Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Ramblings about walking

Today, I don't have anything specific that I'm itching to say. I'm waiting for my heart rate monitor to arrive. The foot pod, it seems, will arrive several days before the watch - kind of backwards of what I really need. My youngest son is still feverish and home from school, the mid-atlantic missed a storm that is paralyzing more than a third of the country (as I watch rivers of melted snow run down the channels on the side of the road even as early as 8 am). And I had a good night's sleep, despite taking a nap yesterday.

I'm beginning to think about what I want to do to up the exercise a bit. I will keep walking every day. On the new treadmill and around our lake. My goal is to do at least 3 miles a day, every day. That means twice around our lake out here, or exploring other paths near us to add to the lake walk. The lake walk is really good as it has a flat section (completely flat) with benches scattered through out. That's about half the walk and where most people will go - and then walk back. It's great for seniors or those who can't do the hills. Then the other half of the walk has a steep hill down (to below the little dam) and a steep hill up (steep enough that I would never take a bike down it - though some fools do and some trained cyclists do too), and then around an inlet of the lake and then a small portion with gravel, two more smaller, but steep hills up and down on neighborhood streets and then back home again. Once I'll take a video of going around - when I can walk faster, to make a shorter video that is less boring.

We also live about a mile (can be gotten to by trails) from the mall. The last bit of the walk isn't overly nice, but I could always walk there instead of drive. Then, there's a fairly nice route to the library, that's about a 2 mile walk there. Again, that can be gotten to via the trails. And three public pools are walkable via trails too. So there really is no reason to drive to a lot of places. Problem is, it gets so hot. I don't mind walking in the wee hours of the morning or in the evening, but in the middle of the day, even with tree cover is too much for me. MAYBE once I'm able to bike ride, I'll do that. WIth riding a bike at least, you create a breeze that can dry the sweat and cool yourself more. We'll see. I know myself and being miserable in the heat, is not something I enjoy!

For now, as the ground is covered in snow, I prefer to exercise at home. But what to do to up the difficulty a bit? I'm curious to see how doing the Walk It Out video goes with a treadmill. Since on that game, the tempo changes every three minutes, I would need to change the pace of the treadmill every few minutes too - unless it has a manual setting. As I said, we'll see.  If that doesn't work, I guess I can watch tv or something.

But I'm also thinking about my library of aerobic/strength training videos I have. Doing 30 minutes of that, added to walking every day is something I'm thinking about. Especially some that work on core strength training - some push-ups, situps and such. Again... I'll see how it goes. Right now, I'm really enjoying just MOVING period.

Stats for 2/2/11:

Weight beginning: 255.6    Now: 248

Walked it Out: 96.7 miles
Exercise time: 29:10 hours

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