Chimpanzee(s) Riding on a Segway

Happy Sunday Fitness and Froyo readers! I hope you all are having a restful and productive day, if such a thing is possible! :)

I have been pretty productive thus far and hope to continue that for the rest of the day as well! I woke up around 8:00 this morning, which to me is considered sleeping in, and promptly began reading "The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" for a while before heading over to the bank to get some money and then making the trek over to Gregory Gym to swim some laps for the first time in a while. I may have mentioned before that I really like to have my own lane of the pool, but of course I will share when necessary. About halfway through my swim two people asked if they could share with me and I said yes, but they proved to be problematic people to share a lane with so I ended up moving to a different lane after a few laps of sharing with them. I walked back to SRD where I completed this arm/total body workout:

My arms are definitely feeling the burn, which I love! I am hoping to squeeze in a 20-minute treadmill workout, inspired by PBFingers of course, after I work the desk today and before I head to church, but we'll see if that actually ends up happening!

Lunch

Lunch today was delicious, and the first step on my mission to start eating more salads and vegetables. I am not a huge salad lover but I am trying to eat them more often in the hope that I will really start to enjoy them. I have definitely found a winning combination: grilled chicken with balsamic vinaigrette dressing, and I hope to expand my taste buds a little bit more this semester! The only problem with salads is the fact that they don't hold me over for very long but I can always eat something on the side!

Segway Tour

Now for the title of my post. Last night three of my friends and I went on a Segway Tour of Austin. Yes, Austin offers Segway tours. We took the tour through SegCity. I bet you thought only mall cops rode them, huh? Well, after last night, my friends and I are total pros and we collectively agreed that the next time there is a Groupon or LivingSocial deal for Segway Tours, we are definitely purchasing them again - it was so worth it!

We started out by learning the basics of riding the Segway - how to balance, how to make it go, and most importantly, how to stop. The Segway actually works to balance you forward and backward, so it is not difficult, but it can seem a little challenging when you are first learning and trying it out for the first time! Luckily, we were put through a "test" of going forward, backward, stopping, turning, and doing the "butt stop," necessary just in case we needed to make any sudden stops! Don't worry, none were needed on this tour!

During Segway training - would you say that I was a little nervous?

Natalie and Katie sporting the super fashionable helmets!

Katie balancing

Butt stop!

There is no "on" button that you press to make it go, you simply lean forward into the handlebars, 'closing the gap' between you and the handlebars. To make it stop, you open the gap and remain in a balanced position to make the segway remain in the same place, such as at a stoplight of some kind. When we hit the capitol we were given some freedom with speed and doing some zig-zag movements and we just had the best time! I always see people on segway tours when I am running, and it was fun to actually be one of the people on the segway! We even ran into two other segway tours while we were on our journey. It was an absolute blast and I definitely recommend one if you are ever in a city that offers the tours - we got magnificent views of Austin at night!