Staying Active while in Quarantine

Disclaimer: I received a $50 Amazon gift card to review FitnessBank as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review, find, and write race reviews!

Hey everyone! I hope you all have been staying safe and healthy while we’re in these crazed pandemic times. I haven’t felt super motivated to blog, as you can tell by my lack of posts in the last 6 months, but you know what I have been motivated to do?

Run.

About 6 weeks ago, California issued a mandate that all non-essential employees work from home. I don’t like working from home. I did when I had a 45 minutes commute, but when I lived 15 minutes away, I preferred to go into the office because it gave me a routine. Nowadays, I wake up 10 minutes before my workday, check my email to see what events have been cancelled, and then start work. I barely left my bedroom and when I did, it was to use restroom or eat. My mental state deteriorated pretty quickly.

Luckily, I started participating in the Des Linden Spring Step Challenge hosted by FitnessBank and it’s provided some motivation for me to go out and just walk around even if it’s for 20-30 minutes.

A little bit about Fitness Bank:

It’s essentially a fitness tracker that tracks your steps through your phone, FitBit, Apple Health, or Garmin. It’s called Fitness Bank because it also happens to be a bank. You can deposit some money into your bank account and depending on how active you are step wise that month, you are get a certain APY. So this is incentive to be more active so your APY is higher (up to 2.5%).

The other aspect of Fitness Bank is that it partners with different organizations to hold step challenges. I did one a Fitness bank challenge with some BibRave Pros and we all competed to win shoes. I uhh didn’t win. I can tell you that the BibRave Pros are a competitive bunch and within a day, I was kicked down several spots. Haha. I mean, some people were logging in steps on their treadmill in the wee hours of the night when their kids were asleep. I didn’t stand a chance.

The Des Linden Spring Step Challenge started on April 1st and ends May 31st and it’s been intense to see how many steps people log on average. This particular challenge averages your steps whereas the one I did a few months ago was a total step count. And the incentive for joining in on this challenge? I mean, aside from the fact that it’s a motivation factor to stay active in this pandemic, it’s also a chance to win a free pair of Brooks shoes and a year’s worth of races. 🙂 That’s right. Even if you join now, you still have a chance. I believe the app will retroactively pull all your steps from the last 30 days so if you’re a step fiend, give it a shot. You do not at all have to provide any of your banking information in order to use this app. You can use it just to check your daily steps and see how many people you can pass.

Even if you’re not one of the top 3, you still have a chance to win just by showing up. 🙂

Since joining the app, I’ve definitely been more active and like I said above, I’ve upped my running game. Since starting the challenge, I’ve gone out and logged 30+ miles every week and just over a week ago, I was invited to solo run a 50k (on road because all the trails are closed) along with 2 other friends and like an absurd person, I went out and finished it. I logged over 70k steps that day. LOL. This past weekend, I went out and did a Virtual Spartan race. I did the beast because well if you don’t go all out, was it even worth it? 😛

And if running isn’t your thing, social media is full of home workouts right now. If you don’t know where to go, I’ve included some suggestions below just as a starting point. I was not paid to list them below. They’re just ones that I’ve come across and have done and found them useful. 🙂

I have a friend who created a 30 day oblique challenge and after 8 days, you’ll wish that you were already on day 30. LOL. She also has a 30 day balance challenge if that’s more up your alley. I met a Youtube Fitness Instructor at a Spin class a few months ago and she also has some great workouts. I also started taking yoga classes through youtube. Yoga with Adrienne is very good for beginners and I am most definitely a beginner. Vuori has a lot of IG live workouts. They’re a San Diego based apparel brand so I have to support my local small businesses. 🙂

Anyway, I hope that everyone continues to stay safe and if you want to check in on me, check out my social media handles: Once_Upon_a_Run on both Twitter and IG. I’m more active on IG and post my daily ramblings there. 🙂