worst. walking. week. ever.

Clearly the ravages of our snowy winter are taking a toll on my walking adventures. It's not safe to drive, yet alone walk. The snow piles in my neighborhood are so high you can't see over them. The streets are plowed one lane wide, and the cars are sticking out into the road. The sidewalks are shoveled but the snow piled at the corners are like mountains to climb. It's a big unsafe mess out there.

And my pedometer shows it. 52% on a Friday! I'm at 52% on a Tuesday. By Friday I'm usually past 100%. Finishing around 125%

My brother Dave has read my snow posts and sent me  a couple messages this week about totals. I thought I'd share them. From the 17th ...

"Looked at your blog. Not sure if you are counting this winter season's snow or just 2014. Here are the figures for highest season snowfall.

4th: 2013-2014 (65.4 inches)
3rd: 1966-67 (67.2 inches.)  If we get 2 or more tonight/Tuesday we move into 3rd
2nd: 1993-94 (71.8 inches)
1st: 1995-96 (75.2 inches)  Note, this is just under 10 inches away and could easily be done this year."

 Then on the 18th, after yet another snowfall,

"Just checked, official total at the airport was 1.3 inches so we are now at 66.7. We came up a half inch short of moving into 3rd. Now we are 8.5 from the record."

Another storm is headed our way. Maybe we will make it. I love snow. I just want some of the old stuff to melt before we get new!

But it began to get warmer yesterday, and the snow piles are compressing. Things should be getting better. I can see my neighbors house now. Today it's raining. So that will compress the piles also.

Today we had planned to do the Iron Rail Trail, we heard it was plowed. But with the rain we won't.

Tomorrow we're doing the Warm Hearts 5K. It was supposed to be in Nazareth, but the borough pulled the plug because it would be unsafe with the high snowpiles and the narrow roads. It's been relocated to an industrial park.  It's for heart research and is on my nephews birthday. He had heart issues, so it makes it very appropriate.

Sunday, maybe we'll tackle Ironton. It's supposed to be in the 50s.

we found David!

Clearly Dave was hiding in Nome. Maybe avoiding me? Rechecking the finisher's roster, he arrived before his wife Barb! Easter sunrise services in "Nome" were lovely and now we're all headed home. The sensible people are flying. I've rented a car to drive home.  Sharon's coming with me. She's aching for a road trip.

After weeks of snowshoes in Alaska, I don't know how I will adjust to spring in Pennsylvania. But all good things must come to an end.

All the "scoobies" have been found and accounted for. Here's how we fared in the standings:

59 – me. I've spent my waiting time snowshoeing. Haven't lost an ounce.
102—Adonis (and Lydia). Clearly Adonis was walking with Carol (aka Bobodancer) from the Liberty Bell Wanderers. Carol came in 105. Does it count that they walked back to Anchorage?
429—Dave. He did a good job of hiding. Nome is not that big!
435—Sharon. She's still sleeping. Exhausted from the walk. "Never again" she says.
461—Barb H. Didn't see her much. Maybe she was hiding with Dave part of the time?
518—Megan. She "flew" right back to Louisville to train for a Half-Marathon and stopped logging miles. Why she didn't want to train in the snow and the cold is beyond me.
634—Bonnie came in 634.  She was not last.

The dog sleds have left. The walkers are leaving. Pretty soon Nome will return to a quiet sleepy town in Alaska. Hopefully the Boy Scouts raised a lot of money for their camp. 

joke from my brother

At least I think it's a joke.

"I am tired of going to the gym and plan to hide out for a while. I am planning on joining a Fitness Protection Program."

Boy have I had days like that.

idita-walk 2013

The party is in Nome again.

Grab your sneakers or snowshoes and join "The Scoobies" as we take the virtual Idita-walk. This is an event to promote physical fitness in the spirit of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. The Iditarod Sled Dog Race is 1049 miles long beginning at Anchorage, Alaska and finishing in Nome, Alaska.

Bonnie, Megan, Kathy, Adonis, David and I all did it last year. Who's coming this year? (See February and March posts. The discussion on FB was priceless!)

Bonnie was the first Scoobie to sign up. She's participant #70. Dave is 101, and I am #102. What number will you be? It's only $10 and supports boy scouts.

Update 12/1: They sent my certificate. Almost forgot to post it.

Dave emailed that his wife "Barb is #116" and that "Teresa, a friend from the gym, is going to sign up too".

Later he emailed that they reordered the numbers. Bonnie is 69, Dave 98, me 99, and Barb 115.

water

Partially  because I'm an eco-brat, and partially because I'm cheap, I rarely buy water in bottles. I have numerous water bottles both plastic and metal, and also tumbler-like cups with lids. At 5Ks and other events I pick up bottled water. They often hand it to you as you cross the finish line. Often I don't open it and save it for another day.

