Super Saturday: Kanapaha Park and Why Walking is Miserable

Good evening everyone! Hope everyones weekend is off to a great start. Today, I enjoyed a much needed and relaxing day with my boys. After the worlds most stressful week (no fun to pull 10 hour days at work, on your feet, when your 33 weeks pregnant) and a family health scare, I feel exhausted. It was a gorgeous day in Florida. Not a cloud in sight and the temperature was just right for frolicking in the park. We have a wonderful park just up the road with walking trails, playground, and large field areas with shady trees and picnic tables perfect for a day of activity and a picnic lunch. For my local Gainesville crowd, check out Kanapaha Park. This is becoming hands down one of our favorite spots. It's convenient to home and has something for everyone. You can easily rack up a mile on the jogging trail and more if you continue for several laps. The park is also very fitness focused and you'll see several stations with signage and playground type equipment, such as metal parallel bars, recommending different resistance training exercises, cardio intervals, and stretches. We packed up the baby and headed over for a walk and some lunch.

Walking is becoming HARD. It's so weird. I can handle other types of workouts but walking is killing me. It is putting so much pressure on my pelvic floor and aggravates my symphysis pubis pain. Plus it throws me into some awful Braxton Hicks contractions. We only made it a mile at a snails pace today before I needed to call it quits. There is a 2 mile walk we like to do around our neighborhood and I'm having to shave off a half to a full mile. I took Connor out for a stroll after one of my shorter days at work this week and needed to call Andrew halfway into it...I was so out of breath and uncomfortable that I was starting to get nervous I wasn't going to make it home! And I wasn't exactly power walking...not even close. I'm trying to be understanding and patient with my body but it's super frustrating to feel like I can't even WALK. I'm really having to slow down this trimester and keep gently reminding myself these last few weeks are about remaining gently mobile and healthy and not trying to smash any fitness goals. Take your own advice Catie! I just love to move and be active and push myself to achieve fitness goals so it's incredibly hard for me to slow it down. I spent some time reframing my mindset today. I'm still going to try to do some light activity most days. If that's only 15 minutes, so be it. I'm going to shorten my walks and focus more on some gentle prenatal yoga and stretching. Thankfully, many of the prenatal fitness DVDs I've been trying and reviewing are gentle and don't seem to aggravate my discomfort like walking does...so weird!

As for lunch, we packed up some PB sandwiches on whole grain bread and brought along lots of water and fruit. Connor enjoyed his sandwich with a side of raisins and a cheese stick. I love packing lunch for work and play. I'd so much rather bring something healthy from home than have to grab a fast fix on the fly when you're starving and more apt to make poor choices. 

So tell me... what are some favs in your picnic basket? Do you have any family weekend rituals that revolve around outdoor or fitness related activities?