Weather, wind, and back-up plans

Today was a bit crazy in the weather department.  A lovely winter storm headed up through the East coast last night and into today. It was a lovely storm.  Here in my part of the state we only got rain and tons of wind though I know in other places plenty of snow came through as well.  In fact, I was supposed to go snowboarding today but because of the storm we ended up cancelling.  I'm a little disappointed because I was really looking forward to it.  I was also planning on using that as my workout for the day.

Lucky for me, one of the first things you learn as a teacher, is to always have a back-up plan, and back-up plan to that plan as well.  So, even though I was planning on boarding, I had other options for a workout. At first I thought I would walk the dogs on the beach.  After all, I did the woods yesterday so it would be a nice change of pace.  So I packed up the pups and we drove to the beach.  Now, I had seen the wind advisory but after going out and doing errands I chose to ignore it.  It really didn't seem the bad out, I swear!  I should've known better when I got to our regular parking lot at the beach and it was completely flooded out. Quite a feat considering it was low tide.  In hind-sight, I should've turned the car around and gone home right then, but I did not.  Instead I headed down the causeway into the other parking lot.  When we first got out, it was fine as we walked down the sidewalk behind a Dunkin Donuts.  Then we turned the corner and the wind hit me like a ton of bricks.  I've been to the beach during hurricanes before and I would say this wind was about the equivalent of that. The dogs loved it, I was not a fan.  Walking against the wind was hard enough, but the pelting rain was really what killed it.  (On a side note, there really is nothing like the beach in the middle of a raging storm.  If you haven't experienced it and you get the chance, go do it.)

Fairly soon after arrival I realized I was being ridiculous, so I cut my losses and turned back.  Once home I hit-up my back-up back-up.  What I'm about to tell you may surprise you, but I swear to you, if you have one, use it.  My back-up, my stand-by for whenever I can't go out and run is Just Dance on Xbox Kinect.  (Now is also a good time to add that I don't belong to a gym.) If you have a Kinect and you're just letting it sit there, you are missing out.  Last year for Christmas I got Just Dance 3 and I really enjoyed it.  I'm most definitely not a professional dancer and I have a blast playing this game.  I upgraded to 4 this fall, but either one works for a workout.  There are some features I like better about 3 and some I like better about 4, so I can't really rate one higher than the other.  What I can do is tell you that you will get a full body workout playing this game.  Both versions have a Just Sweat mode, as well as a free dance mode.  I usually do the Sweat mode first and then switch to free dance just to have a bit of fun.  I really liked the way the Sweat mode in 3 was set up in terms of randomizing songs and choosing your workouts. However, in 4, you actually go through a timed workout with aerobic breaks in between each song, which I really find helpful.  My biggest problem with the Sweat mode in 4 is that the songs seem to repeat a lot. There are a ton of songs in the game but I seem to constantly get the same 4 or 5 songs during my workout.  If I could change one thing about this game it would be the option to randomize your songs.  All in all though, this is a fun back-up plan whenever you're feeling stuck or just not in workout mode.  Now, for a wrap-up, I'm going to leave you with a little video of the wind earlier today.