3 miles!

tonight was my first endurance walk on my calendar. i mapped out the distance with my car's odometer earlier this week as i was trying to get ready for the big walk. although i have been looking forward to it all week, i was a little intimidated at the actual time to head out, so i thought i would take the pup along for company. welcome to shelby's first and last endurance walk....

although i wasn't going for speed but for distance, i wanted to gauge my progress by timing the walk and checking in on heart rate. during the 3 minute warm up, i started to rethink my decision to take the dog with me as she was very interested in pooping on any surface that wasn't moving and i was, much like the bah bah black sheep, already carrying 3 bags full. i considered taking her back as we hadn't gotten very far, but she has been pretty naughty lately, getting into trouble when i have been gone to work (she decided today to chew up a $20 that was in a pocket of some pants....i only found 3 of 4 pieces) and i think she is pretty mad at me for adding another thing into my already overly busy schedule, so i just decided to keep going so we could spend some time together. for the first half mile or so she was interested in walking in the grass rather than on the road and kept stopping to sniff, squat, or graze. she was still up for walking, in fact she wanted to be in the lead, but every 10 feet or so she would try to wring out a few more drops of pee. as we made it almost to the turn around point i started to notice that she was losing enthusiasm for the walk. as she is pretty old and chubby and does have a heart murmur, i decided that we would slow down the pace a bit to keep her safe and rather than get annoyed with her frequent pee breaks, i started to talk to her and tell her that we were almost home and what a good doggy she was.

nearly to the cool down landmark, i was about to break into a jog just to finish up with a good time. As i was about to let shelby's leash a little looser, a catastrophe was narrowly averted. Fortunately, I have really good eyesight. Even more fortunately, at this point of the walk shelby was basically no more than a giant lolling tongue with legs and lousy eyesight. Just as we cleared the cool down marker i noticed another member of the woodland creatures that call lake monticello home. unlike the bucks that occupied my lawn on my first big walk, this creature was less bambi and more flower. that's right, a skunk. i'm really not sure if she didn't see it, or if at that point she just didn't care, but i quickly pulled her leash in tighter, made a beeline for the other side of the street and quietly waited for the striped fuzzball to find a hiding spot. fortunately, it went into a storm drain, and we quickly made our exit. Had we had to find another route home we would have been completing about 5 miles tonight since the only other way home would have included almost a mile of doubling back and then taking a wide path around to the other side of the house.

needless to say, we made it home safe and relatively stink free, i don't smell great, but at least not skunky, and shelby came in to get a few laps of water and crash out on the tile in the kitchen. although it was nice to spend time with her, i think she will only be coming with me on the recovery walks on the day after the endurance walks from now on, i don't want to put too much on her old lady heart and there is the additional factor of possible woodland creature attacks. thank goodness that didn't happen 'til the end or who knows how this story would have changed

oh, and by the way, the whole adventure took 52:58 minutes, of which 45:27 was the actual 3 miles, so even with a dog in tow i am keeping around that 15 minute mile average :)

I don't wanna!

today was the first day that i really didn't want to do my walk. after a particularly tough day at work both mentally and physically, all i wanted to do was sit down and relax. the futon was a-calling, it was about 1000 degrees outside and i was really considering taking a night off. but, alas, i have an online calendar to keep me going and you guys for motivation. so i put on my leggings and t-shirt, laced up the new balances, strapped on the pedometer and headed out the door with a small mental tantrum brewing. i unfortunately didn't have me heart rate monitor/watch thingy because i left it on my bed this morning when i was getting dressed and i accidentally put something down on top of it which apparently was directly on the heart rate checker button. needless to say, the battery is dead and the bed has a resting heart rate of 44. so, without a watch or a heart rate checker, i went out to do my walk figuring i would just do the 1/2 mile to the track and 4 laps and 1/2 mile back and checked the clock on the way out to see what time it was. well, according to the pedometer, i went 2.23 miles in 32 minutes (for you mathletes, that is a 14.22 minute mile!!!) and i lived to talk about it. tantrum averted, though the legs felt full of sand through 3/4 of the walk, made it home to stretch, eat, and perhaps allow myself a little of that futon time.

there is that saying about bravery not being the absence of fear but of feeling the fear and acting anyway, i think exercise endurance is not the absence of wanting to sit on the couch eat chips and watch lifetime movies, but going for a walk, coming home and postponing sitting on the couch and watching lifetime movies (at least for 35 minutes!)

