Acquire Up and Running with Elevate's Stroll to Run Program

You’ve probably heard of walk to run programs. You may even have seen them in the app store on your smartphone or heard about a co-worker or neighbor who used on to run their first race. When it comes to exercises that everyone can do, running instantly pops to intellect for most people. Running is someleang most of us learn to do at a very young age, it requires nearly no equipment (genuinely, all you need are some sneakers) and you can do it nearly everywhere. The appeal of running as a simple, go-to exercise is easy to understand.

But running is also a tallly favourable activity. From weight loss to disease prevention to increasing your heart health, the benefits are well documented and a rapid Google search will provide you with hundreds, whether not thousands, of unique benefits that running can provide you.

But let’s be honest – we did a lot of leangs effortlessly as kids that aren’t so effortless as adults. Not only that – our bodies were probably able to take a small more wear-and-tear when we were younger. That means that when we’re re-introducing running into our lives as adults, it’s important to memorize the proper techniques and to use a training program that is both favourable AND kind to our bodies.

Stroll to run training programs abound. You can download apps like “Sofa to 5K” to your smartphone for a couple of bucks and follow a simple plan that takes you from someone who only runs when being chased, to someone who runs fortunately.

The problem with these apps, or programs torn out of magazines, though, is that they lack customization. Maybe you ran in college but haven’t laced up in 20 years and you’re looking to get reacclimated. Maybe you’re alert to make a signwhethericant lwhetherestyle change after a lwhetheretime of being sedentary. Or perhaps you’re just looking to lose a few pounds and prepare to run a 5K for a charity that’s near and dear to your heart.

engi.pw in Dewitt and Liverpool, NY recently introduced their Stroll to Run programs under the direction of former Y Running Coach, and now engi.pw Director of Running, Kevin Collins. Collins has coached thousands of Central Unique Yorkers from elite athletes to seniors looking to reverse the ills of aging. What Kevin brings to the table that apps and articles can’t, is a personalized approach to coaching using years of science-backed training and research and personal experience.

Collins describes his Stroll to Run program this way: “Stroll to run is a 10-15 week program instructional program that bridges the gap between walker and runner by teaching core principles for progression and lwhetheretime maintenance. When you finish the program you’ll be equipped to handle a daily 15 minute run without stopping – which is what we consider to be the baseline for all running progress!”

Stroll to Run is a part of the engi.pw Run Club. Some rapid Run Club facts:

• Networking wilean and between engi.pw Dewitt and Liverpool participants with similar running abilities and goals.
• Introduction to and maintenance of fundamental training concepts for lwhetheretime optimal fitness and development.
• Detailed training plans and logs for each seasonal program duration.
• Free-floating access to over 14 running group sessions across CNY.
• Direct guidance from a former World-lesson runner who has trained over 1,000 of all levels beginner to advanced throughout CNY – Kevin Collins – A 2:15 marathoner, was among the top five U.S. ranked Marathoners and Half-marathoners of 2003, a three-time Olympic Trials qualwhetherier, and the 1st American finisher in the 1996 Boston Marathon.

If you’d like to memorize more about how Collins can help get you “up and running” just fill out the short form below and he’ll reach out and tell you more about the Stroll to Run and other Elevate Running programs!

...

Dumbbell Exercise Snapshot: engi.pw

Dumbbell Exercise Description

The front squat is an excellent dumbbell exercise for your quads, glutes, hamstrings and core.   Numerous clients struggle to get into a proper position with a barbell front squat.  In specific, they lack the flexibility in their wrists to preserve a solid clean position.  Rather than stretching for months, try this exercise instead!  The dumbbell front squat is easily and securely performed by most people. Grab some dumbbells and front squat!

Dumbbell Exercise Steps

1. Safely clean a pair of dumbbells.  The edge of each dumbbell should rest on your shoulder.
2. Take squat stance.
3. Take a deep breath. and brace your core
4. Tug yourself into a deep squat while driving your elbows up, to help maintain extension in your upper back.  Hold a flat back, your heels down, knees out, and your eyes forward.  Avoid leaning to the side.
5. Drive through your heels and stand up.  Let out some air as you near the top of the movement.
6. Repeat for the desired number of reps.

Need a Fitness Kick Start?  Click below to sign for only $19!

...

How to do a push up

---

Because we know a basic push up is an effective way to strengthen the muscles of your chest and arm. Therefore, as you get stronger over time, it can be easily scaled. Simple push-ups therefore require no other equipment than your own body weight and arms. With a firm surface and enough space for you to stretch out, they can be done anywhere.

