Take a Hike (and Burn Lots of Calories)

This weekend I took the Metro into DC to visit with Alexis of The Traveling Writer. It was a beautiful day and we decided it was a perfect opportunity to head to the park and go "hiking". To a hiker, it probably would have seemed more like walking, but to someone used to neighborhood walks and treadmill hills, it was a hike. Trust me when I say this.

The conversation was so great that we ended up walking for about two hours without even realizing how much time had passed. By the time we made our way out of the park (and up another REALLY steep hill), we were starving and our legs were screaming.

A little sweaty, but too hungry to care, and with legs getting stiffer by the second, we hopped on the Metro and headed to Dupont Circle for brunch at Kramerbooks & Afterwards. This place is ingenious! If you've never been there and are in the DC area, you should check it out. It's a bookstore and cafe under one roof, which seems pretty common place -- except that Kramers serves real meals, not just coffee, muffins and the odd sandwich or soup. Their Saturday brunch included a full menu of options (everything from French toast to omelets to sandwiches) to choose from. I can't vouch for all the other dishes, but I had the Tomato Avocado Cafe Benedicts which was delicious, and I didn't even feel bad eating the fried potatoes after all that hill-walking.

When we were finished eating, we couldn't help but hang around and browse the bookstore, which I'm sure is exactly what they expect their Cafe patrons will do. Considering the bookstore's relatively small size, the selection had more variety than I would have expected. It's the type of bookstore you could spend hours browsing in. Our legs weren't up for that, though, so we headed back, Alexis to do some reading and writing and me to make the trip back to Baltimore.

Despite the sore legs, it was a wonderful day and I was reminded just how much I love being active and enjoying nature. It's so much more fun then trudging along on the treadmill indoors (at least until it gets to be 90 degrees outside).

When I got back home, I plugged in my Gruve to see how the day worth of walking translated into calorie burn. I was shocked to see that in those two hours of hiking I burned about 500 calories and between 8AM and 6PM I had burned 1,000 calories! That's in contrast to the average 450 calories per day I burned the rest of the week. Talk about an Active April!

Speaking of which, if you're still interested in joining the Active April Challenge, you can set your goals and jump in any time. We even have a button now, thanks to Mel!