This was a great weekend! Very productive and VERY active. My favorite kind of weekend.
Saturday morning started with the Gorilla Challenge in downtown Atlanta. I think if they were to give an award to the team that did the WORST, we would win.
Team Baby Got Hairy Back
We started with the wrong clues and after running 2 1/2 miles to get to the wrong clue, then another mile to get to the second wrong clue, we jumped on a Marta bus which took us back to the beginning of the race. When we saw teams finishing, we quit. Yep…quitters. We decided that it would be much more fun to go have a few beers and wings at Taco Mac so we quit. The good news is, I burned almost 1000 calories with all the running around we did. So, the wings and beer at Taco Mac didn’t count! Yeah! Let’s just say the Gorilla Challenge was a big flop for our team.
Saturday night, we decided to go visit my sister and her family. My sister and I decided at our Weight Watchers meeting on Friday morning that we are going to do the Disney Princess Half-Marathon in February together. This will be my sisters first half-marathon and we are going to make a weekend out of it. I am working on making her a training schedule but in the meantime, she wanted to see how far a mile was around the park she has across the street.
We started off walking and at about 3/4 mile, her legs started itching badly! I remember when I had gone through times of inactivity, mine would itch really bad the first few times I would walk/run and then it would subside. Hearing her say she had the same problem, I knew it must be common and I wanted to figure out why.
A little research on the internet brought up some interesting results. As it turns out, the itching is due to what is UNDER the skin, not the skin itself. There are millions of tiny capillaries inside the muscles which expand rapidly because they need more blood when we are exercising. When we are inactive for a long period of time, the capillaries collapse because they don’t need as much blood. The itching is caused when they are collapsed and suddenly need to expand (we start exercising) rapidly. This rapid expansion causes nearby nerves to send a message to the brain which is interpreted as an itch. After time, the capillaries learn to stay open to allow more blood in. After a few workout sessions, the itching goes away because the capillaries stay open.
Bottom line…keep exercising regularly so you won’t have the itch!
Have you ever experienced itching when you first start working out after a period of NOT working out?
Let’s all “fight the itch” this week and work out at least 5 times. Who will join me?