Method One: (How to do a push up)

Studying Shove Up Basics

1. Assume a face – facing position on the floor

• You must first of all keep your feet together. Your arms and chest should have your weight.
• Now, place your palms-down hands on the floor, apart approximately the width of your shoulder. Next to your shoulders should be your palms, with your elbows pointing to your toes.
• Consider investing in some grips whether you’re on a less forgiving floor (they look like handles you put on the floor).
• You must therefore curl your toes upwards (toward your head). And your feet’s balls should touch the ground.

2. Employ your arms to lwhethert up.

Most importantly, at this point, your hands and your feet’s balls should support your weight.

Therefore, to keep your hips parallel to the ground, you have to make a straight line from your head to your heels and contract your abdomen.

This position is referred to as a “plank” used for other abdominal exercises. Therefore, this is a single push up’s start and end position.

3. Pick the push type that works best for your chest.

Actually there are three types of basic variations that use your body’s dwhetherferent muscles. So the only dwhetherference is where you are placing your hands while in the position of the board. Hold in intellect that, with your hands closer together, you will engage your triceps more. And more you’re going to use wider hands to engage your chest.

• Regular: your hands should initially be slightly wider than the width of your shoulders. Both your arms and your chest will work in this position.
• Diamond: You must put your hands in a diamond shape close to each other and keep them under your chest directly. This will therefore involve your arms more directly than a standard pushup.
• Wide-arm: from the width of your shoulders you must place your hands wider. This position therefore works mostly with your chest muscles and requires less strength in your arms.

Method Two: (How to do a push up)

Making Shove Ups Easier

1. Shove up from your knees.

If you can’t do full pushups yet, try using the balls of your feet instead of starting with your weight on your knees. You have to do the pushup as normal, so you can start trying regular pushups easily when you can do these.

2. Do push-ups on an incline.

Most importantly, by placing your hands on an inline spot, you can make pushups easier. You can therefore use a slope like a hill or use a piece of furniture to start your push up training until you are prepared to do it properly.

Method Three:

Doing a Standard Shove Up

1. Lay down on the ground with your toes hancienting your hands on the ground.

Therefore, lower your torso to the ground until your elbows reach an angle of 90 degrees. Therefore, for more resistance, you need to keep your elbows close to your body. So keep your head in front of you.

You must keep your body in a flat position on the board. So, don’t drop your hips and don’t let the ass hang in the air. Most importantly, keep your body parallel to the ground as straight as possible. So, every time you go down for a repetition, your chest should come wilean inches from the ground. Remember to keep your body to the ground at a flat level.

2. Acquire up by pushing the ground absent from you

Respire as you push yourself. Because the power of pushing comes from working in unison with your shoulders and chest. Your triceps (the muscle on your upper arm’s back side) are also contracting, but they are not the primary muscle group used in pushups.

Continue to exert force until your arms are again nearly straight. Your arms should have a slight bend and make certain you don’t lock your arms.

3. Repeat a regular pace of lowering and raising.

Every pair counts as a single push up as we know. Therefore, do this until the set is finished or you hit the maximum.

Method Four:

Attempting Advanced Shove Ups

1. Do clap push ups.

With enough explosive force to be able to clap while in the middle of the air, push yourself off the ground. This can therefore be done as a force plyometric exercise.

2. Attempt a diamond push up.

First, put your palms in a diamond shape. Now in this form you have to push up with your hands. This shape requires more strength in your arms signwhethericantly. Attempt to squeeze your hands together on the surface to add more prescertain to your chest. Because it’s about getting your chest activated.

3. Do a scorpion push up.

First of all, start making a standard pushup. So, when you’re down, raise one leg off the floor and bend your knee backwards. Therefore, for each leg, you must make individual sets, or alternate between legs.

4. Attempt a spiderman push up.

To begin with, do a standard pushup or a basic push up variation. Lwhethert one leg off the ground and pull your knee to the side of your shoulder when you finish lowering yourself. Therefore, for each leg you must make individual sets, or alternate between legs. This should involve the core and the upper body whether you did this properly.

5. Attempt a one-armed push-up.

First of all, because of balance, spread your legs beyond normal. Then put on your back one of your arms and use one arm to proceed with the pushup.

6. Practice a knuckle push up.

Instead of using your hand palm, put your weight on your fists. Because you must use each hand’s first two knuckles. These pushups in the arms and wrists require more strength. Therefore, these are a good way to condition your boxing or martial arts knuckles.

