My first 5k - Rachael's Paws and Purrs

I did it! I did my very first 5k! 

Ok I definitely didn't run the whole thing, most people didn't...but I completed a 5k! 

Pre-race smile in the chilly morning. Still felt fairly confident at this point!

And we're off! Runners first, run/walker combos in the middle (that was us) and walkers in the back.

Speaking of walkers...who's excited for The Walking Dead to come back on in October?! This girl!

The course was on the Blackwater Creek Trail in downtown Lynchburg. It was a beautiful day with no humidity and cool temperatures on this gorgeous trail hiding just next to the busy downtown life.

"Quick, act like you're running hardcore!" 

The bridge over the water was so pretty! Here's another "action" shot. That's my husband and a friend of mine in the picture. 

We ran a handful of times but none of us were fully prepared to run the entire thing. We power walked the rest of the time. Most importantly we had a great time! It was so much fun and all the pups that came had a great time too. 

Most of the finishers waiting for the last walkers.

Giving out trophies and medals to human winners and dog winners! Not to mention they had great prizes for the raffle portion!

Here's us as we were leaving. I'd like to title this photo "We finished!" but I think "Look at this mondo bag of fruit we got!" fits better. They had tons of food leftover and just told us to take it...so we did! We've got enough bananas and apples to last a couple weeks! Runner up title: "Oh joy the sun is right in my eyes."

And I'll call this one "We did it! Now let's celebrate with some Chic-Fil-A."

Up next...the Ashland Berry Farm Pumpkin Run that benefits the Hanover Safe Place! Saturday, October 5th in Hanover, Virginia. Come join me!! 

I'm thinking to keep myself motivated and to have a new goal always ready, that signing up for one 5k a month might be a good idea. Or insane? I haven't decided yet. 

We're deciding on our November 5k now. It's between the Glowstick 5k on Sunday, November 3rd in Fredericksburg, Bottom to Tap 5k on Saturday, November 9th in Richmond or the Children of Our Hearts 5k on Saturday, November 9th in Lynchburg. 

I couldn't find any nearby 5ks for December, though. Too cold?

Tell me about your first 5k! If you've never done one, what's holding you back? If I can do it, so can you! Know of any good Richmond/central Virginia 5ks? What's the most fun 5k to do?

Till next time,

Catherine

Walking Dead Workout-Season 1

You may remember when I started The Walking Dead Workout when I wrote about it HERE. My husband and I have finally made it into Season 2 so I wanted to give you guys a re-cap of Season 1. This way you can do the workout without having to pause every 5 seconds in the show. Trust me, it's annoying. 

If you haven't heard of The Walking Dead Workout, it's basically like one of those movie/TV show drinking games, but instead of taking shots, you do different exercises. It's really a lot of fun, especially if you already enjoy the show! This gave us a good excuse to re-watch all of the episodes! 

As you can see, the episodes vary a lot! Also, I'm sure there are things that I missed but this is pretty much right.

Here's another quick breakdown if you're looking for more targeted workouts.

Season 1:
Episode 1-Arms, legs, abs
Episode 2-Abs
Episode 3-Legs/Easy
Episode 4-Abs and arms
Episode 5-Arms/Easy
Episode 6-Easy

Each episode that goes by we keep asking more detailed questions about each thing. We sort of took our own liberties with the differences.

-If someone kills a walker, we need to pretty much see the walker get killed for it to count. If they're simply shooting but you never see specific bodies, it doesn't count.

-For the guns being drawn, again, we need to see it or they need to have the intent to shoot something, not just the character walking around casually holding his/her gun.

-Human blood being spilled is pretty self explanatory. If you see human blood then you do 5 lunges.

-Someone referring to "the living" has been difficult. In Episode 5 someone (Rick, I think) actually says "The Living." But other than that it's been hard to decide if telling a story (Dale telling Andrea about his wife passing from cancer, Rick talking to Morgan over the radio, etc) counts or not. What do you think?

-With someone crying, it has to be a pretty obvious cry with tears and ugly cry-faces too. Farrah from Teen Mom or Kim Kardashian anyone? I shouldn't laugh...but I do. I don't watch their shows but I've seen enough to know about their awful crying faces! But really, no one looks cute when they cry.

-If someone screams, it can't be Lori yelling at Carl, it has to be someone screaming out of shock or fear. Also can't just be someone yelling to get someone's attention.

-There have only been two episodes involving human death in Season 1. The first was when the herd came through the quarry camp and killed several members of the group and the next being the CDC doctor and Jacqui. The herd scene is difficult because we only counted two characters that we knew (Ed and Amy. Amy gets you twice because she's later killed as a walker!) but one other human who was dead but not recognized as a character. It gets worse when you realize there are at least 5 wrapped human bodies in the pick up truck to be buried when it's all said and done. Hmm.

There you have it...The Walking Dead Workout-Season 1 in a nutshell. Ok that's a pretty big nutshell (Austin Powers joke).

Have at it and enjoy! It's a fun workout that varies quite a bit and it's a good excuse to re-watch the show!

Click HERE to check out Season 2!

Have you tried The Walking Dead Workout? Would you?

Till next time,
Catherine

The Walking Dead Workout

You may have seen this picture floating around Pinterest recently. I actually hadn't seen anything like this before except the drinking games. My husband and I watch The Walking Dead so I figured I'd pin it and we'd try it out some day.

Today was that day. We decided against going to the gym because we didn't have enough time so we queued up Season 1-Episode 2 (We figured episode 1 wouldn't have much of a workout) on Netflix. Let me just tell you...we worked! Mostly we were laughing so hard at ourselves! My husband isn't the best at sit ups but ironically I am. So the whole time we were laughing and goofing off. 

If you can't read the picture very well, here's what the requirements are:

Someone kills a walker - 5 sit ups

Someone draws a gun - 5 push ups

Human blood is spilled - 5 lunges

Someone refers to "the living" - 20 jumping jacks

Someone cries - 3 squats

Someone screams - 3 burpees

Someone dies - 1 minute plank

Yikes. Do you realize how many walkers are killed in every episode? A lot. 

In this episode we did:

115 sit ups 

20 push ups

3 squats

5 lunges

Ok so that doesn't sound like a lot but it adds up! Not to mention, we were laughing our tails off! I'm sure we may have missed a few things but the more we do it the more we'll remember what to look out for. 

If you're planning on trying this workout, do it! It's especially fun with a friend. We specified a few things to make it a little easier. For it to count, we only add visible walker kills, not just when you see someone shooting a sniper rifle and assuming they killed one. We also said that it must be human blood that is spilled because you'd be doing an equal amount of lunges as crunches. Maybe that'll be more of an advanced version! And someone has to scream, not just gasp or yell. It has to be a scream as if a walker is coming at them or they're watching someone get attacked.

We've mostly done cardio lately so we're pretty sure our abs are going to HURT tomorrow! Oh well...it'll be a good hurt! I think pairing this with cardio will be a great start to getting our butts back into shape!

Click HERE for Season 1, click HERE for Season 2, and click HERE for Season 3!

What's your favorite way to work out? How do you motivate yourself? 

Till next time,

Catherine