a teeny river & A GIANT TREE

20 July 2013

Kailey and I have been zooming along on our health and fitness kick the past several weeks. Morning runs, P90x and Insanity ab workouts, and a diet with limited sugar has been the basis of our little program up to the present. The next phase is to incorporate a plyo/sprinting circuit to our morning runs and focus on a variety of P90x and Insanity workouts. I will let you know of our progress after the implementation phase has begun. For our workout today…but also for kicks and giggles, we loaded up our little backpacks with our swimming gear and homework and set off on a “trail run” to Granchester Meadows. We must of been a sight to see running with our school backpacks cinched up tight to our bodies running through the streets and trails of Cambridge. With every movement our backpacks would bounce up and down against our backs spilling water out of our water bottles and making it quite hard to focus on our run. I was grateful when we reached Granchester Meadows and I was able to dive into the cool water of the River Cam ridding my body of all the heat that had built up from our run.

I didn’t have my camera with me to take a picture of the tree, and so I snapped one with my iPad. I thought it was creative to include the tree as well as the ipad in my photo, two key elements of the story…

Granchester is such a peaceful place to relax and enjoy a nice swim. It has easily become one of my favorite places in Cambridge. We like to go to a place in the river where there is a giant tree overlooking the water with layers of branches and several rope swings to jump and swing off of. As we were about to get out of the water Kailey somehow convinced me to jump off the very top of the tree. I had jumped out of lower parts of the tree several times before, but never from the highest point. The climb up was quite difficult, but getting the courage to actually jump was the real challenge… Luckily there was an audience on the beach counting down for me, so it was either jump now or look like a coward still standing there when the count was up and still have to jump later. Once my feet left the tree I was fine and I realized that it really was not as high as I though it was. I had watched several people from that point before me, but obviously I did not trust their judgement too much or I wouldn’t of had such a difficult time doing it myself. I realized that I love the outdoors and I kind of love doing crazy things in the outdoors. What is next? Who knows… Right now Kailey and I are planning a week long cycling trip along the entire west coast of Ireland…I think that will turn out pretty extreme.