Couple Weeks Ago…

A couple weeks ago I had this awesome week, was super active, always seemed to be doing something, not every part of it was good stuff but hey, life isn’t 100% good stuff so ya gotta make room for the crap stuff every now an then lol 😛

I tried some new activities and want to give my take on them:

The Grouse Grind

This is a hike in North Vancouver, BC that is pure evil, grr! to you Grind, grr! It’s not that it isn’t do-able, people hike it everyday but it isn’t fun and costs you$10 at the end…lemme explain…you drive there, you pay for parking, you hike up 2.9 km (1.8 miles) and sure that doesn’t sound like a long distance but think of how this hike is described, it’s called “mother nature’s stairmaster” I kid you not! Go look at the website for it: http://www.grousemountain.com/grousegrind then when you get to the top you have to pay $10 to take a gondola ride down the mountain so you can rush back to your car before your parking expires because you mistakenly thought you’d do the hike in a short-ish amount of time so didn’t pay for too long of parking…hmm, that last part might be just me…lol. It’s not a fun hike, which is what I realized part way up the mountain. I thought it was just me who wasn’t having fun (I went alone, most people seem to go with someone), but when I looked at other peoples faces as they were going up they all had the same look on their face, one of torture. Uh, why the hell are we all climbing this stupid mountain if it isn’t fun?? Everyone looks like they are being forced to suffer through some torturous ordeal but uh, hello, didn’t we all make the choice to be there? And no way they were all first timers like me, so some of them must have known what they were getting in to, and yet, they went back, what’s with that? I guess a lot of people use the mountain as a personal challenge and keep returning so they can better their time, it’s like a point of pride or something…weirdos! lol

Most of the hike is man made stairs but every now and then is a part where nature has been allowed to stay in charge so you do a bit of scrambling over rocks (boulders? no, I think they are rocks…what’s the difference?) I prefer the rocks to the stairs. I like to hike, like for real hike, not climb a bunch of stairs hike, if I wanted stairs I’d go use a stairmaster at my gym lol, but ah well, it was still an experience and one I am glad I did, if only so I can say I did it lol.

My recommendation though would be to not do as I did and hike it on one of the hottest days of the year with minimal water in your pack and having not yet eaten anything that day (oh, and it was around 3p or so I think so not like I had only skipped breakfast, oops!), if you are hydrated, dressed for the weather, fed and not being roasted to death by the sun you’ll probably do all right. 🙂

The next thing I did that was new to me that week waaaas…

Bikram’s Yoga

For those of you who don’t know, that is a series of 26 yoga poses that last 90 minutes and are performed in a room heated to 40C with 40% humidity…so it’s hot! I paid $30 for a week of unlimited classes at a studio near my place. A friend from dragon boating said I have to go at least 5 times that first week because any less then 5 times I will hate it, 5 times or more and I will love it. I wanted to get the most out of my unlimited for a week so I made it my main source of exercise for that week. They teachers say your only goal for your first 5 classes (there is that number again) is to stay in the room, even if you feel overwhelmed by the heat just lay down on your mat and try to get through it, yeah, it is just that hot! lol. I managed to go 4 times in that week and am happy to say I not only stayed in the room each time but I performed all 26 poses each time, meaning, I didn’t stop and rest on my mat cause I couldn’t take it, yah me! Hey, don’t judge! I’ll take positive re-enforcement where I can find it! lol 😛 The Bikram yoga websites and teachers all tout the amazingness of this style of yoga (of course) and apparently there are all kinds of health benefits etc…I don’t know about any of that, but I do know you sweat a lot and I figure that has to be good for detoxifying your body, right? I dehydrated one day, got all dizzy, ran in to a wall in my apartment when going from the bathroom to my bedroom, kinda crazy, so it really is important to hydrate. It is suggested drinking lots of water the day prior and the day of your Bikram yoga session, I suppose since we should all be staying hydrated anyways this shouldn’t be a problem but who are we kidding? We all slip up at some point, shrug.

I decided against continuing on with Bikram’s Yoga. Even though I know a bunch of people who swear by it it’s really expensive and not what I am needing at this point for my main form of exercise. If it wasn’t so freakishly expensive I’d be really tempted to continue on with it, using it as part of my exercise routine but $160/month is too much to spend if I’m only going two times a week. You have to be really committed to Bikram’s to get your moneys worth.

Since then I have been doing my normal stuff, dragon boat practices (although season just ended, sadness, so no more of that for a while), gym time…I unfortunately got really sick two weekends ago and it was a pathetic recovery, took longer then I would like so I stayed away from the gym longer then I wanted to, mostly cause I had no energy, if walking to the store across the street caused me to get light headed and a bit dizzy I figured going to the gym was probably a bad idea lol. I seem to be all better now so I’ll be starting my gym time again soon, probably tomorrow before work. I’m going to be signing up for my boxing classes again once payday comes around since that’s my off season sport and I’m looking in to trying OC’ing, something a lot of dragon boaters seem to do once db season has ended…not sure I want to be on the water during the winter though, brr! lol 🙂

Tags: bikram's yoga, dragon boating, exercise, grouse grind, hydration, losing weight, new stuff