Downhills, Art, Fashion Shows & a New Bike!

We stayed close to home during Spring Break week, hitting area parks and getting messy in the basement. This hill is beautiful & my oldest flew down it, smiling the whole way. I'm not going to critique his running form but if you'd like help/suggestions on downhill running technique go here at active.com.

For art ideas, inspiration and resources check out this artist/triathlete's blog. You'll find SO many great things! (lizards, art lessons, sewing projects, tri reports, and incredible refashions!) I'm hoping to profile Carrie & her husband soon! If you have kids, check out her "This is Me" A Kid's First Keepsake Journal.

photos: more from a park trip. A Sandhill Crane. T/E easily navigate the rocks.

photos: I took these at a recent Women's night at our local Trek store. We had yummy burritos from Chipoltle and Trek raffled off a free bike at the end ... and a woman named Sara won! but not me, I heard "Sara" & my heart accelerated. Coach Cindi from Madison Multisport spoke. I took one of her free pre-race clinics in the past & liked it.

And with the kids home, I setup the trainer on the deck for Cutter intervals while our youngest napped.

And finally, hubby bought a new commuting bike. The A/C in his van would cost $2,600 to fix so he decided he'd work on commuting more in the summer & recently brought home his new cyclocross baby.

Questions for You:

What's most interesting to you? Park trip, downhill running, painting, art, fashion shows, burritos, Breaking Away, trainer rides, or a new bike?

If you have kids, how do you like to workout with them at home?

Jump Back! Water Fun

Recently at swimming Coach Katie had fun things for us to try, including:

- Reverse Swimming: I'd read about this on facebook updates but had never tried it. You swim backwards. It's like watching a video clip of freestyle on rewind, your toes hit the wall first. I LOVED it!

- Ball Toss: In pairs in the deep end treading water each group would toss a ball up and over the warning flags. My ball kept hitting the flags...

- Underwater swim + pool pushups: we swam across the width of the pool, under all the lane dividers and once at the other side did 10 pool pushups x 4. I was surprised how out of air I was.

- Flutter kick + underwater swim: similar to the pushups, we'd do quick flutterkick against the side & then on Katie's call we'd swim across the width of the pool underwater and kick again. I was out of air on this one too.

- Swim belt + cord - put on this belt & then try to swim to the end of your lane. There were 3 levels of resistance. I tried to easy one & it was so fun, especially the reel-in sensation on the recovery. I did something similar on dry land at the Packer Experience years ago.

- Tug of War - each swimmer swims in the opposite direction while hooked to this rubber cord. You want to pull your opponent your way. We've also done this head to head with a kickboard perpendicularly between the two swimmers. I'm not sure which one I like most. Fun!

And yes Jump Back! is a Footloose quote! I love dance movies and I watched Ariel & Ren's romance 100+ times as an elementary school kid. I read someone's remaking it!

Willard: You won't get any dancing here, it's illegal.
Ren: Jump back!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087277/quotes?qt0427126

Watch a Footloose trailer here: http://matttrailer.com/footloose_1984

Questions for You:

- Have you tried reverse freestyle? How did it go?

- What's your favorite dance movie?

Photo credit: Our son jumps backwards into the pool on last summer's Alaskan cruise. The lifeguard didn't like that!