Welcome to the active lifestyle blog of Ralph and Elizabeth (i.e. RE-active). We are active people who make every effort to incorporate fitness into our busy daily lives. Our goal with this blog is to share our fitness activities and healthy lifestyle, both at home and when we travel. We hope our stories will inspire you to stay active, live healthy and explore new places.
Is Zwift Ride Worth It?
Yup, for sure. It’s a great #workout experience @Zwift @Wahoo Fitness #fitness #bicycle
Indoor Bike Ride Make it Fun
Quick Bleacher Workout
Sometimes you can’t get a full workout in, here is a quick workout you can do at the sports field.
Bike Tour of San Francisco
Elizabeth and I had an amazing time doing a bike tour of San Francisco. We started at the Bay Bridge, worked our way along the bay, went under the Golden Gate Bridge, and stopped for lunch at Baker Beach.
Most of this can be accomplished on bike path and it all feels pretty safe. The Presidio Tunnel Top Park is a major highlight, it’s so well done.
Here is the link to my Strava map https://strava.app.link/hFi1GfOjULb
This is a great ride, give it a try.
May 16 Is Bike Wherever Day
Next Thursday, May 16th is Bike to Wherever Day sponsored locally by Bike East Bay a wonderful bike advocacy organization. This use to be Bike to Work Day but with the pandemic and the rise of work from home it became Bike Wherever Day. Here are 4 things you can do. Go to the website https://bikeeastbay.org/btwd/ and 1. Register to ride on the 16th. 2. Find the Energizer Stations in your area and make that part of the day. Past years I have gotten a T-Shirt, tote bag, light set, a bell, burritos, coffee, and a cool bike pin.
3. Donate and joint East Bay Bikes, I have been a member for several years. #bikeeastbay #pleasantonfitnessclub #bicycle If you don’t live in the east bay, search for the regional bike advocacy group in your area. Most communities have something going on the week of May 13. Some places are still calling it Bike to Work Day so you can search that.
4. Tell your friends, take out the kids, get your spouse out there.
We have three Energizer Stations in Pleasanton to hit. My fav is the one on Iron Horse Trail in San Ramon at Bollinger. That’s the breakfast burrito hook up.
Explore Nashville Run With Elizabeth
Nashville, what a great city. This morning’s run was about seeing various areas of the city and ending up at a local coffee place for beverages and a little food. Part two of the adventure was walking back to the hotel.
I researched a few coffee places and I saw Vanderbilt University was in the area so that gave me my two points of interest I was looking for.
Vanderbilt did not disappoint. The school is 150 years old and very pretty. We had a great time running through exploring and ended up using more milage than expected in the campus.
From there we set off to find Honest Coffee Roasters on Lea Ave. The City is fairly easy to navigate so it wasn’t hard to find. A coffee, a juice, and an avocado toast hit the spot. The people were great there.
We took a different street back on the walk back to the hotel and saw a whole bunch of other cool stuff.
I’m going to call this Nashville exploration mission a success.
Here are our Strava maps
#explore @nashville
Turn Any Ordinary Run Into an Adventure Run
Sometimes I like to spice up a run with some strength elements. I have been refining this combination of exercises for a while and I now think its’ ready to share. Here is the idea – find a large park, or running path if you can, and incorporate strength stations within the run. You can obviously also do this with a walk as well if you like. I have a park 2.5 miles away that I ran to this morning. At this park there is a path that is 1.2 miles around. I have seven stops in the loop and I do the loop two times and then run home. Today the total milage was 7.8 miles.
Here are the stations below
- Push-up’s, do 20 and run to the next station
- Step-ups on a rock, 20 per leg
- Walking Lunge, 20 per leg
- Leg Lifts, 20
- Squat Jumps, 20
- Pull-up’s on the playground, 10
- Dips, 20
Here is the link to the YouTube video where I demonstrated the whole loop.
There is no magic to the order, it’s just the way it laid out on the loop I ran. Be creative and swap in other things you like for stuff you don’t. I obviously left out burpees because I really don’t like them. This is a great workout if you are training for a Tough Mudder, Spartan, or DEKA event this coming season. Get out there, challenge yourself and have some fun.
I am not sure if this will link to Strava but I am giving it a shot. https://www.strava.com/activities/11142600624
Above is my new cover art for my Fitness Anywhere, YouTube series. Let me know what you think.
