Fitness Olympics

My extended family started a new fitness challenge in honor of the Summer Olympics.  This 6-week challenge incorporates different activities with medals awarded in each event.  Our first task was to create a flag to represent each individual in the games.  The catch was that everything on the flag had to represent something health-related.

My flag has a yellow background representing the happiness I feel when I make healthy choices.
The red flower represents courage and beauty.
The 6 blue lines represent my goal to drink at least 6 glasses of water per day.
The green ivy represents persistence needed to reach my healthy goals.  This inspiration came from the impossible-to-kill ivy that grows in our backyard.

Challenge #2 was to create an obstacle course.  Each person turned in their best time and medals were given accordingly. 

Our obstacle course started at the base of our backyard birdhouse.  Then our agility and ability to change directions was challenged by weaving around a series of cones. From there, we tested our leaping ability with a quick leap over a rope loop and then practiced quick, alternating foot movements through a series of rope circles.  A quick dash across a homemade balance beam and a dash to our "weeping angel" statue at the base of the tree completed the course.

Challenge #3 was my brain-child:  an event I call the Marathon Relay.  Each family member earned miles by running or walking.  Or, they could turn 10 minutes of exercise into a mile.  Miles were also earned through healthy habits: fruit or veggie servings, whole grain servings, dairy servings, cups of water.  Everyone's miles were added together with the gold medal course honoring our pioneer heritage and a symbolic trek from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Salt Lake City, Utah.

For the silver medal, I mapped the 500 mile distance between my hometown and a brother's city.  The bronze distance was the 280 miles or so between our hometown and the nearest "big city".  Everyone that participated earned the same medal.  I'm happy to say that we made our 1256 mile goal and earned the gold medal.

These challenges have been fun ways to get our whole family more involved in healthy habits and makes for a fun way to celebrate the Olympics. I can't wait to find out what the challenges for the next few weeks might be.