Do not set yourself on fire!

September Blog Challenge Day 13 What is your proudest health or fitness related accomplishment?

Fire dancing. In my case, with poi.

Yes, that is me in the picture (this was 2004-ish) and yes, I did make that.

Per Home of Poi - the electronic center of the Poi universe:

What is Poi? - 'Poi' is the Maori word for 'ball' on a cord. Poi is a form of juggling where the balls are swung around the body. Poi can take many shapes and forms from LED lighted, Glow, Fabric, Sock and Fire.

I practiced incessantly for a year before I ever lit up and it gave me the sexiest shoulders I have ever had in my life. I also gained a great deal of agility, balance, and grace (not to say I'm the most graceful person ever, but I used to be among the least). Poi forced me to exercise muscles in my left wrist that I had allowed to atrophy significantly due to a long bout of tendonitis (I was stupid and never went to PT) and gave me amazing upper body flexibility.

I performed en fuego as many times as I could and it NEVER got old. It was fun, beautiful, and intensely special to me. While I don't think I've swung a set of poi (or flags or a staff) in three or four years at least and the burn scars are all faded, it still remains one of the activities that I am happiest to be able to say that I have done.

I will however say that I'm also pretty freaking jazzed about...

******
My run today: C25K week 8 day 2
3.12 miles at 12:09 per mile.

and 3.1 miles just happens to equal...

Eff Yeah!

My legs felt great but man were my lungs tired!! Slight side stitch at 1.5 miles but I managed to slow down enough to get rid of it. All of the effort and discomfort I am experiencing at this point is happening above my waistline. Having water is helping immensely but I need to find a better bottle before I knock a tooth out. I still had enough at the end to let out with a full out run for the last 30 seconds of the run portion and I would have run for longer if I had looked at the time earlier.

Currently between warmup and cool down I'm walking about half a mile of my course, so I will be increasing my course so that I am covering a full 5K in addition to the warm up/cool down (about 3.6mi all told probably).

And since I'm only about a week away from finishing... my goal for my first few runs after C25K is to figure out what pace I can reasonably run without walk breaks for an entire 5K.