of course this is bringing out my FOMO - if I'm marathon training am I missing out on other fun things like boxing, Orangetheory, or hiking?  But the...

One thing that separates weekend warriors from full-time athletes is, for one reason or another, life gets in the way.  Maybe you have a full-time job, are in school, are raising a family, or have other obligations, but you still want to get out and play, and you use your free time in search of your athletic dreams.  Having a limited number of hours for athletic quests makes setbacks - major and minor - tough to take. This week I had a setback.  I have a chronic medical condition, I'm sure I'll get into at some other time, and I had to have a minor medical procedure this week which led to a minimum of two doctor mandated days off from training.  Ugh!  Two days off from work and no training!  And I was in such a good training groove.  I was so disappointed - I wanted to do something fun (running, yoga, skiing, basically anything movement based), and I was hanging out on my couch instead. I've had setbacks in the past - and I went into this litt...