The Key to Fitness Success – Consistency
There is only one way to stay fit for a long period of time, and that is you have to be day in and day out consistent. It gets even more important as you get older because any gap in workout time, the body is much less forgiving than when you were younger and it’s even harder to get back on track. One of the ways I have been able to maintain a level of consistency is to create what I think are fun challenges to shake things up.
Last Saturday it was on-and-off rainy and I was scheduled to ride 50 miles on my bike. The rain is not a problem because I have a very nice Stage studio cycle at home but the thought of riding 2 hours, 20 minutes on a stationary bike, in the garage was a bit daunting. So instead of compromising the time or distance down, I thought about how I could make it a fun new challenge. It had to be something I had not done before.
As I am brainstorming with myself on what what I could do, I remembered I am training for the Murph Challenge this Memorial Day weekend. Then boom, it all came together. Combine the long ride with Murph Challenge Training and now I have my workout. Hit the link and you can read all about the Murph Challenge, an awesome Memorial Day tradition.
For this workout I am going to do five sets of 10 Pull-ups, 20 Push-ups, and 30 Squats. I’ll do one set to start the workout and one to end, and three about every 40 minutes give or take depending on the bike interval pattern. I did a little video about halfway through the workout, you can see it here.
All total I did 50 Pull-ups, 100 Push-ups, 150 Squats and rode 51 miles and I had a blast doing it. I used those numbers for strength because that’s half of a Murph. Getting off the bike for those few minutes to do the strength set was a great break in the rhythm. It felt great balancing the bike with some super functional body weight strength training. The whole thing took 2 hours 55 minutes and MyZone says I burned 1,954 calories which is really close to what the bike said as well.
The point is, if you are going to have a fitness program that lasts a lifetime, you have to find the tricks that will help you stay consistent. It all starts with creating a weekly routine that is easily repeatable. For a lot of people it’s having a buddy or a group really helps, and for others it’s setting weekly and monthly goals. Find what works for you and stay with it. I am happy to help anyone who may want some help setting up a weekly routine that is easily repeatable. My email is Ralph@ralphrajs.com.
2,500 of Anything is A Lot
On this blog, in the past I have wrote about the motivational virtues of the Apple Watch health rings and all the badges and awards that go along with it. Well, this weekend I hit, what I think, is a pretty big milestone. Hit 2,500 times I closed my move ring on my watch. That’s about 6 years, 8 months worth of daily closures. It takes 500 calories of movement to close that ring. I figure I logged about 2.86 million calories expended in total. Follow my math…
My watch tells me that almost two years worth, 623 times, I hit 400% of my move goal and 1,718 times I double my move goal. So even if my math is off a little, it’s a lot of calories.
So what’s the point? The point is we all need those little things to either shoot for, give us a reason to stay on track, or a little brag point once we hit it. In the Apple watch rings there are several things to help you with all of the above. The features are easy to access and requires absolutely no additional work from you aside from the actual moving around standpoint.
I am proud of this milestone because what it says about my consistency. As we move through our forties and into our fifties working to stay healthy and vibrant, consistency is the key to success. Now that I am in my sixties I feel like I am cashing in on all the work from the previous couple decades. The Apple watch rings didn’t necessarily change my behavior but they did create a paper trail that can can celebrated.
If you have an Apple watch take a look at the “Go For It” section in the rings app. There you will see what’s coming up for you to celebrate. Don’t forget about the monthly challenges also in the app. They are a great little mini motivator that changes every month. Read more about closing your rings here
Plan an Event
Today I completed my second half marathon of the year and I had a great time. Last month I did the race with Elizabeth and our daughter Hannah and today with our son Davis.
What I find very interesting is all the positive things that happen just for signing up for an event. First, it keeps you accountable to a time based goal. More important, it gives you an opportunity to invite others to either do the event with you or come along for support. When we did the Huntington Beach Half I invited our family members to participate, and six people signed up for and did the 5K. For all six this was their very first event. We had such a great time and had I not invited them it would have never happened.
This week I did something fun and I signed upfor a 50 mile gravel race in Arkansas. I’ve never done one and I don’t even have a gravel bike but I have plenty of time and I ride about 450 miles per month.
There is something very energizing about trying something new. That is my thought for you, consider signing up for an event this year. There are so many great things to do, especially in the spring and fall. Invite a buddy to do it with you- the world is out there waiting.
