Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Cold Cabin Trip

I love love love visiting the cabin on Anderson Island, but boy can it be chilly on a snowy weekend in February!

Chris, Jet and I packed up Saturday and headed to the cabin (swinging by to visit Grandma in Des Moines on the way) and just returned this afternoon.

Jet and I in line for the ferry:


Upon arrival at the cabin we found that one of the old apple trees had fallen over, but it was still growing new limbs! Chris calls it a metaphor for Grandma: It had a big fall,just like Grandma, but wasn't ready to give up yet. So we left it there, reaching for the sky!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Friday, February 24, 2012

The Fitbit - Confirming I'm a Good Sleeper

I recently ordered a Fitbit Ultra from Amazon

For those of you that have known me for some time, you'll remember my addiction to my pedometer while training for the 3 Day a few years back.  I find that I exercise better and stick with it longer if I have some sort of competition going with myself.

So recently I signed up for the Seattle Rock and Roll 1/2 Marathon (Angie had signed up for it so I figured what they heck, I should too....Thanks Angie!).  But after signing up for it I realized I haven't walked let alone jogged 13.1 miles in quite some time.  Now don't get me wrong, I haven't been just sitting around on the couch, but well..... 13.1 is a long ways.  So, enter the need to get some training in.  I did some googling (I just love using the term) and decided upon the Fitbit Ultra for this training period.

The Fitbit comes with the standard Pedometer functionality (tracking steps) but also includes an altimeter (for tracking flights of stairs, or in my case elevation changes on my death marches).  It wirelessly connects to a docking station attached to your computer and updates your stats whenever you're within 15 feet.  Then you can log into your Fitbit Dashboard and track your progress.  Here is an example of daily stats (yesterday's results):


You can also sync your Fitbit account with your Myfitnesspal account (which I've used for some time to track my eating habits) to give you the whole picture.

However, my favorite part of the Fitbit so far is the sleep tracking.  You wear a wristband to bed with the device hooked to it to track your sleep patterns.  The next morning it spits out how effective your sleep patterns are, how many times you wake up during the night, what time you went to bed, how long it took you to fall asleep and when you woke up.


Turns out I'm a darn good sleeper!  At least I've got that going for me.

If you are a Fitbit user feel free to add me as a friend.  My username is remjones.
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