Sewing my way to fitness

Today was supposed to be a training day for the half-marathon. An endurance walk of 8k. However, we were unexpectedly accompanied by a five-year-old that a friend had brought along. Before we began the walk, I spent some time looking between the printout of our route and the five-year old. I'd look at the map, look at the five-year-old, and look at the map again.

Call me a softy, but I just didn't have it in me to make the five-year-old walk 8 kilometres. I mean, if she was training to do a half-marathon, I woulda brought out the old whip. But alas, she was more interested in being a kid. So I modified our route to take us straight to a playground. Much fun was had by all. Even when I accidentally ate a medium-sized ice-cream cone. Heehee, oops!

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about the unsung health benefits of sewing. When I came home from the unsuccessful training walk, I went straight to making a basket liner for aforementioned-friend's wedding next week. I didn't even get out of my walking clothes, so, as a consequence, I happened to be wearing my pedometer.

Now, my sewing setup is less than ideal. In fact, it sucks. My serger is on the dining room table, my ironing board is in the kitchen, and my sewing machine is in the bedroom. When I'm working on a project that requires all three, you can bet I do a lot of moving between them. Until this afternoon, I didn't realize just how much moving I did. After finishing the liner, I checked my pedometer and was surprised to find that a couple hours of sewing had racked up over 4,000 steps!

So there you have it, ladies and gents. You can't make a five-year old walk an 8k, but you CAN burn calories while sewing. I bet Bowflex wouldn't want this to get out.

Cucumbers and deerage

There's something to be said for walking. The fresh air, the exercise, the strange things you see along the way. For example, this sign that was posted alongside the trail. We're not sure what it's advertising, aside from the fact that they happen to have well-endowed cucumbers. There was no trailside stand from which we could buy them or any other indication of where said "cukes" were.

There was, however, a profusion of deer growing all over the property. There was at least five of these guys in various stages of munching. Perhaps they ate the cucumbers? The one pictured here was curled up in the grass, cute as could be until she decided we were annoying enough that she'd rather show us her backside.

Our training walks are getting longer now and we're holding up well. When we have good walks like tonight's, it's easy to keep going. We've been going a month now which is hard to believe. I haven't missed a training session either and I'm feeling really good about that. Two more months and it's go time!

How many steps have you taken today?

Registering for walking events has a lot of perks. Health and accomplishment aside, you usually get free swag as part of your registration package. The Hbc Run For Canada package was particularly good as it had a free pedometer in it. I finally got around to delving the depths of the goodie bag and found a nifty little ParticipACTION business card. On the card is a guide that helps you determine how active you are based on the number of steps you take in a day. Reprinted here for your info and just in case I lose the card!

< 5,000	= sedentary
5,000–7,499	= low active
>= 10,000	= active
> 12,500	= highly active

Source: Catrine Tudor-Locke, Arizona State University.
Affiliate Scholar, Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute.

We had the courage

My walking team and I did an 8k walk today. Though it was an easy walk, we still came in dead last. Turns out the majority of participants were runners with a scant few walkers. In fact, there was maybe 2 other walkers aside from us.

At the start of the race, everyone but us took off running. The first leg of the 8k was along a busy road, closed off especially for the event. So here we were walking in last place, with the runners blocks ahead of us in the first few seconds. It wouldn't have been so bad except we were holding up a long line of cars. Needless to say, we were mortified.

We did a bit of running and tried to walk as fast as we could, but there was no way we could do the walk any faster. So, we plowed on and tried hard not to notice the police escort slowly crawling along behind us. That worked for a bit until the good constable decided to start cheering us on through her loudspeaker. We'd get to a kilometre marker and she'd say something like "way to go team!" When we finally got off the main road and onto residential streets, she started randomly playing us rock music by holding her loudspeaker microphone up to her radio.

After the 4k mark, embarrassment at being last and having our own personal police escort cheering us on so the whole neighbourhood could hear slowly waned to resignation. We were going to do this thing, pride be darned. Along the way the volunteers were still patiently waiting for us and enthusiastically cheered us on. When we got to the end, it was to loud applause from the remaining people and a participation medal for each of us for our efforts.

Though the medal was great, it was the kudos from the volunteers that made it worthwhile. Though we apologized for holding them up, they waived it off and said that at least we got out there and were better than everyone else who stayed home on their couches that morning. You know what? They're right. We did so much more than someone who stayed home.

A fellow walker's t-shirt summed up the whole experience:

The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start." - John Bingham

Who cares we came in last. We had the courage to start and keep going.

Training at lunch

I went for another training walk on my lunchtime. This time I decided to be smart and bring my workout clothes – pants, shirt and shoes. I felt all smart until I went to change and realized I completely forgot socks! Whoops!

I just about didn't go out because of that, but went anyways. Fortunately, MEC is near to my work so I swung by there during the first leg of my walk and picked up a pair of my favourite technical socks.* The clerk was awesome – she unwrapped my socks, snipped the little plastic restraint and let me use one of their benches to put them on.

Aside from the hiccup at the beginning, the walk went very well and I'm excited about doing it again on my lunchtime. It's a great way to get some fresh air and exercise mid-day.