But there are those rare ocassions when I leave for school or work and discover I have no vessel for water in my car. Yesterday was one of those ocassions.

So I stopped at Walgreens, because I knew the school bookstore would still have long lines. Then I proceeded to stare at the choices. When I do buy, I try not to ever buy Dasani or Aquafina. Those are tap water that have been filtered. Why pay for tap water twice? Generally I buy Deer Park or Poland Spring.

But Walgreens had really interesting choices of imported waters. Beyond Evian and Perrier which I like. And it got me thinking about something I saw on the news.

There was this group of ladies with some rare disease that all the could drink was water. They were constantly sipping water. So they were having a fund-raiser for the disease and it was a water tasting. I thought it was an odd concept. But they were talking about water like  my brother Dave talks about wine, and my colleague talks about beer.

My only conversations about water have been about how bad it tastes. I used to think Allentown's water was horrible until I drank Easton's. I don't think mine is too bad. I drink a lot of it. I know people who've moved here that tell me I am wrong. But "flavor notes" like beer and wine, I don't think so. But I believe in beer brewing that the water makes a difference in the taste of the beer. So clearly I'm wrong.

I decided, right then in there in the cold beverage aisle of Walgreens that if I had to buy water, I was going to buy something different each time. I wanted to see I they really do taste different. It didn't hurt that Iceland Pure was on sale, cheaper than my normal choices. (How they ship it all the way from Iceland in that ultra thin plastic bottle is beyond me.) It has a pH of 8.88. I have no idea what that means but it was important enough to put on the front label. And from reading the nutrition facts it has lots of minerals in it.

It was good. Better than my local water. And light years better than the bottled filtered tap waters. It was clean and fresh, even after it got warm. I could really taste the difference when I refilled it from the water fountain.

Now I want to run out and buy all the types they had and have a water tasting party.

the good new and the bad news

Photo from my photographer-brother Dave. He's been on the trail and to Harper's Ferry.

Update on the walk. 

The good news it's a 50K. That's only 31-ish miles. I think I could do the 50K with some training. I did 25 miles in one day for the 3-Day. Time to train might be a challenge. When I was doing the 3-Day my Saturdays and Sundays were spent walking most of the day.

     The bad news. Angel's friend Michel wants to do the 100K version. He likes a challenge.  Yep, that's 62 miles.  Yikes! I'm not very confident on 62 miles. He did assure me that we'd stay together and if one leaves we both leave.  His exact quote to Angel "I'll take care of her ass—I'm very good like that". After walking 62 miles my ass should be smaller. It's the old part I'm concerned about. He's half my age. 

     There is food, potties and a sweep van along the way. Terrain should be fairly flat. It follows a canal path.

     It begins at 3 am and goes to half-past midnight.

     It's sponsored by the Sierra Club and called the One Day Hike.  The website describes it as "a challenging and fully supported annual event". They limit participation to 350 people. Registration opens February 1. 
     Yes I am crazy to think about it.

bethlehem to bethlehem (and back!) wrap up

This morning was the wrap up breakfast for the Bethlehem to Bethlehem walking challenge. My last report had us treading water 2000 miles off the coast of Jersey. We made it back to land, just not quite back to Bethlehem.

There were 89 participants and we walked a combined total of 10, 540.8 miles! Yeah us. That works out to an average 118 miles per person. This was a family project so we had children, teens and adults walking. Forty people averaged more than 100 miles. Eight 200-299 miles, and two over 500 miles! The top walker was Linda M who walked 581.1 miles. Chelsea M. came in right behind her at 572 miles. Both Sharon and I came in over 200. Barb and Dave were just under 200. As a family we rocked!

They were also talking blood pressures. Mine was 128/76. I was doing a happy dance in the lobby!

This virtual walking is taking me places I'll never go. So it's on to Alaska and the Idita Walk!

sitting, cross legged, in the middle of a parking lot

Sharon wanted to go to the gym this morning. I said yes. It's supposed to get more hot/humid as the week wears on, so I wanted to be sure to get some walking in. Without a mega walk to train for I've turned into a wimp. For the past two years I went out in every kind of weather. No matter what.

We got to Planet Fitness early. (The pix was from when she joined the gym. Even Sharon isn't silly enough to wear a winter coat in July!) She had to wait about 15 minutes for them to open. The parking lot was pretty shady at this point. I headed right out.

I headed up the hill, past Dave and Barbs, out Chew, up another hill to Hamilton, and then came down Irving. It didn't seem long enough. But the route was pretty shady. (Google Pedometer said less than 1.5! oops.)

