Back from vacation in NY

It was great to see family, stay with my nephew, meet my grand niece, celebrate christmas and my parents 63rd anniversary.   Happy to have spent the time there with Roya, who met my family as a whole for the first time.  I was happy and surprised to see I did not gain a lot of weight, maybe a pound, despite eating carbs and sweets.  I am 142.2 lbs this Wed. morning.  Shows me that once you get to or near your optimum weight, it's not super hard to stay there.  Dietary lapses are ok for a day or 2 but need to be balanced out by a reduction in eating/ calories, if not some intermittent fasting.   I sometimes take for granted how much my environment, diet, and lifestyle contribute to my overall weight, wellness, and fitness.  Much harder to maintain when out of my home environment.  

What saved my fitness was the fact that my nephew has a full gym.  I did two brief workouts alone and one rigorous HIIT circuit with my nephew and his training buddy.  However, it was too snowy and icy to do any running.  The local tracks were not viable and I did not want to train on pavement.  Everything was ice and snow covered.  It was cold, never above freezing the whole time I was there, but at the peak of the cold, it was actually colder in Sewanee.   My Sewanee weather station measured a low of -4ºF and for 2 consecutive mornings, the temperature remained below 2ºF for 8 hrs.  The coldest ever recorded in the 10 yrs I've owned this house. 

My nephew's gym was ideal for me.  He had Concept 2 rower, hex bar, glute/ham raise bench, kettle bells dumbells, and many other options in his home gym.  

In my solo workouts, I did rower, hex bar, ab wheel, and glute ham raises.  Definitely felt the ab wheel the next day.

The circuit we did was 4 stations, each one minute hard with 30 sec rest.   The stations were: rower, kettle bell (75 lbs), single leg bench jumps alternating legs, burpees.   It was tough, pushed the heart rate to the 150s and a sweat.  It was good.  Nothing replaces the specificity of running but this definitely helped fill in some strength gaps.  Need to keep it up.  I was able to do sets of dead lifts of 6 x 215 lbs with no back pain.   

Here's Kris's home gym in his back yard:  

  

 

I expect to be back on the track today and hopefully tomorrow. 50º today with a warming trend. Could be mid 60ºs by Tuesday. I'm hoping to race again weekend after next.