* Technical socks are awesome. They're made with wicking fabric so your sweat will wick away and your feet will be drier. Walking/running technical socks also have cushy bottoms so they help reduce impact. If you like to walk or run, do yourself a favour and try a pair!

Half-marathon: training update, froggies and a recipe

The first week training for the half-marathon is going very well. We went out on Tuesday night for our first group walk and guess what we saw? I scooped this lil guy off the road so he wouldn't get hit. He was so docile that I started to think maybe he was injured. That is until he jumped straight up and out of my hands! Scared the dickens out of me but it did remind me of how awesome walking is. Since I've started walking, I've seen many wild animals and it's always a special experience. This froggie ranks right up there with the owl my husband and I saw when we first started walking.

Aside from that walk, I did some cross-training on Monday at Curves and went for another training walk today on my lunch hour. That worked out so well that I think I'm going to bring my runners to work. This weekend will be an endurance walk and I'm looking forward to it.

And, as the weather around these parts has been dreary and altogether autumny, I thought I'd share a recipe my leader gave to us.

WW Steamed Apple with Cinnamon and Brown Sugar

• 1 apple
• 1 tbsp. brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp. light margarine
• Cinnamon and nutmeg to taste

Core apple, leaving bottom intact. Fill with brown sugar, margarine, cinnamon and nutmeg. Microwave on high for 2 minutes or until soft. 2.5 to 3 points depending on the margarine used; be sure to recalculate using your own tracker in case I made a mistake!

I made it tonight and it was pretty good. The hardest part was trying to figure out how to eat it without spilling the liquid that accumulated inside. I may tweak the recipe next time. It seemed a bit too sweet to me and like it could do with real margarine (or butter) and a wee sprinkling of chopped walnuts. But all in all, a good experiment that bears repeating!

Half-marathon: training begins

Today is the day I begin training for the upcoming half-marathon in October. With consistent training, I know I can do this! 10k is moderately easy for me now. What's another 11k on top of that?

I'll be using Prevention's Walking Calendar as my training guide. This handy dandy app will lay out a day-by-day walking guide for you depending on what you've chosen as your goal - weight loss, half-marathon, or (gulp!) full-marathon. In order to be ready for my half-marathon in October, my start date is today!

I'm about to head out for my first training walk and am excited to start. Wish me luck and the willpower to keep training!

Half-marathon

Oh, did I mention? I signed up to do a half-marathon walk in October. I'll repeat that again because I'm having a hard time believing it. A. Half. Marathon. 21 kilometres. Of walking. All at once. And I signed up for it.

I still haven't gotten over wanting to hurl in the corner.

Strangely, the rest of my walking buddies have signed up, too. Misery loves company! We'll be training over the summer with other walking events and just getting out there. I'll post more about it once I get my training plan solidified.

10K – the day after

Ooof. Legs. Muscles. Ouch! Okay, I whine a bit. I'm actually a lot less sore than I thought I'd be! A 30 minute walk at lunchtime and LOTS of water should help with that.

Cold/flu-wise I'm feeling pretty fly! The headache is just on the fringes and I can breathe pretty good. Just a small throat tickle, too. Even still, I'm going to take it easy this week. Only when I'm healthy and hale will I go back to Curves.

UPDATE
Our group has a small mention in the newspaper's 10K wrap-up today. Kick-ass!

Talking the Talk, Plotting the Walk

I've recently found some great tools for walking and running. They enable you to plot routes in your own city using Google Maps as the base. As you plot, it calculates the total distance in kilometres or miles. Once you're done, you can save your route and email the URL to fellow-walkers.

There's a number of flavours of these Google plotting web sites, but these are the ones I like the best:

• Gmaps Pedometer – simple and to the point, Gmaps lets you plot your route, see the distance and get a URL to the map for emailing or to come back to later.
• WalkJogRun – this site lets you see other user's routes in your area. It's great if you've run out of ideas and want some inspiration. You can filter by distance as well. To view a route, zoom into your area, single click on a marker and then click "View" on the popup bubble.

For both sites, be sure to click on the "Hybrid" button near the top of the map. You'll see satellite imagery as well as the street network. It's dead useful for plotting walks along unmarked paths.

And then there were six...

While we were at Tim Horton's last night (only 3 Timbits for me, thank you very much), my husband mentioned to our friends that we had signed up for a 10k. One offered right quick to be a walking buddy with us and that she knew great places to walk. Another said that we should make a team. I said, "why don't we all do it together?"

Strangely, they agreed. So two became six and we're all going to train together, too. Nothing like training buddies to keep you in line!

Owl in the Night

Tonight, my husband and I went for our first training walk. It felt really great. As we were walking, we noticed a large bird shaped shadow perched atop an evergreen tree. When we got closer we realized that the shadow was owl-shaped. Sure enough, when we got as close as we could get and I made a noise, its head swiveled around and gave us an inscrutable owl-y stare before flying off into the night.

My husband and I have never seen an owl in real life. Growing up in the woods as I did, I would always hear a lone owl hooting into the night but had never actually caught glimpse of that lonely soul.

Maybe exercise doesn't suck.