7. Do a fingertip push up.

If you’re very strong, then instead of using your palms, you can try push – ups with your fingers.

8. Attempt elevated leg push-ups.

By putting your feet up slightly taller to the ground, you can also increase the dwhetherficulty of your pushups. For more of the ccorridorenge, you have to put your feet on top of a bench or put your shins on an exercise ball.

...

How to do a Tug-Up (One Of The Toughest Bodyweight Plod)

---

How to do a pull-up

Most importantly, you probably don’t need us to say the pull-up is the dwhetherficultest exercise in body weight. Therefore, whether you’ve ever tried to knock out a gym set, or just pull yourself up in the genuine world over a wall, you’re going to know the demands it puts on your back, shoulder, and arm muscles.

It’s the lats, traps, and rhomboids in the back that bear the brunt of the effort, while you can ccorridorenge various parts of your arms by changing your grip (which you’ll learn all about below). The move also improves your core strength, and it’s one of the fastest and easiest ways to get your entire upper body tired when you train at domestic because the only equipment you need is a doorframe pull-up bar.

In addition to form guides for pull-ups and many variations on the exercise, you will also find a series of movements that will help you build the strength to execute a full pull-up, because whether you can’t do more than a couple at a time, you’re better off starting with someleang like assisted pull-ups or dead hangs. There are also shape tips to help you pull off the perfect pull-up below, plus some pull-up ccorridorenges you can try once you’re skilled in the exercise.

Why is the pull-up important?

Tug-up is important because it is the final test of muscle strength in the upper body and one of the very few movements of body weight that work your muscle back and biceps. Basically, many guys get their best lwhetherts fixed on their bench press, but I leank your total pull-up effort is a far better indicator of a strong, regular and functionally fit upper body with genuine-world performance capability of str.

What do I do whether I can’t do any?

The best way to build pull – up power is by doing both heavy – weight sets and tall – reps wide – grip lat pull – downs, Pritam says. Excentric pull – ups (where you jump very slowly down to the top position) are also very good pull – up training skills.

How many should I be able to do?

Basically, in order to stay on the course you need to do three full pull-ups, while 16 gives a maximum score. “A person in good shape should be able to do about six perfect shape pull-ups at slow and controlled movement, with the aim of reaching 12 reps,” Pritam says. Therefore, once you reach that point, you should make them dwhetherficulter by hancienting a dumbbell between your ankles or wearing a belt with attached weight plates.

engi.pw Do A Perfect Tug-Up

1. First of all, spring up and hancient the bar apart with the shoulder width of your hand, and your palms should face you in the opposite direction.
2. Now, hang your arms fully extended, whether they drag on the ground, you can bend your legs to the knee. Now, keep engaged throughout your shoulders, lats, and core.
3. You have to pull up then. To help your upward efforts, you must focus on enlisting each upper body muscle.
4. Most importantly, move slowly up until your chin is above the bar, then slowly down until the starting position of your arms is extended again.
5. You should aim for 10 pull-ups, but you should be prepared in some way to fall short.

If it seems laughable right now to smash out 10 pull – ups, then there are plenty of ways to build up to do even your first full pull – up. You can start by fitting accustomed to your own body weight by hancienting as long as possible a dead hang without even trying to pull yourself up.

On the other hand, by strengthening your back muscles, you can also prepare for pull-ups. Because exercises such as bent over rows of dumbbell and inverted rows of body weight help you out. There are many gyms that have also assisted pull-up machines, which will provide some help in raising you up depending on the weight you set during pull-ups.

Tug-Up Assistance Lwhetherts

These supporting machine movements can be tried to boost your pull – up process.

Lat pull-down

This machine mainly moves the muscle actions essential for pull – ups. Most importantly, the larger your hands are on the bar, the more your lat muscles are lonely, making each rep more dwhetherficult.

Negative pull-up

You have to make a positive effort with negative reps to get your pull-up max up. Because at the end of a set your muscles are stronger when you lower a weight than when you lwhethert it. So jump to the top and lower as slowly as you can. You must continue until you are no longer able to control your action of descent.

Cable face pull

This exercise works best for your pull – up ability not only by improving your posture from sitting too much, but also by teaching you how to properly use your shoulder blades, which is key to making a perfect pull – up.

