A Fit Summer Vacation on Nantucket

Nantucket is as close to home you can get and still really feel like you are on vacation.  It is one of my top five favorite places to visit.  Given my job, it’s important to stay fit while away for an entire week and Nantucket proved it to be easy.  Not drinking proved to be rather difficult.

There were 6 of us that rented the cutest cottage close to downtown.  We would be there for a total of 5 nights.  Three of which, 2 people would make dinner.  The first night was my turn to cook.  I decided to make chicken teriyaki kabobs, roasted sweet potatoes, and my mom’s secret broccoli slaw w/ ramen noodles.

I bought too many veggies so we put those in with the sweet potatoes as well.  It was fun to have a family dinner.  The sweet potatoes were a hit as well.

I wanted to enjoy myself so I made sure I stuck to my fitness plan.  On Wednesday morning, I went to Tom Holland’s bootcamp.  I did this instead of my regular strength training as prescribed by Joe Dowdell.  Apparently Joe and Tom know one another, which was a fun fitness connection for me.  These guys are two of the best in the business.  They know what they are talking about and are not afraid to speak their minds.

As I mentioned in my previous post about Nantucket, the bootcamp was a fun family activity that also was a killer calorie burning.  My heart rate monitor said I only burned 490 calories, but it also didn’t factor in the work my leg muscles had to do running in the sand!  I felt great afterwards.

We made our way to Nobadeer beach which had amazing waves.  I brought along my lunch in my new easylunchboxes.com tupperware.  Afterwards we visited the Cisco Brewery, which is my new favorite spot for apres-beach cocktails.

On Thursday, I woke up with Maggie and Roomie for my hardest day of intervals.  We went out pretty hard Wednesday night so I was proud of myself for just getting up at 9 am.  Our workout consisted of a 5 minute warm up, then 4 minutes of running fast, followed by 1 minute of walking.  Repeat 8 times.  My goal was to get my heart rate at 175 BPM for the entire 4 minutes.  Maggie ran faster than me but could not get above 170 BPM.  I was suprised (kind of).  She has run at least 2 marathons, where as I have not.  Her resting heart rate is lower than mine, so it makes sense that her 80% threshold would be lower.

If you follow my workouts and try to reach my heart rate level, remember that every person has their own target heart rate based on their level of fitness.  Running marathons has helped her body to run more efficiently.  She can run faster and farther on less energy which is a good thing if you want to run a marathon.  This is also an example of why people who only do cardio may find it hard to reach their “goal body weight.”  Your body gets good at doing the same thing.  This is why it’s important to mix things up to challenge your body.

That night, we paid The Chicken Box a visit.  My friend Lilly and Maggie danced on stage with band.  It was a lot of fun!

Friday morning, I went back to bootcamp with Maggie.  It helped having a buddy all week to get up with me to exercise.  Had I decided not to drink on vacation, I would not have been so religious about fitting in my exercise.  I wanted to enjoy my vacation and I like working out so it was pretty easy to do.  On Friday (the last day of bootcamp) Tom brings donuts from the Downey Flake, a local donut shop that is apparently adored by all.  Mags and I shared one.

The boys were golfing all day, so we decided to go for a nice bike ride which ended up being 18 miles!  My beach bike (with no gears) actually made it a nice ride.  The scenery was beautiful, solidifying my love for the island.

Needless to say, I earned my cocktails for Friday night.

Reader Question: Has your body become efficient in one area of exercise or do you always mix up your workouts?