Maryland - The Beginning

Well, here I am. Posting from my new home in Columbia Maryland. It hasn't quite been a month since we left our home in Georgia but so much has happened since then. Living in a hotel for 2 weeks while we furiously tried to find a house. It's hard up here. Lost out on 3 houses before we got this one. I'm happy we were able to secure a place after so many failures... and just in time for Thanksgiving, sure as hell didn't want to spend that in a hotel.

We ended up in a pretty nice house and it's in Columbia... So many running trails here! It's definitely not Georgia. But it's not bad, I expected it to be very metropolitan but it's really not. There are alot more large office buildings and huge townhome complexes than I'm used to. I am also not used to having so many amenities around me. Just 2 minutes from my house are 2 shopping centers with pretty much everything I could want (DICKS SPORTING GOODS.) and there's also a huge mall in a nearby city that just blew my mind. One of the biggest malls I've seen, Casino, Medieval Times, Dave and Buster's, a super tasty brewery/restaurant, plus an Egyptian themed movie theater that looks like something you'd see in Vegas. I'm not used to stuff like this, haha. One day I took a trip to Annapolis because my bank was located there - it's very much like my hometown (that's Williamsburg, VA) in the sense that everything is very colonial and historic, except it's on the water and it's way harder to drive there. Yet despite all the "stuff" there are enough areas "without stuff" to appeal to this nature loving girl's heart. My neighborhood is quiet with plenty of mature trees, plus the network of trails throughout Columbia! This is a huge reason why I wanted to live here. I have also heard tell of Patapsco Valley State Park - supposedly it has 170+ miles of hiking trails. Yeah buddy. Only problem is it doesn't open till 9am. Unacceptable, I am out there by at least 7am in the summer. Then again, that was in South Carolina. Praying it doesn't get that hot here.

I already went out to explore the neighborhood trails a couple days ago, for my first run in over a month! The time off has been noticeable. It was not fast or long - somewhere in the 2 mile ballpark, really the purpose of it was just to make a comeback and to explore the trails. There are alot of turn offs that lead into various neighborhoods. I think I found the long segment that will allow me to go for longer runs, so when I go back out tomorrow I will take that path and see where it leads. Running and obstacle racing have made me quite adventurous. These days I don't worry about which path to take, I just kind of say "hey, let's go this way and see what's over here!" and use my memory and sense of direction to find my way back. I do always have my phone just in case of the highly likely event I do end up getting lost. My pepper spray is coming with me at all times. I don't know this area, all I know is it ain't Grovetown Georgia because there are definitely some shady looking characters around these parts.

Today I used my new gym room for my first strength session in over a month.

My beloved weights on the right side... desk is for water/phone/towel/etc, laptop for videos, red chair is mainly for dips, pull up bar, box full of jump ropes, ab wheel, resistance bands, etc. and a balance board! There's also a stability ball not pictured.

I finally have a closet where I can put all my fitness crap! In my old house it was split between several rooms, but now I have all my foam rollers, scale, BMI/BF meter, gym bag, the Camelbacks, pillow, yoga mat/block!

Today was largely a stability strength workout. Best to challenge my neuromuscular system after all the time off instead of trying to lift hard

10 Goblet squats
10 Push ups with feet on the ball
10 Overhead presses on ball
10 Skullcrushers on ball
3 Pullups
30s Plank
10 Burpees

Repeat x4

I also have a sweet space to display all my medals!

There's a big curtain rod that spans the length of our game room, so I used part of it for medal display! The medal rack has some of my more "challenging" pieces

Then on the shelf I have all my foam toys from Spartan Race, Warrior Dash fuzzy helmet, plus all the headbands and other non-medal trinkets I've collected! I have been wanting to display all this for awhile so I'm really happy I was finally able to get this set up.


So that's about where things stand right now. Getting settled in and ready to begin the next crazy adventure..