We are back from our trip to Hawaii. I wish we could have stayed longer. It was such a nice break from the cold and dark. However, it did warm up quite a bit while we were gone – into the 40s!!. Most of the snow has melted and the river that I like to ski and run on is not even accessible. I wish we were heading right into spring from this point, but I have been in Alaska way too long and I know that this is not the end of winter. In fact, the temperatures are heading back into the 20s later this week. At least we are gaining daylight. That helps.
While in Maui, I did get to go running on this nice boardwalk along the beach.
I was able to get in 3 runs and on the other days, I went on morning walks. My runs consisted of:
5 x (1 min run/1.5 min walk ) x 2 days
5 x (1.5 min run/1.5 min walk) x 1 day
These runs consisted of a 10-minute walk warm-up and a longer walk along the beach cool down. It doesn’t seem like a lot right now but I am hoping an easy approach will lead to more running later.
I did not do any strengthening and very little stretching. Hey! I was in Hawaii!! I did get plenty of exercise walking all over the place, playing in the pool with the grandkids, snorkeling, and all of that fun stuff. But, I am ready to get back to running and building that running base. I continued to have elevated heart rates according to my Garmin, but I felt fine even in the heat. That Garmin blog post is coming soon.
Maui
Our trip to Maui was great. There is nothing better than having time with family in my opinion. It just makes me want to spend even more time with them. Other than that, I just wanted to soak up the sun and lay on the beach but we did get out and do a few other things as well.
We got in late and went to bed pretty soon after arriving. Early morning loud crashes of waves against the sea wall woke me up. When I looked out the window, I saw this awesome view!
That day we went shopping for a bathing suit. I didn’t have one and they are hard to find in the wintertime in Alaska. They weren’t that much easier to find in Maui either as it turned out. That is a whole story that we just won’t relive right now. But, what was pretty awesome where we were shopping was the oldest Banyan Tree in Hawaii. It was planted In Lahaina in 1873 and spans 6ft tall over an entire city block. You can find a little more information here. When we walked through it at night, the birds were so loud that we couldn’t hear each other but it was a really neat thing to experience.
There were so many amazing trees that we came across but I will only post a couple.
And flowers everywhere. They are so beautiful and brightly colored. I love them!!
And the sunsets were spectacular. We watched every single sunset – even the last day on the way to the airport. Matt found a little park where the kids could play and the rest of us could just relax and watch the sunset.
But the best part was being with family and watching the kids have fun at the beach. Being from Alaska, they are not accustomed to being in the water but by the end of the week, they had adjusted quite well, except for Charlie. She says the waves are “really scary”. But she had lots of fun playing in the sand. Tylor was riding the waves on a boogie board and Maddy was diving to the bottom of the pool when previously she wouldn’t put her head under water.
We did some snorkeling (I don’t have photos) and although we did see turtles, I wasn’t able to get close enough to get a good picture. We saw lots of whales, again, they were too far to get good quality photos. I did capture these guys though….There are lots of chickens running around all over the place. I love it! And there seem to be just as many theories of how they got there and why there are proliferating. There are also many feral cats. There is a ton of information on the web if interested.
These are just some of the vacation highlights. There was so much more and I just want to get on a plane and go back right now!! But instead, here I am in Alaska running in the snow and ice instead of along the beach and in the sun 😒
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