Thursday, January 28, 2010

Can I??

Walked. 2.2 miles, one big circle. Some uphill. Glad I did it, but not feeling great. I'm not happy about the continuing pain in my right calf, even though it's dull pain.

Doubt creeps in and I try to reason it aside. I have over 9 more months to get ready for this, but times like today make me wonder. 20 miles in one day? Three days in a row??

I was awake for about 45 minutes in the middle of the night going over and over possible fundraising ideas. Thinking of possible connections I might have. Wishing I was crafty.

The "Getting Started" meeting is this weekend and I am excited for that. Anxious to get more information on the whole thing, get inspired, and hear positive things about raising the money.

{sigh}

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Really??

Yesterday, Tuesday, I was out running errands and got a call from my daughter's school. "Come pick her up, she has lice." {sigh} Less than an hour later I was at my son's school picking him up as well. "Mom, I got tripped playing basketball during P.E. and fell on my elbow. It hurts really bad and I can't bend my arm." {sigh}.

No walking happened yesterday.. just lots of washing, combing, and icing (and not the of the yummy sugary variety). No walking has happened today. Both kids are still home. I felt the need for a second comb-through on the girl, and although the boy's elbow (and wrist!) have greatly improved, he still lacks full range of motion without pain.

If hubby gets home early enough tonight, I'll head out before it gets too dark. My plan is to send both kidletts back to school tomorrow and resume my walking. I actually want to go! What's happening to me?? : )

Monday, January 25, 2010

Audio

Inspired by the enjoyment and relative ease of last night's creek walk, I decided to do that one again this morning... and extend the creek portion. That increased the walk from about 2.1 to 2.6, so another 1/2 mile (gooooooooo math skills!).

I did not bring along an MP3 player. Instead here are the sounds I heard along the way:

* crunch crunch of the leaves under my feet

* vroooom zooom of the cars whizzing by

* babble babble swooosh of the creek as I left the main road and continued the rest of my walk

* "Are you suuure that's how he feels? Have you talked to him lately??" from the two women who passed me by as if I were standing still

* a chorus of "Mommy mommy, look at me!" spoken by children at the park with their moms... who were busy chatting and so NOT looking... we've all been there :)

* "Hello", "Good morning" and "Beautiful day" cordial greetings from other walkers and bikers

* at least a dozen versions of tweet, chirp, whoot, and tweedle-eee of the birds living along the creek

* "woof", "howl", "bark" ... figure it out

This may be my favorite soundtrack yet :)

Sunday

My original plan was to take weekends off, and just spend time with my family. But by Sunday afternoon I was feeling so guilty (thank you Catholicism) about having walked just once last week.
At 5 PM everyone else was busy, so I took off for my walk. I did my favorite so far, the one that goes along the creek.

It felt great! The sun was going down, the creek was raging after the week of rain, and I saw some jack rabbits. On the way back, I was walking into the sunset - beautiful! My right calf barely bothered me at all, and I cut 4 minutes off my previous time of 49 minutes. Not on purpose, and I wasn't trying, I just felt good :)

Going back out today (Monday), and I'm going to try out an online walking log to keep track of my progress. If I can make it work, I'll get put the link on here. 'Coz who wouldn't want to check out someone else's walking log??

Friday, January 22, 2010

What week?

Here's my lame reason/excuse... people were home. Yes, I had someone home with me every day this week, until today, Friday. It threw me all off, plus we were busy doing stuff. My lack of walking this week has nothing to do with all the rain. The mornings were actually pretty clear most of the week.

Today, everyone is where they should be and I was anxious to get back to my walking. It's not that I've grown accustomed to it, or crave it ('coz that would be crazy!), but rather the fear of the long long way I have to go in my training. I dropped the girl off at school already dressed for walking. The rain was coming down pretty hard (got some hail too!), so I drove to the mall. Yup, the mall.

The mall was dry and warm. I was not the only walker, although I was the youngest. With the help of some music, I kept up a pretty steady pace, and made it through a 55 minute walk without any shin/calf pain at all : ) I don't know how far I walked - and I lost track of exactly how many times I walked around... 6 I think. When I called guest services to find out the distance, the girl said it was half a mile from one end to the other, she didn't say around the mall.
That would make round trip one mile. NO WAY I walked 6 miles in 55 minutes. So maybe it's 1/2 mile all the way around. Still, not sure I walked 3 miles. Next time I'll keep better track of my round trips. Maybe I only did 5? Oh well, 55 mins at a fair and steady pace will have to do.

Friday, January 15, 2010

week's end

I've completed my first week!

Yesterday I did route #3 which is 4 laps around my complex - a gentle rolling hill type walk (2.3 miles). I barely made it around the first time and thought for sure I would stop when I got back around to my front door. It wasn't so much shin pain as it was a terrible sharp cramping pain in the muscle running down the outside of my right calf. This time I had music with me and used it to distract myself, stretched often, and made it the full 4 rounds. Near the end Christina Aguilara's "Ain't No Other Man" got me through.

