One more step: exercise the whole family will enjoy

**You can improve your health one step at a time. Start here, start now. **

My best workout of the week involved the whole family and a really small soccer ball. 

Saturday started out overcast and cool and I had it in my head that it would be fun to take the kids to the track at the nearby high school for a workout. When Charlie was pretty little, Ryan and I used to take him to the track and one of us would run a couple laps while the other entertained him on the infield. We'd switch back and forth until Charlie let us know it was time to go. It was fun and we both got a great workout. Well, the fancy new track at the private girl's school near our house was locked up tight (another example of why we're crossing the state line to the land of public schools) so the track work wasn't going to happen. Luckily, there was a practice soccer field on the campus without a fence or a gate in sight.



Since the time we found ourselves at a park without a ball and Charlie had to shoot hoops with a stuffed bear, I've been very diligent about bringing our locker room with us everywhere. On this particular day, we had a tennis racket and tennis ball, baseball bat and baseball, and a soccer ball. We were set.

I played soccer on a couple city teams during graduate school and it was such amazing exercise. I have total respect for soccer players, they are incredible athletes. After just a couple all out sprints after the ball on this mini-field, I was wiped!

Charlie spent some time exploring the goals, so Ryan and I challenged each other up and down the field kicking and chasing the ball. (Don't ask who won. Let's just say I'm sure there will be a rematch.) It was fun and I felt like a kid playing and getting lost in the action.

The goals looked like regulation size, but the field was probably not even half the size of a normal field. It was more than big enough for me!

It was much hotter than I'd realized when I had the idea to set out for a family workout so we didn't last long. But that's the beauty of a high intensity workout - it can be short and sweet.



We ran & biked the kids over to the school, about a half-mile from our house. So all in all it was a good workout - about a mile and a half running and then 20 minutes or so of hard play.

Otherwise, I had a horrible week for exercise. I met none of my goals - not the 150 minutes of exercise, not the 10,000 steps (I'm not counting yet but I know I was not moving much) and my inactive time was far from zero. I have a litany of excuses - a book chapter deadline at work, a sick kid, a kid or two in bed with us most nights this week (translation: zero sleep), numerous house showings at inconvenient times, temperatures in the 90s...All fine excuses, maybe you have some of the same ones. Life gets in the way of best-laid plans. But because my best life, the one I strive for every day, is one that is healthy and fit, there just is no excuse. I will do a better job this week.