Mixing things up

Most of my exercise has been biking a few times a week with at least one day of hill running. The other day, I had no desire to do either of those things but I really needed (yes, needed) to do something physical.

There are plenty of hiking trails around here, but I abhor hiking...even more so than running, and you know how much I dislike running. But there's a trail just down the street from my house that's straight uphill and is pretty much a mile-long stair workout that just so happens to be in the woods.

A section of the very beginning of the trail.

So the Roommie and I headed out to do that one Friday afternoon and it was glorious. It was a perfect evening to be out there and it kicked my butt. Perfect temperature, beautiful views, and good mindset on my end. I'm really glad we went!

On a side note, although I was more exhausted going uphill than coming down (duh!) and felt like I got more out of the trip fitness-wise going up, I burned more calories on the downhill part*. In hindsight it makes sense because I was going much faster going down and the uphill part was more of a weight-lifting workout almost. And you don't really burn that many calories lifting weights.

Overall, it was interesting to see that I don't need to be suffering from exertion to get my calorie targets for the day. A simple, albeit long, "hike" was enough to get me there.

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*I have a calorie-counter (BodyMedia Fit) that I've been wearing for the past month. I'll write up a post about it sometime in the near future. The major problem I find with it is that it's not very accurate for cycling, which is my main source of calorie burning these days. But other than that, it's pretty awesome. I highly recommend it!