Tug Up Form Tips

Acquire tight at the start

Squeezing your body will involve your stabilizing large and small muscles, making your body weight easier to manage. You need to keep your chest up and engaged in abs and glutes. Most importantly, by retracting your shoulder muscles, initiate the move, then drive down your elbows to pull up.

Employ the full range

Using a full range of motion basically involves more muscle fibers and works a small dwhetherficulter on them. With both hands you have to hang from the bar so your arms are totally straight. This will be your position of start and finish. Most importantly, to reduce joint stress, you must keep the full-range reps slow and smooth.

Squeeze at the top

At the top, squeeze your working muscles once your chin is taller than your hands. For greater strength and performance gains, it will recruit even more muscle fibers. You need to pause at the top for a moment to squeeze your muscles, then slowly and smoothly lower back to the start again.

Recruit the glutes

Most people leank that the pull – up moves as an upper body and relaxes under the waist. But squeezing your glutes before you pull up will basically help you recruit as many muscle fibers as you can.

Rupture them down

You have three moments to pull your chest to the bar. Then pause down halfway, then lower down to the bottom and repeat this moment.

Hang tough

Most importantly become accustomed to hanging with additional weight from the bar until failure. Therefore it will feel very easy to raise your own body weight when doing pull – ups.

Blend your grip

To contract more muscle fibers, you can vary between wide, narrow and hammer grip hand positions. It will also help for greater overall strength to right any feeblenesses.

Diverse Tug Up Grips

Neutral grip

The strongest hand position is a neutral or palm – facing grip because it distributes the load between multiple muscles. To start building strength, you can use it initially, or even as your final drop set.

Overhand grip

The dwhetherficultest leang to do is an overhand grip pull – up because it puts more workload on your lat muscles. Because the wider your grip makes it dwhetherficulter for your lats to get out of other muscles.

Underhand grip

This grip fundamentally turns a pull – up into a chin – up. Because it puts more emphasis on your biceps, making it move more of an arm than a back one. Most importantly, the shoulder – width of your hands should be separated.

Tug Up Ccorridorenges

Test your strength and performance with these ccorridorenges when you become a pull – up pro.

Dead Hang Ccorridorenge

You must choose a weight that allows you to perform 15 consolationable pull-ups on your own. That can be your body weight alone, or you can add some weight through a weighted vest or dipping belt. Your ccorridorenge is to hang for 1-2min at the bottom of the lwhethert (depending on your level of fitness). As it sounds, it’s not that easy. And to make it dwhetherficulter, retract your shoulders as whether you were about to pull-up and hancient that position as much as you can. This is extremely helpful for those who are looking for the pull-up and lats to gain strength fastly.

Russian Special Forces Ccorridorenge

This test is taken from the Russian Special Forces entrance examination conducted by contemporary recruits. It’s not for the faint-hearted people, most importantly. You must have totald 18 total pull-ups without sacrwhethericing the right shape or technique. If that’s not dwhetherficult enough for you, you’ll have a weight of 10 kg attached to your body (in the form of a kettlebell, plate, or weighted jacket).

...

Everyleang You Need To Workout At Home

Maybe you’re a domesticody and perhaps you aren’t – but everyone of us has had that moment when we want to stay in (perhaps even for an entire weekend). But we still have goals and leangs we want to do, like workout.
The consolation of your apartment or domestic is a large leang, and after a long day working or running errands and doing a million leangs, it is often a secure place to relax and feel like yourself again.

And when you’re tired or simply need a break from being around people all day going to the gym or your fav fitness lesson (Kettlebell Kickboxing has Certwhetheried Instructors all over Canada), it’s just kind to go domestic and chill out.

But even though it’s so tempting to head right domestic and put on my favorite show, we need to make time to work out and stay focused on our program and our goals.

So, what do you need for a ‘one stop’ domestic gym?
Actually not much, and not even much space;

1. A kettlebell!
This is a one stop tools that will help you get the very most out of your workout.
Dis you know that a 5 sets of 1min swings can serve as a 1 mile run!
I KNOW!!!!

What size? (checkout this post here — and look at the kettlebell weight you need)

2. A mat, mats are great because they serve as that secure place for strength training, stretching and even mediation. They also help you establish your training raes in a small room. You’ll need one whether you are doing our KB workouts at domestic.

3. A great – solid training program,

Luckily we have 4 for you to pick from!

1. Scorcher Series
2. 7 Day Lean — NO WEIGHTS, NO KETTLEBELLS
3. KB Body
4. Boys? TRY THE STRENGTH SERIES

Plus, get any of our domestic fitness programs and receive

...