Still progressing

yesterday's walk was the best one so far. First, I had some company as my friend Denise came with me. She's puny, but she can really truck, and it seems that good conversation and my naturally competitive nature made for really good speed. We managed just over 2 miles in 32 minutes, which averaged out to a 15 minute mile....my goal for the week was to hit that mark, so I guess I will have to invite her for more of these outings! Today is a rest day and I am noticing that my day-after soreness is markedly reduced in the past few weeks which is really nice. I also started taking a calcium supplement to keep up with the demands of the muscle which seems to be helping. I have one more of these mid-distance walks this week and friday is the first endurance walk of my calendar. Although it is only 3 miles, it is a good sized advance over what I have been doing, so hopefully it will go well. I talked to the personal trainer at the gym tonight and she has offered to give me few sessions with her, so hopefully I can get some cross training to boost overall strength, especially core stuff because I know I need a little more ab strength to keep propelling me forward to give my poor glutes a bit of a break!

new time record!

Well, I am continuing to follow the calendar from Prevention.com and today was a timed day rather than a distance day. The goal was to do a 3 minute warm up followed by a 25 minute brisk walk and then a 2 minute cool down. For this part of the program, PRE scale (perceived rate of exertion) is used in place of distance or heart rate. The calendar recommended a PRE scale of 4-5 for the warm up, 7 for the brisk walk and 3 for the cool down.

Herein lies the problem with this for me....I am an overthinker. First off, I wore the heart rate monitor and the pedometer because I want all aspects of fitness to be available to me at all times (and I paid good money for them dangit, I'm using my technology!) Second, the PRE scale is highly subjective and it is explained as "4-5 - an easy stroll, 7- like you are late for an appointment, 3- easy stroll. *based on a scale of 1-10, 1 being sitting on the couch, 10 being an all out sprint". So the issue is this, I can't tell if I am actually at a 7 because I keep thinking I could do more, but I'm not sure if I am being a wuss or if I am too hard on myself. I think I need athletic psychological counseling to provide me some support. That's right, I said it, I need an athletic supporter!

At any rate, after all was said and done, I managed 1.93 miles in 30 minutes including warm up and cool down which is 3.87 mph which averages a 15.5 minute mile! yeah me!

well, I'm pretty sweaty and my friends are en route for dinner and the drive-in, guess I should go shower....

well, not feeling too bad after getting back to mobility. There is a little tug in my hamstrings today, and my back is a little sore, but all in all feeling okay. Per the Prevention training calendar, I should be doing only a moderate walk tonight, and since I have just finished a rigorous 90 minute massage session with a human brick, I think that's all I will attempt. I'm off to do that now, happy road travels to all!

back home

2 miles in 40 minutes, approximately a 20 minute mile including warm up. not a great time, but it's a starting point. have discovered that my neighborhood is sorely lacking in street lights and that the 25 mile per hour speed limit seems to be ignored after sundown, so will stick to the track after dark from now on. Also made an interesting discovery, the old saying about "they are more scared of you than you are of them" doesn't apply to deer in my yard. there is nothing better than surprising 2 fully grown, well antlered bucks eating the kudzu off your lawn in the pitch blackness to get the already accelerated heart a-pumping. CLEAR......flatline.......................

if everyone else is doing it...where's the bridge to jump off?

so, everyone else in the family is keeping track of their progress with running and I thought I would be more inspired if I blogged too, so here it goes. After being out of commission for a week and 2 days from what I can only think was a nasty muscle strain/partial tear, I am back in the saddle with walking. Although I would like to eventually run, I think that it is healthiest at this point for me to just walk until I build up some endurance and strength. So here it is at 10:30 on Wednesday and I am headed out for a walk with the pooch to get back into mobility. Up until my injury, I had been going 2 miles 3-4X per week, but with a week hiatus, I think I will work back up slowly. Off to go see how I do, will report back when I return.