Today was route #4, a big circular route along pretty heavily used roads (2.2 miles). I decided to do the short uphill portion first. Again, not 1/4 of the way through I got that searing pain. I could barely go more than 20 feet without having to stop. After yesterday's pain I had decided to use the inserts I bought at a walking store a few years back (recommended after doing a test on where I put the most pressure on my feet). Well, after this horrible pain again today, I removed the insert and walked without it (just on the right). This reduced my pain to an ache and I was able to finish my walk fairly easily... I finished in 46 minutes, the quickest yet. Today's "get me through this" song was "Say It Right" by Nelly Furtado (this is my 7 y/o's mp3 player!).

My goal for this weekend is to find a proper insert for my right shoe, let the muscle recover a bit, then start again Monday : )

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The sky is falling!

This morning it was raining. Well, more like heavily misting : ) I don't have anything that's waterproof - other than an umbrella - so I decided to skip the walk today.

"Giving up so easily after just two days??" you ask. No no no! Part of my goal (which will help immensely with the 3day walk) is to lose weight and get more fit. To that end, I decided to
try my new "My Fitness Coach" Wii workout.

I took the new stair stepper out of the box, and did my fitness test. The test wore me out! I thought about skipping the actual workout, but I did it anyway. It! Kicked! My! Ass!

Back to walking tomorrow. Gonna try 2 mile-ish route #3. (I have 4 routes mapped out, I'm lovin' gmap-pedometer.com !)

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Woohoo, day 2

Back from day 2's walk. Got a late start again.. left at 11:16 and 2.1 miles later, got home at 12:05. I took a different route this time and really enjoyed it. I feel very fortunate to live where I do. It's a nice blend of concrete and nature.

Today's walk took me along a bike path that is near the main road part of the way (but still with lots of trees around), then into a pretty little neighborhood with lots of trees and parks. I stopped by the stream to do my first stretches... so nice! I encountered other exercisers who had gotten a late start - mostly cyclists - and enjoyed the scenery.

Along the way I heard snippets of conversations, "Ooh so do you like Kylie's new haircut??" and
"I don't know if I believe her. She said the doctor said to just leave it there." A couple was walking towards me. The woman was wearing the same clothing as me.... same green tshirt, same black pants with a white stripe down the side. "I like your outfit" I said in response to her friendly "hello". She looked at me as if I had lost my mind. The man laughed, and I am hoping that he explained my comment to her. What if I run into them again??

So today felt good. I went uphill first, it was about 10 degrees cooler and slightly overcast, and I was stylin' wearing a homemade Metallica visor : )

Monday, January 11, 2010

In the beginning

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu
Chinese philosopher (604 BC - 531 BC)
Walking is something that I do every day, even on my laziest of days. Regardless,
I knew that I would need to start this thing off slowly. The beginning walking workouts that I've found all seemed to start off TOO slowly (15 minutes??) Instead, here's how my first day went.

11:05 - I left the house with keys, phone, id and a few $ in a little wallet purse thingie around my waist. After 10 minutes (of downhill walking) my shins were starting to hurt. It was time anyway, so I stopped and did some stretching. Apparently my shins were not happy, as I had to stop 2 more times to stretch them out. The second half of the walk was uphill, which actually hurt my shins less.

11:55 - Arrived home having walked 2.18 miles (according to www.gmap-pedometer.com ). Wow slow me! Grabbed some water and did my stretches.
Not a bad start, but I wish my shins hadn't hurt so much.

Plan for tomorrow- Sunscreen (hellooo it's sunny and 83 degrees! In January!), sun visor, and get an earlier start.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

About this blogger

I am: 40 years old
a wife of almost 17 years
a mom, to a 12 y/o and a 7 y/o
out of shape
laid off, but not for much longer... right?
excited for and wary of this challenge : )

About this blog

Okay, I'm brand new to this blogging thing. Not new to blabbing about my life, though : )

My main reason for starting this now, is to record my journey. This year I plan on walking in
the Susan G Komen 3Day walk. There are many reasons I have decided to take this on. The initial thought was that I wanted to do something to challenge myself. I'm not saying that living life each day, paying the bills, raising kids and a hubby, etc. isn't a challenge in itself! What I was looking for was something beyond my usual reality, no status quo here!

A friend suggested that I find something I was passionate about, or cared about, and work my challenge around that. So here I am. Cancer has been an enemy to many of my family members and friends. Some have won their battle, some have not. In both my personal and professional life, I have known people in all stages of dealing with breast cancer... from the initial scare of finding a lump, to post surgical life. I miss my work at the breast care center, and hope to return to it someday.

To add to my challenge of the 3day walk, I am also NOT currently in any kind of shape. Well, other than bad! Because of this, I am starting my training early. Everything I've read has been a 6 month training period. I have 10 months, and will use these first 4 to get myself up to where I need to be in order to start the more intense training when
the time comes.

My journey is about to begin. My weight loss journey, my training journey and my 3day journey through San Diego. A warning, though ... I can't guarantee that other parts of my life won't sneak in while I'm not watching : )