7th Training Session.. well sort of...

So last night’s exercise session got cancelled due to rain.

Well, sort of.

The weather cleared up right before 7:00 so I went ahead and headed over to the park just in case someone showed up. No one did, of course though. I mean, it had been raining all afternoon.

But the skies were clear so I decided to go for a run.

I had the entire trail to myself. It was so peaceful and rejuvenating. I had a great run. 

I haven’t been running in over a month (maybe 2). My knee started bothering me during running so I backed off a bit so I wouldn’t cause any permanent injuries. But I felt so good last night that I decided to go for it.

It only started hurting just a little bit right towards the end of my run, so all in all it was a great run. Here are some pictures of the trail I took along the way.

Hope to see you all there tonight.

6th Training Session...

We had another training session tonight. This was our sixth one. We had a blast. Good conversation and great people. It's nice getting to know you guys outside of class. :]

When I first got to Big Tree Park, I realized the park closed at sunset which is usually around 8pm. I was afraid our cars would get locked in the park while we were walking. So we cut it short and only walked for 45 minutes. But we kept a quick pace to try and get a good workout in anyways.

I was so relieved to see the gates still open when we got back to the park.

The Cross Seminole trail was beautiful. Lined with tall trees. I felt like I was walking through a jungle. There was a cool breeze. Was the perfect night for a walk.

We're walking again tomorrow night. Same time, same place. You're all welcome. Bring the kids if that'll help. The trail is wide enough for strollers if you have 'em.

Here's our crew from tonight:

From the left:
Me (Cara), Angie, Diana, Polly & Judi
(Judi's husband, Howard "Hawk" was behind the camera. Thanks, Hawk!)

I wanted to mention that Fran has been walking on her own. She can't walk that late, but she's been steady at it. Go Fran!

And Nancy has been steady at her new Wii Fit. I'm very envious of her. Those things look like so much fun. So glad to hear you're kicking it up a notch with the Wii, Nancy!

3rd & 4th Exercise Sessions...

This walking thing is so much fun. Especially when there are really great people to share the walk with. It's fun getting to know new people.

On Tuesday night, we didn't have a huge turn out, but we sure had fun. We even ran into some WW team members who had decided to run the trail before we got there (they were on their way back in while we were just starting out walking).

Here is a picture of us just after we finished walking:

From the left: Pat, Cara, David and Angie

Pat's daughter was the one taking the picture. She walked with us.

Great fun!

Then tonight was even more fun. You won't believe this but we had a cow chase us. Well, not literally, but she did walk by us (on her side of the fence, of course) for a little while. She was mooing at us the whole way. Here she is:

See in that last picture, he was actually chasing after us?

Here's the most precious part of the walk. We saw a calf actually nursing. It was so amazing!

All in all, we had a blast. Here's our crew for tonight:

From the left: Angie, David, Diana, & Barb. (I'm taking the picture this time (Cara), didn't want you to think your co-captain wasn't there.)

We'll be getting together again tomorrow night. Same place, same time. Hope to see you all there. You don't know how much fun you're missing out on. =D

3rd Exercise Session...

We had so much fun last week. Though the turnout was small, we had great conversations and lot of laughs. And the weather wasn't really that bad. It gets a little cooler in the evenings so that was a great help.

This week we'll be training 3 times: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. We'll meet at 7:15 each night behind Panera Bread on Lake Mary Blvd on the other side of I-4.


Click here for driving directions to Panera.

There's a beautiful tree-lined trail called the Seminole Wekiva Trail that goes behind Panera and winds up all the way down at 436 in Altamonte Springs. Although, we definitely won't be going down that far. We'll stick to a 5K route (3.1 miles).

If you don't think you can walk that far, don't worry, we have walkers from every stage so there will always be someone who can walk slower with you if needed.

Email me if you think you will be coming so we'll keep and eye out for you.

I'll leave you with a beautiful picture of the start of the trail we'll be on. To whet your appetite for walking through beautiful country:

1st Exercise Session Was a Blast!!

We had a great training session tonight. There were 9 of us altogether including 2 youngsters. It was so great getting together with everyone. We had a blast. Ned even came out. It was awesome!

We all walked a 5K route. The youngsters did a little running just to prove how young they are. We all wished we could just bottle their energy.