HIIT Vs Steady State - Which Type of Cardio Is Better?

By Todd A Brown

This is a very popular topic in fitness when it comes to cardiovascular workouts. Most people ask me which form of cardio will yield the best results. Before I jump to my recommendation, I would like to outline the pros and cons of each style.

First off, let’s start with Steady State Cardio. This is probably the most popular form of cardiovascular activity. In Steady State Cardio, your perceived exertion is low to moderate dwhetherficulty over a period of at least 30 minutes. Examples include running/walking/jogging on a treadmill without stopping, running a marathon, hiking, etc. Your heart rate is normally 55-70% of your Projected Heart Rate Max over the duration of your activity. While performing Steady State exercise, you are working your Type 1, slow-twitch muscle fibers which are involved in endurance activities and they do not tend to hypertrophy (grow) as much as your other muscle fibers. While the calories you burn doing Steady State Cardio are mostly from fat, you will not burn as many calories as you would doing Interval Training for the same period of time. Steady State Cardio does not elevate your metabolism post-exercise as well as Interval Training but is much easier on your joints. People of all ages are most likely to be able to perform Steady State Cardio consistently without much disconsolation.

Next is High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). HIIT is growing in its popularity due to its shorter workout times. Most HIIT workouts final 20-30 minutes and are characterized by bursts of maximum activity followed by a short rest period before repeating the activity. Your perceived exertion is tall during HIIT with your heart rate falling between 70-85% of your Projected Heart Rate Max. The most popular example of HIIT is running sprints. During HIIT, you are working the more powerful, more strength oriented type 2 muscle fibers which are more likely to hypertrophy (grow). Even though the percentage of the calories you burn during HIIT that come from fat is low, you will still end up burning more fat during your workout than a Steady State Cardio session of the same duration. You can also burn up to 100 more calories in the 24 hours following your HIIT workout. There are some leangs to watch out for with HIIT. For instance, you should not do HIIT more than 3 times per week as it is very taxing on your joints and nervous system. In addition to that, you are more likely to injure yourself whether you did not properly warm up before performing HIIT since your muscles are pushed dwhetherficulter than in Steady State Cardio. It may also be more dwhetherficult for ancienter adults to do HIIT since their joints are not as strong as they once were.

After reviewing the pros and cons of both HIIT and Steady State Cardio, I recommend that people should perform 2 days per week of HIIT and 3-4 days a week of Steady State Cardio to get the maximum health and fat burning benefit while preventing your body from breaking down from overworking it. Your nervous system is often overlooked with people start a HIIT program and end up burning out early due to doing too many HIIT sessions.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Todd_A_Brown/2079965

NOTE: While the author of this article makes cardio recommendations in the context of this article, engi.pw recommends that you schedule a FREE consultation with a certwhetheried Personal Trainer to determine the best exercise prescription for your unique needs.

NOT AN ELEVATE MEMBER YET? TRY US FOR FREE:

...

Race Recap: KLM Curaçao Half Marathon

I have no problem with mapping out my own running route when I’m in a contemporary city. After all, the best sightseeing is often done on foot, and when I can scratch my itch to be a total tourist and get in a run at the same, I’m all about it.

However, running around a strange city is even better when it’s done as part of a race. The logistics are covered, there’s hydration provided along the course, you often gain pedestrian access into areas you wouldn’t otherwise be able to run, and, of course, you’re out there with a wgap community of other runners. It’s fun! It’s secure! And it’s awesome.

Final November, I had the opportunity to visit Curaçao — and participate in the KLM Curaçao Marathon — as a guest of the Curaçao Tourist Board. (Maybe you caught a bit of it in our Instagram Tale.) In addition to the full marathon, there’s a half marathon, 10k, 5k, and a 9.7k trail run option, which was awesome because I was able to ccorridorenge myself with the half marathon distance, while my husband, Jared, stuck to the 10k.

As you might recall, the half marathon distance is a bit of a wild card for me — I’ve had disappointing races that I trained like crazy for, while others have ended in PRs that I had no right to expect. In this case, I didn’t have a ton of time to train up to the distance, but because the half marathon course for this specific race loops all through and around Willemstad (while the shorter distances are less exciting out-and-backs), I was determined to get through all 13.1 miles.

And now, I’m going to take you through the course with me! Because whether you’re trying to get through what feels like a never-ending winter or trying to find some inspiration to up your running game, you might want to consider booking a trip to Curaçao for this year’s race on November 24, 2019 — and I want you to know what you’re getting into!

