Stepping Out – Another New Experience

I have really been focusing on forcing myself to try new experiences. If you read my last post you know that I started a beginners quilting class & am looking to play on a pick up soccer team this fall.

Today I decided to get off my butt and see what one of Iowa’s state parks has to offer. Don William’s State Park is exactly 5 miles east of my house. I have been there to kayak and for the “Beach” but I never really knew if they had trails to walk/run. I got Winston in the car with his new harness and we were off! I ended up finding a trail that went around the lake and really wasn’t expecting much from it. Sure enough has we were walking there were bridges and nicely groomed trails that went through the woods keeping us nice a cool. The trails weren’t just flat there were lots of hills to work through as well.

Soon enough we were on the other side of the lake looking off a dock to where I parked at.

Winston REALLY wanted to jump in the water.

At that point I remembered I have an app called MyFitnessApp that is great when walking/running new areas to see how far and time your work outs. I decided on the way back I would track it so I would know how far we went that day.

Once I got back to the jeep I looked at my app and it said 1.2miles which means it was a 2.4 mile trail! Whoop Whoop! This is so exciting because I HATE running on roads, tracks in circles, and on treadmills. This trail system reminds me so much of the parks back in DE that I use to run when I was younger and I am seriously pumped to have taken the time today to discover another part of Iowa that I will grow to love.

There was a boat ramp by where I parked to I let Winston cool off before we headed back to the house. He was also in LOVE.

I had a great workout and plan to try and take Winston with my every other day for a nice early morning walk at the park. I want to work up to running again but have had such a big problem with my left knee. It seems to be getting worse and even long walks seem to kill it.

Back to Icing like I did in the old college days

By the way… Did you watch?

USA #1 GOLD against Japan #2 Bronze

This was such a great game to watch today, both teams played well and with compassion and respect for each other.  So proud of these girls, especially Lloyd and how she was benched for the first part of the tourney and came out to score the 2 winning goals proving that she could still perform. (Been there before)

I love all of the athletes on this team & can’t wait to see more to come from them in the future. I haven’t been this pumped about USA soccer since the 1999 team when they won the shoot out against China. This team just made millions of little girls around the world learn to dream big.

Go USA !!!