When surfing the web, I make it a point to be gullible. I believe everything I see and read. This is especially important when I'm reading my friends’ social media posts. They are my friends, so if they posted it, it's obviously true. I also know that images are the proof that verifies that status is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Here's an example from my life. Everything in this story is 100% accurate. I was recently at the Telluride Ski Resort in Colorado. This is a ski-resort town that offers hiking and mountain biking in the summer. It also has an amazing free gondola that all residents and visitors can use to travel around the town. It was an absolutely amazing summer trip, and I had two perfect exercise days that made my heart sing.
I hiked this beautiful vista above the Telluride gondola.
It was the highest altitude I had hiked in over 10 years.
The sun was shining.
And I was with my love, who knows how to make me laugh!
The next day we had adventure #2. We spent over three hours on an epic mountain bike ride with our rentals from Bootdoctors. Look at those beautiful aspens changing to yellow and orange in the background! Early September is the time to come to Telluride see the aspens glow!
When we got back to the Telluride Mountain Village, we enjoyed an amazing dinner with friends at the New Sheridan Chop House. It was a two perfect days of exercise. Or was it?
Below, I'll tell you the real scoop of everything that happened behind the scenes.
First, let's talk about you.
What makes a perfect day of exercise for you?
Do you enjoy activities with friends? Or time to yourself?
Are you happier when you feel like you have worked out very hard? Or are you refreshed when you have completed what your body needs to thrive?
Do you have to feel like you are doing "official" exercises? Or do you enjoy thinking outside of the box?
Does your day need to go perfectly for it to be a perfect day?
Here's the inside scoop on my "perfect" day of exercise. First of all, I didn't make it to the top of this hill.
I am missing 30% of my lung function, so hiking at 9,000 feet made breathing much more difficult. I had to go very slow on the hike, and I got light-headed before I made it to the top of the hill.
I had to turn around.
I was wearing the wrong shoes that weren't the best support for this type of hike. Heck, I wasn't even wearing hiking clothes or a sports bra. We just started walking and ended up on a hike.
The dry climate made my nose bleed.
My hubby has rheumatoid arthritis. He is definitely an old guy rockin' but his feet are fragile and his titanium knees require him to go slowly and carefully while walking downhill. If we hike more than a couple of miles his feet will ache for days. We are some of the slowest hiking buddies because I'm slow going uphill; and he's slow going down.
For the bike ride, I rented a pedal-assisted eBike. This enabled me to do the ride, but the rental cost was twice as much as a regular bike. Also, eBikes don't handle as nicely as a regular bike on the downhills.
The gondola operators had to stop the whole lift so that we could get the 55-pound bike onto the gondola.
At the vista, we received an urgent message and had to spend 20 minutes on our phones working through the issue.
I forgot to pack my padded bike shorts, which meant the bike seat was...well, let's just leave it at that.
On the bike ride down, my fibromyalgia flared in my arms, and I lost control of my bike several times.
I bruised my knee.
At one point, I wiped tears.
We got back to our hotel late and I didn't have time to shower before dinner. On both days, I did less than half the exercise I was able to do a couple of years ago. How were these two days still perfect exercise days? They were perfect because I actually got out and did it. I honored what my body could and could not do. I've also learned how to mellow out and enjoy each moment more fully without letting the bumps on the trail diminish the fact that I was still having an amazing experience.
When you see a friend's "perfect day" remind yourself that there is most certainly always more to the story.
I want to hear your stories!
I would love to hear your "perfectly imperfect" exercise stories. When have you made the best of it? Leave them in the comments below, or email with your story (and optional pictures) and I'll occasionally future stories to my email list. Don't worry about grammar, we'll make sure you shine!
Email me at: beawesome@couchtoactive.com
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