So our next training session is Wednesday night (29th). Hope to see you all there. Come join the fun.

By the way, have you guys all downloaded the Weight Watchers training plan? If not, it's not too late. It's easy to do, too. Just go to http://www.teamweightwatchers.com follow the instructions below:

• Click on the Get Started button
• Scroll down and click on the green bar that says "Get My Free Online Training Plan"
• In the pop up window, enter your member number, click "Yes, I agree." and click "Submit"
• At the next screen, you'll need to choose either the walking plan or the running plan. Click the "Get" button next to the plan you wish to download.
• On the next screen, enter your email address then click on "Create Account"
• Fill out the information on the next screen then click "Agree and Create Account"
• The next screen has credit card information on it, but you don't have to enter anything because these training plans are free, simply click "Purchase"
• Click "Get Started"

That's it. Simple as that.

Hope to see you all at our Wednesday night training session!

Our first exercise session

It's time we started training. Our first training session will be this Tuesday the 28th. We'll start with an evening exercise time and see how it goes.

We'll meet at the corner of Sun Drive and Greenwood Blvd at 6:30. Here are directions on how to get there from our Weight Watchers meeting building.

• Leave the WW parking lot and turn left towards Lake Mary Blvd.
• Turn right onto Lake Mary Blvd
• Turn left onto Greenwood Blvd (just after the 2nd foot bridge overpass)
  
• Just past Sun Drive, there's a 2 story office building on the right and just behind the building is a parking lot entrance where you'll see a large sign that says "The Crossings".
• Turn into the parking lot (just before The Crossing sign). You'll see a walking trail just past the sign and parking lot.
• Meet there at 6:30 and we'll walk down the trail and back.

Here's a link to the map so you can type in your home address and get driving directions: Click here.

We'll plan on walking for an hour.

It might be best to break into groups according to our pace. We can have a beginner walkers group, an advanced walkers group and a runners group. We'll all leave out together and come back according how quick our paces are.

The path we'll be taking is 3 miles, which is 5K so this should be a great kick off session. If you don't think you can go 3 miles, that's fine, you can just go as far as you think you can and call it a victory.

Your welcome to bring other walking/running buddies (non-Weight Watchers members). Everyone is welcome. The more people who come, the more who will get into shape. So the more the merrier.

Hope to see you there.

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to the Lake Mary Saturday Morning Successes blog.

To those of you who might not know us, we're David and Cara Showers. We have been going to Ned's 8am class for two years, come May 12th. We've thoroughly enjoyed Ned's antics as I'm sure you all have. And we're so excited to be your co-captains for this new Weight Watchers challenge.

The reason we've started this blog is for a way to communicate with each other as we progress through the new Weight Watchers' Momentum Walk-It Challenge.

Here's where we will provide links to all the sign up pages online as well as announcements of when and where our training sessions will be. We're going to try and coordinate as many walking/running training sessions as we can. We've got a pretty large group signed up so far. There are over 30 of us. So I'm sure not everyone will be able to come to all of the training sessions, but we'll try and provide flexible locations and hours to accommodate for such a large and diverse group.

We'll send email announcements as well as posting it here of when our first training session will be.

But to get us all started on the same page, we all need to go to the Team Weight Watchers website and download your training plan. Here's the link to sign up. Scroll down to the orange number 2 and click on the "Get My Free Training Program" button:




Your online training program comes equipped with a suite of helpful training tools, including:

• Training calendar
• Daily training tip emails
• Mileage log
• Body fat, heart rate, and hydration calculators
• Customized reports to analyze and track your training

Ned has suggested that we all participate in the same 5K event. The one he chose is the 19th Annual July 4th Watermelon 5K. This link has all the details about the event. To sign up, click here. Or if you'd rather print out the registration and mail it in, you can click here (you'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to print the registration form).

This event will be on Saturday morning on July 4th. Weight Watchers will be closed that day, so we should all be available, right?

We understand if there are some of you who have already made holiday plans for that weekend and won't be able to attend. That's okay, though, just pick another 5K to participate in. You can find other 5K event on Active.com (click here) as well as the Track Shack website (click here). It doesn't matter where you sign up, as long as you do.

Well, that's enough to get us all started. If you have any questions, just leave a comment below (click on the word COMMENTS below). We'll be happy to answer any questions you have.

To Team!