Summertime Madness: Headstands, Pushups And More…

Do you guys ever plan for summer like it’s your last 6 months on earth and you absolutely must complete the bucket list of your life in those few months of greenery and sunshine?

You enthusiastically agree to every vague travel plan, look up twelve different types of workouts, bookmark the three cute bikini tops you saw online and promise yourself you’ll hit the running trails as soon as it gets a little warmer outside. Then before you know it, it’s already June and you’ve bought the three bikini tops but you’re still carrying around the seven pounds of holiday weight you promised yourself you’ll lose and you’ve only hiked twice instead of climbing every mountain and fording every stream. (5 points to Gryffindor if you recognised that reference).

That above, is a 100% me and hopefully I’m not alone. But it’s not June yet so I’m optimistic.

I plan for summer at the beginning of winter. That’s how I get through winter…by compiling a list of everything I failed to do the past summer and making an overly ambitious plan for the next. Inner Kat is running 5 miles after work during the week. She can do 15 pull ups and has ripped deltoids. On Saturdays she’s hiking in the Cascades and on Sundays she’s buying organic squash from Ballard farmer’s market. Fridays are reserved for checking out funky bars with the cute guy she bumped into, while looking for Voltaire’s Candide at Lionheart Bookstores. Real Kat lets out a derisive snort.

If. Only.

Last summer, I only did three easy hikes and two tiny bike trails. I still tell people, ‘Oh yeah I spend my summers outdoors, biking and hiking’ because that’s what inner Kat did. Real Kat did just enough to make that statement not-quite-a-lie. Hah.

So after serious self-reflection, I did exactly the same thing again – made a super ambitious summer plan 2019.

Because I’ve always dreamt of having arms like Jennifer Garner (seriously, she’s ripped), I’ve embarked on a push up challenge. Yay, fun! The goal is to get to 50 pushups in 30 days and so far I’m on day 8 and can do 12 pushups (the last two with a lot of groaning). I’ll probably check back in with an update on how I’m doing, later in the month when I’ve roped in some friend to take badass pictures of me working out.

I’m also trying to learn how to do a yoga headstand. I saw an Instagram post of a young woman doing it, and I just went, ‘That. I want to be able do that.’ So here I am, faithfully trying to practice every day and failing miserably. I’m okay with that though. It takes months or years to master difficult yoga poses and for now I’m focusing on building upper body strength and figuring out how to distribute my body’s weight so I don’t break my neck. I learnt how to do the Shoulder Stand after months of trying with my yoga instructor holding me up by my ankles. So I’m fairly confident I’ll get this one too. 

And then finally, the last goal this year is to work my way up to climbing Mt Si. The most popular hike, an 8mile roundtrip with a 3150 feet elevation gain, it’s not considered an easy one. So, last weekend I started with what I thought would be an easy hike – Margaret’s Way, in the Issaquah Alps.  It was supposed to be 5.5 miles and only 1500 ft of elevation gain, but no one told me you have to go up and down the first mountain and then climb up the second one to get to any sort of view. The view was not too bad and because of some random detours, it ended up being close to 8 miles but at least I got myself started. Here’s a picture of what it looks like from the top. 

So there you have it, some of the things I want to accomplish by the end of summer. I did briefly consider learning how to pole dance and try aerial yoga but I ended up choosing the push up challenge over it. Let me know what you thought of my goals, if it inspired you to try any of them, or if you have any suggestions of stuff I can try, the weirder the better!

And because hyper-linking words in the article remind me of confusing tabloid websites, here are links to some of the cool stuff I’ve mentioned above.

Lionheart Bookstore with the singing proprietor

Jennifer Garner’s amazing arms

The pushup challenge I picked

Nathalie Emmanuel’s (aka Missandei from Game of Thrones) headstand

What the Mt Si hike looks like

What Margaret’s Way officially looks like 

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