Workout I Did: Trying to Embrace the Winter That Won’t Quit

Yesterday Jenn dubbed this winter the winter that won’t quit, and ain’t that the truth? In my neck of the woods it’s a balmy 36 degrees today, which is a heat wave compared to the low teens and wind chills we’ve been getting. But I won’t bore you with the complaints about the weather (in March) because we all have them. What I will do is share a couple of Workouts I Did outside in the dead of miserable winter. I’m not one to enjoy the great outdoors unless it’s like 60 degrees or I’m skiing, but sometimes you gotta take one for the team of stir-crazy kiddos.

Workout I Did: The Sled Dog

For this workout you need a foot of snow, two kids, one sled and a street no one can drive down anyway.

They could ride all day. I could not pull all day.

Now, with your nearly 70 pounds of added resistance in the form of kidlets, run up and down the street as many times as you can until you can imitate a sled dog no more. I’d love to say that I was able to do this for like half an hour, but I made it probably a good 10 minutes until I was totally wiped out. I topped it off with some nice shoveling of the sidewalks and driveway while the kids jumped in my snow piles, and I had no guilt about skipping the gym that day.

Workout I Did: Puddle Jumping

Desperate to do something, anything, other than stay indoors another moment longer, we took advantage of the first reasonably warmish day to get out for a walk in the nearby Watchung Reservation in New Jersey. The kids had us at a nice leisurely pace as they had to stop to poke every puddle with their sticks, but we got some added resistance as we had to carry both of them over some of the puddles.

It wasn’t a workout that would make you sweat by any stretch of the imagination, but an hour-long walk outdoors was just what the doctor ordered. I mean, look at all that snow!

Have you braved the snow or the puddles for any outdoor workouts lately? Are you ready to be done complaining about winter? —Erin