Amy Dixon, Women's Health Magazine's fitness columnist and Me

It was 1 PM on a sunny Wednesday California afternoon and we were about to set out on the first leg of our Are You Game adventure. We headed to Dockweiler Beach, where we took our surf lesson with Learn to Surf LA. The beach was gorgeous, the waves looked great and the readers, Amy, Melanie and I were excited to get out there.

We started out with a pre-surf stretch led by Amy Dixon, Women's Health Magazine's new fitness columnist. Amy is a group fitness manager at Equinox, Santa Monica and stars in two new Women's Health fitness DVDs available September 18th at www.womenshealthdvds.com and wherever dvds are sold. She was phenomenal – and game to try surfing with us too! Check out the video of the start of our stretch.

We suited up in our wetsuits – thank goodness because the water was COLD! Pat, Learn to Surf's owner and our fearless leader, gave us an intro lesson on the sport of surfing and had us practice getting up.

We charged the water, but most of us took a beating from the first few waves. I lived in LA for a few years, so I had already tried surfing before…but it’s not exactly like riding a bike! I had a 9 ft. longboard and because of that, getting up was a breeze...

but it was staying up that was the hard part...

My arms were killing me but I could not pull myself out of the water because I always thought the next one would be my Blue Crush moment! After the 2-hour lesson, I wouldn’t exactly call myself the Big Kahuna but it was a thrill to "hang ten" and it was a great workout for my entire body!

Our group of gals were great and they loved our cute surf instructors and our gift bags...

After packing up our Subaru we headed up the Pacific Coast Highway toward Santa Barbara for the next day's excursion....sailing the Pacific! Check out our view on the way up the coast!

Signing off but will be back tomorrow with tales from sailing!