When I returned to the car, most of the shade in the parking lot was gone. Then I started playing the wi-fi game. Find a place in the lot—with shade—that I could connect to wi-fi. So here I am, sitting on the curb next to Family Dollar. Totally pointing away from the gym. Hope Sharon see's me! I am kind of hard to miss. People are staring at me when they drive past. "Who's this loon on the curb with a laptop?"

Last night while watching This Old House, WHYY had an ad on for the Y12K.So I looked it up. No walking segment. Hey guys, if you want to raise money for public television, then include walkers damn it. There is a family fun walk. 3K. I'm not driving to Philly for a 3K. What is that, a mile and a half?

I am going to sign up for the City of Hope Walk of Hope in Camden. It's a 5K September 18. When will I have another opportunity to WALK across the Ben Franklin Bridge? Heck, some days it takes forever to drive across it! That's certainly worth the drive to Camden. And it benefits women's cancers. Good cause.

It's been more than 45 minutes since the gym opened. Wonder where Sharon is? Maybe she's wandering the parking lot looking for me. Guess I need to go find her. If I can get up from the curb.

----------

I found her sitting on the bench, in the sun, right by the gyms door. "I've only been here a couple of minutes".  "No, I didn't see you." Did you look. "No. Thought you weren't back yet."

bike number mystery solved

Yesterday I went for an hour walk around Wilson Boro with my friend Angel. I never realized how big Wilson was, nor how nice. We finished at the elementary school where we picked up the child after school. We got there a little early and was serenaded by the church next door with 10 minutes of carols from the bell tower. I liked it. angel hated it. Maybe I would too if I listened to it every day!

My brother Dave sent me an explanation of the stationary bike numbers at Sharon's  gym that have been a mystery to me. In case you're interested, I'll copy/paste it here for you.

I read you were using the exercise bike and wanted to know what the numbers meant. They don't really mean anything if you are looking for something like pounds or a measurement. They are relative terms for resistance. The higher the number, the more resistance being applied to the flywheel. This is just so you have an idea what is going on. If you are doing well at 8 for several sessions, then up the value until you are doing that well consistently.

It is far more important to work out at the proper heart rate. My doc says 25 minutes of active exercise with at least 50% of that time in the target heart rate. ...

One thing that is suggested at 24/7 Fitness is the 40 minute aerobic workout. You do 5 minutes at the normal rate, then go all out for 1 minute, then back to normal. Continue that until you reach 40 minutes. I do this at times in the 25 minute cycle instead. That one minute really gets me going, sometimes up to near 150 heart rate. There are two ways to do the minute. Keep the tension the same and go fast, or crank up the tension and stay at the same speed. I find going fast is easier to deal with, especially if I feel I can't make the full minute.

 Thanks Dave.

i did the turkey trot in sneakers!

Today was HPI's Turkey Trot. Some towns actually have there's on Thanksgiving. I wore my pink sneakers for the whole race. I didn't fall or anything. Amazing.

It started and ended at the Luckenback Mill.

I really wanted to take pixs of some of the people. Runners and workers in Moravian garb, there were even a couple as Native Americans, and that select group of crazy peopl wearing tiny shorts and tank tops on November 28.

I ran into someone from the 3-Day. Donna, part of Gail F's team, and her husband. Donna took the pix of me. Another sourpuss shot. I'm beginning to think that I'm always a sourpuss! Am I?

Donna's hubby was running, she was speed walking. Her goal was 45 minutes. Mine was not finishing last. We started together and then she was off.

On Main Street I got behind a couple and their shaggy dog. The dog was a pain. He wanted to sniff every leaf and every Christmas decoration downtown. I almost tripped over her several times. Thank goodness I walk with Izzy and Logan, I know how to do the doggie walking dance. I finally managed to pass them.

After Main street we went under the bridge to Sand Island, made the 1-mile loop and came back out to Lehigh. We walked into the wind a lot. Then we went around city hall by the sculpture garden, through the historic area, and back down to the Mill via the "Musikfest" path.

I got past the Mill and couldn't find the finish line. At first I thought they had already taken it down. But then I noticed it past the tents, under the Broad Street overpass. I probably lost 20-30 seconds in my confusion. I actually stopped. I crossed the finish at 52.35. I was not last. At least 10 people were behind me.

I guess that's okay. But I walked as fast as I could and tried not to get distracted. And still got 3MPH.

Next week is the Jingle Bell Run/Walk. My brother Dave might do it with me. He kicks butt on the treadmill and elliptical at the gym, and thinks maybe he can make it out on the streets. I'm sure he can. Plus he'll have his wife Barb as a cheerleader. I bet he beats me by at least 5 minutes.