READING COMPREHENSION

It is time to have fun! so, let´s workout :)

Do you know the importance of exercising?

Physical activity or exercise can improve your health and reduce the risk of developing several diseases like type 2 diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease. Physical activity and exercise can have immediate and long-term health benefits. Most importantly, regular activity can improve your quality of life.

Let's explore some more benefits that you get from exercising:

1) It makes you feel better. Exercise by itself improves your mood because it stimulates some brain chemicals that makes you feel better, more relaxed and happier. 

2) It boosts your energy. Oxygen also greatly stimulates the brain and improves the functioning of your heart and lung thus strenghtening your muscles and increasing your energy.

3) You sleep better.  Exercising helps you to sleep faster and deepen your sleep.

4) It is fun. It helps you to socialize because you can meet people with your same interests and have fun while practicing a sport.

5) It controls weight and combats health problems. It prevents excess weight gain or helps maintain weight loss and at the same time, regular exercise prevents a wide range of health problems.

Now let's talk about how exercise through sports is good for you.  I'll tell you some of my favorite sports moments, and I'd like you to tell me some of yours.

I call this story, "The beach trip", When I was 13 years old my parents planned a trip to the beach without me knowing it. They planned this trip several months prior and only told me about it on the day before the trip, and since I hadn´t been to the beach in more than 5 years I was very excited that I just couldn’t avoid it, I called my parents and said, mum, dad, I have been waiting for this trip my entire life and then I hug them. We packed our bags and went to bed very early that night because we were leaving the next morning at 4:00 AM in the morning. It seemed to take forever for morning to come, but at 4:00 AM we were on our way. We got to the beach in just over two hours. My aunt and uncle and several of my cousins were waiting for us by the cabin we had rented   I was really excited as I just knew it'd be a fun time.  We had breakfast together, and then my cousins and I went to walk along the beach for a couple of hours.  We returned to where our family's had told us to meet them and found that they had already unpacked our bags, actually they had everything already set up… we didn´t know that but we were going to a swimming competition, one of those is called relay race, so for the first time my cousins and I were going to make a team and our parents had already arranged the order in which each of us were going to swim, it was a kilometer swimming race and the other team was formed by another group of cousins my parents had invited to that trip. My cousin Alex was the first one to jump into the water and he did it in very good time and took advantage for almost 50 meters, but my cousin Johnny seemed tired and we lost the advantage we had so by the time my turn came, the guy from the other team who by the way had my middle name "Andre" was beating me for only 2 meters, I started swimming like never before in my life and when we reached the finish line I got to beat him by just the length of my forearm. It was very exciting and when we got to the shore our parents gave each us a medal, it was my first medal and also the most exciting experience of my life and from that day on my cousins and I became better friends. Have you ever swum that same way?

Now it is your turn to tell us a story, but before that let´s review some grammatical structures from my story so it is easier for you to tell yours:

When we talk about past experiences, we had to use past verbal forms.

Simple past tense:

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