Snowboarding at Mammoth Mountain

We just got back from another long weekend at Mammoth Mountain, skiing (hubby) and snowboarding (me). We took along daughter #2 and one of hubby's business associates. The weather was great, the skiing/riding was great, the company was great.

One of the best things about skiing or snowboarding, besides the good exercise and leg-strength building, is the sheer enjoyment of it all. Just spending the entire day outdoors in the clean, crisp air, surrounded by the fragrant pines and listening to the swoosh of skis over snow is enough to renew your spirits and help get everything else into perspective.

It's too easy to work, work, work, without even looking up at the sky, day after day. That's why it's so important to purposely schedule outdoor activities so we'll take time out to get outside and reconnect with who we are--physical beings and not just minds encased in bodies.

With best wishes for a long and healthy life,

The Jogging Grandma

Fit After Fifty

I never really worried about fitness until I turned fifty. Even then, it wasn't foremost in my mind.

I had the good fortune of enjoying an excellent Physical Education program at my High School. We had one hour of gym class every morning, five days a week, plus an hour of voluntary after-school sports, Monday through Thursday. We always practiced a different sport each month of the school year. My Southern California church youth group organized activities such as snow skiing and water skiing that I probably wouldn't have had a chance to participate in otherwise. My friend Pauli had horses we rode, and our family did a lot of camping and hiking. In college, I fulfilled my P.E. requirements with gymnastics, volleyball and sailing! So I had always been fairly fit.

Then it got down to the nitty-gritty of life. Of course, you get a lot of exercise carrying around toddlers and lugging baskets of wet laundry out to the clothesline (no dryer for me where I raised my children). And what about that wonderful up-and-down motion of bending down to pick up each piece of laundry, then reaching up to hang it on the line ? And surely ironing an average of two dress shirts per day must help develop the triceps!

But no, I was never really concerned about fitness for all those childraising years. I had too many other things on my mind.

With best wishes for a long and healthy life,

The Jogging Grandma