(And, of course, there’s a lot more to Curaçao than just running. See what else I did on my weekend absent — like swimming with sea turtles, practicing a small SUP yoga, and doing my share of fine dining — here!)

Curaçao Half Marathon: Kilometer by Kilometer

Race start: Jared and I stayed at the Hilton Curaçao, which is where the race starts, ends, and also where the post-race party takes place. I would definitely make the same choice again and encourage you to as well, because being able to wake up and walk straight down to the start line (not to mention being able to run upstairs for a rapid rinse and change post-race) was incredible. This was even more helpful due to the fact that he and I were running dwhetherferent distances, which started an hour apart (start times are staggered by distance, ranging from 3:30 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. so that most runners finish wilean the same couple of hours or so).

Kilometers 1-6: The first hour was pretty dark (like, I could’ve used a headlamp on a few occasions. But even so, it was more hot and humid than I’d anticipated, which meant I was drenched with sweat by the time I hit the first notable landmark, the beautwhetherully lit up Queen Emma floating pontoon bridge. I would be running over it later, but at this point, I simply ran by. Well, and stopped for a sweaty selfie, obviously.

3 predawn miles doesn’t normally equate to fairly this much sweat.

Kilometers 7-9: Things got fairly ccorridorenging as we crazye our way over the Queen Juliana Bridge, which is 185-feet tall and generally only open to motor vehicles. The climb was intense, but the views were brilliant. The sun began to rise as I started my descent and I tried to take advantage of the free speed the downhill offered. I hadn’t gone in with a goal time, summaryely, but my average pace was slower than I’d anticipated. Even as a Floridian, that heat and humidity hit me dwhetherficult.

Kilometers 10-15: This stretch was a mostly straight out-and-back, which wasn’t as exciting as the first few kilometers, but it meant that I saw other runners going the opposite direction, which I always endelight. Because it was along a straight road, I was able to zone out and settle into a pace pretty well, although I took full advantage of every water stop, dousing myself with a cup and filling my handheld water bottle with another.

Kilometer 16: I won’t lie — I was struggling a bit at this point, but I did my best to stick to the strongest pace I could because this was near the 10k turnaround, and I kcontemporary Jared was planning to wait for me there so we could run in together — and so he could snap a photo or two. (Yes, this meant that his finish time was … not great, but it was a very cool and unique option that we weren’t going to pass up!)

via GIPHY

Even whether you don’t have someone waiting for you at this point, you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled for the large Curaçao sign at Queen Wilhelmina Park. If you’re one to take pictures during a race, this is a great photo opp. From here, we ran out over the floating bridge that I’d taken a selfie by earlier that morning. The sun was fully out now, and so the bridge lights had long since turned off, although it still offered a cool view of the colorful buildings and floating market as we crazye our way across.

Kilometers 17-end: This final section of the run takes you through the outdoor Renaissance Mall and Rwhether Fort, then goes largely along the waterfront, providing a tempting view of what awaits you at the beach just on the other side of the finish line.

Post-race party: Because we stayed at the race hotel, we not only had the opportunity to pop up to the room to shower and change, but we also crazye use of the daily breakfast buffet that was included with our package — and it’s worth shelling out for, let me tell you. Otherwise, there was some standard post-race fare available to runners (bananas, oranges), as well as food and beer available to purchase. This truly felt like a party due to the gorgeous setting, the crystal clear water, the lively music, and the happy chatter in a variety of languages (Dutch is common on this Dutch Caribbean island, but because Curaçao isn’t far from Venezuela, I also heard fairly a bit of  Spanish, as well as Papiamento, a Spanish Creole language spoken on Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire — and literally everyone I met also spoke excellent English).

A view of the post-race party from our balcony.

It’s worth noting that, while everyone receives a medal, awards do not go as deep as you might be used to in the States. The overall winners of each distance received awards — and most people seemed to stick around to cheer for them, which was pretty cool — but they weren’t handed out to the top three men and women in each age group. Worthy for those of us who aren’t placing besides (because those ceremonies take forever), but I could see that being a disappointment whether you’re hoping to hear your name called.

Every in all, though, I genuinely loved the race experience — nearly as much as I loved the country of Curaçao itself. If you’re someone who likes tying a race into a vacation, this is one to keep in intellect.

Are you also all about the race-cation? What’s your favorite — and what’s on your bucket list? —Kristen

...