I did it!

Today, I put on some socks, and strapped on my Simple shoes and finally tried the stairs at Fisher Stadium. To my surprise I got to and completed the 50 yard line! It was pushing it, I was breathing hard and my knees started to feel like jello.

It was funny. There was a real athlete running up them, being timed by his coach. Never could I do that. He ran up, then down, then did 5 push ups and repeated 5 times. Then he ran the track a couple of times and repeated. You would have taken me away in a stretcher!

I think I try to go one row further each time and after I can do them all, try to do them faster.

Training Walks have "taken" me to Kentucky again

I use Beewellmiles.com to track how far I walk. It's a cool website from Bumble Bee tuna. You walk, they give money to the Network of Strength, a breast cancer organization. Fifteen cents a mile, up to a million miles, or a $150,000. Now that's what I call a lot of money.

So tonight I realized that my training walks have taken me to Barb's in Louisville (as the crow flies) again. I think it's much earlier than last year. That's the middle number. So far my walking is $93 of the $150,000. Pretty cool since all I'm doing is putting one foot in front of the other.

The first number blows my mind. That's my training from 2008 and 2009. It does not include the 3-day because you can only log 20 miles a day. That broke down to 23.5, 22.5, and 14. So I opened Google Earth to see where I've walked to. (as the crow flies.) It turns out that it's someplace I always wanted to go...the four corners of America (Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico). Right in the middle of access to some of the greatest national parks in the country. By the end of training season I should make it to San Francisco, or maybe Mexico. Depends on how my crow decides to fly. It's a finicky crow. Like me, it get's sidetracked.

But playing with Google Earth gave me an idea. Maybe actually dreaming about going there I should actually do it. I'd have to keep training to be able to do all that climbing. No fundraising involved.

Anybody up for a roadtrip?

Pedometer tales

In 1989, while we were both working regular 9-5 jobs my neighbor (and now friend) Mary Liz walked every morning about 3.5 miles up some steep hills in Fountain Hill at 6 am in the morning. Slowly our jobs became more irregular (ML also had a few back and foot surgeries), our lives changed and we've aged. We have settled in on four days a week schedule at 6:30 am. The route is much easier, but still aerobic. Occasionally ML has some trouble completing the "easy" 2.25-mile route and needs to stop. Soon I think she'll stop walking totally. But I know that she'll fight it all the way. My sister Sharon is now joining us on occasional walks.

The walks with ML began quite serendipitously. I was trying to lose weight and went on a crazy exercise program that no person could continue. I walked, did Calenetics, water aerobics, machines, and Jazzercise. I lost 80 lbs and gained it all back and then some. ML was also walking. We'd run into each other and started start walking together. It evolved into a great habit. We get to complain about our families and our jobs, and celebrate the good things in life. (Mobile therapy is a lot cheaper than the kind on a couch.) And found a good friend.

High blood pressure motivated me into taking walking more seriously. I discovered the 10,000 steps a day plan and attacked it with gusto. I bought my first pedometer. I wrote down every step. I broke it in a few months and bought another exactly like it. It fell on the floor, in the toilet, it was stepped on and pretty much suffered any other abuse you could throw at it. (It reminded me of the classic Timex commercial. "Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.") I signed up, trained for and did the 3-Day. My pedometer became part of me.

In April it was announced that we were having a pedometer challenge at work. Come get your pedometers. I put old faithful aside and got one of the official ones. The clip broke in a few weeks. I went back to old faithful.

I've taken two big falls on training walks. The last one killed old faithful. A pedometer can only take so much.

I went to Dicks Sporting Goods that afternoon to get another. The pedometer challenge was looming, and I want the $100 prize for my fundraising account. I had it one day and lost it. It kept popping off. I knew I did eight-miles that day, I mowed a lawn, plus daily walking and errand running. I guestimated my steps for the pedometer challenge.

The next day Pat said she looked in the neighbors yard for the old pedometer. So I bought another one at Target after work. Yes, the fourth pedometer in as many months.

Last night, my neighbor paid me for mowing the lawn (it goes in the fundraising account.) She said, did you lose your Bluetooth?

No.

Hmm. I found this in the yard.

It was the lost pedometer.

The Dots Were Making Me Dotty

I changed this blog to a plain background. The dots were making me dotty. I need simplicity and clean typography. But they won't let me change the font. So it is what it is.

New crazy fitness idea to battle stress/BP

I just walked to the Pfenning Alumni Center (Lafayette College) thru the football stadium concourse and had a crazy idea.

I've been doing the six flights of stairs at Acopian Engineering building at lunch time for about two months now. I can now get to the top without breathing like my father. I'm still tired, but not totally out of breath and gasping for air.

So the new plan is to walk (and maybe run later) the home side steps of the football stadium at lunch time. (Dare I dream to do both sides?) I totally understand that at first I might only do two sections, maybe a bit more. But if I continue by the end of fall I should be able to do the whole home side, right? I certainly won't be able to do it when it HHH in August. I'd be so stinky and sweaty after lunch that I couldn't go back to work. That's counterproductive.

I have closed shoes here at the office and socks. Not quite sneakers (and last time I wore them to walk I got bloody icky blisters) to wear. The kind of look like bowling shoes. I got them from Simple shoes. They're recycled, of course. (Hmm, maybe my blisters were recycled?)

Am I nuts?

Hmm...maybe I'll be able to do one of those stair climbs in February after all. (As long as there is no fund raising. I am so over fund raising.)