Staying fit in Phoenix

Howdy y’all, this week I’m coming atcha from beautiful Phoenix, Arizona. We’re here visiting my husband’s family until Christmas day and then we head to Sacramento (back to CA) to visit with my family before heading up to Tahoe for the New Year (whew). And even though we’ve been pretty busy with family and friends, we’ve somehow managed to squeeze in some pretty awesome workouts and get our holiday sweat on too (boom!).

Before we left town on Saturday, we did a quick gym workout – mostly back, legs and shoulders – and a 4 mile treadmill run. We woke up feeling a little sore and stiff on Sunday so opted for an early morning yoga class at Inner Visions Yoga in Tempe (it came highly recommended from one of my very fave yogis, Justine Duran). And like she said we would, we had a great class – it was just the right amount of active and stretch – and we both left feeling really good and ready to tackle all of our socializing for the day. But first, we had to stop by South Mountain so I could do a yoga pose in front of the desert landscape – I mean, I just had to….

After yoga-ing it up, we had lunch with grandma, visited two different friends and their kiddos and then all but collapsed.

Monday morning we woke up early  so we could fit in a long-ish run on the South Mountain trails. Casey had plotted our course for an 11 or 12 mile run (he even stayed up a little late to do it)  and the first part of our course was easy – basically straight up the mountain. Really no way to get lost. Up, up, and up some more. And even though it made for a difficult start to the run, it was also surprisingly fast and fun – we were jumping from rock to rock and dodging cactuses at every turn. However, once we got to the top of the mountain and started to head right (which the map indicated was the right direction)….we realized there was no right (or at least no trail to the right) so we backtracked, weaved around the mountain and tried to figure out our next steps – only to end up in the  middle of the wash in pretty deep sand and in the middle of thicker sticky, mean bushes and cacti. I got stuck in a few thorny bushes more than a couple of times and started to get a little frustrated – the sand wasn’t helping either. Eventually Casey spotted a road so we made our way towards it – more sand, more cacti, more evil desert plants later and we had finally found a trailhead. We got on the trail and practically leapt from rock to rock – it was super fun, rolling hills – and the best part, NO MORE THORNS in my side! Somewhere along the trail Casey also made the discovery that he had lost the car key….and there was probably no way in hell we were going to find it out there. So we continued on and realized we’d have to worry about it later.

We eventually made our way to a trailhead only to discover it wasn’t the one we had originally parked. We paused on the picnic benches and mapped our way back to the house (since we were car keyless anyway). We were about 10 miles in and we had another 5 miles back to the house so we decided to run it. It was along the road – nothing super scenic – so I knew it would be a bit of a slog. I put my head down and just decided to get it done. Casey was pretty over it, got ahold of his dad and had him pick him up so he could go and retrieve the car. I finished the last several miles. Might as well…. My run ended up being about 14.5 miles. Boom.

After our run we hung out with the fam and nursed our sore, tired legs.

This morning I woke up before the sunrise (literally) and made my way to 6:00 am yoga at Laughing Buddha Yoga in Tempe. If you’re in or around the Phoenix area and looking for a great class, go check out Dusty’s classes at Laughing Buddha. She is not only a great yoga instructor but one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. She gave me a big long hug after class. And it wasn’t awkward or forced. It was just a serious, loving, big hug. And it was nice. Not creepy, not overdone. Anyway, aside from her awesome hugs…she also leads an awesome class. She gave me an incredible adjust in pyramid and took me to an entirely new place in the side of my legs. Wow.

We’re here another day….and will keep our holiday sweat streak going!

Total Holiday Sweat points to date: 25

BOOM!

Stay Sweaty friends (and happy almost holidays!)!

XOXO,

Jamie