Well - I guess we are all back now to our "real lives" - sigh. I was pleased to discover that I didn't gain any weight while I was away. Actually SHOCKED would be a better word for it. The Folk School feeds us well; three meals a day like clockwork - dessert with both lunch AND dinner - and each of the meals were more calories than I normally eat in a sitting. OTOH - they were, for the most part, balanced meals with vegetables and protein - and the dining hall IS at the bottom of a hill and so we are forced to walk (albeit very slowly) after each meal. When I was there in January I did gain 5 pounds - and so I expected the same thing this time too.
Katie and I walked a lot more this time around. We went out on "morning walk" each day - which was only about a mile or so - but still! Also, the studio was farther away from the dorm this time - although still not super far. It is amazing how much time you have for walking when you don't have to commute to and from work each day. I would happily walk for 1/2 an hour each morning and evening in place of my commute. It seemed like I was walking up hill all week though. By Thursday my calves were really feeling it. It wasn't just me - Katie said she was feeling it in her calves too. We walked down (and therefore up) the BIG hill to the blacksmith shop at least three times... picture runestone hill, only imagine the path doing a three layer switchback and ending with the steep incline - although the last incline piece was shorter than our Pennsic hill. However, once you are at the top of this hill it doesn't flatten out into the merchant area, you end up with several more smaller hills. So - in the end - even though we were averaging 8-10 hours a day in the studio I mananged to walk about 10,000 steps a day - none of it aerobic, but all of it leaving me huffing and puffing.
This is another reason I thought I gained weight - starting about Wednesday I found myself struggling with breathing everytime I did anything. I thought it was because of the extra weight I put on. However, on Thursday the skinniest girl in the class asked if anyone else was having chest tightness. Someone else said that the goldenrod was in rare form - but we also speculated that it could be the gas that we were breathing in all week. Katie and I both had congestion starting on Tuesday night - that was helped significantly by Sudafed - so we think it was actually allergies not gas poisoning.
It was SO beautiful there! I took some good pictures. I hope to get them uploaded to Smugmug in the next day or two. The weather was perfect. We were told on Sunday that rain would be moving in on Tuesday - but we got just a few after dark showers that night - and then we were back to perfect, clear, beautiful weather.
I have returned home with some new health resolutions - but I will get into them tomorrow.
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