Losing a part of me

I set out to go shopping this morning… on foot. It is the second time that I have done that since I started the program, and we are sixteen days since my last one. I have not worked out in that time.

More than two weeks ago, upon returning from that first (grueling) walk, I wrote a piece which I titled: “But Was It a Workout?” I always find it important to keep track of my walks and eventually jogs so that I can push myself to do better than I did last time… even if I am just walking to the store.

Granted, the store that I walked to today was 2.5km away. Like I did the last time, I paused my tracking when I walked into the store and restarted it when I started walking home again. I do not want my browsing the aisles (which I will obviously not do at an ‘exercise pace’) to skew my statistics.

Here is the summary of today’s walk:

· Distance: 5.00 km (4.02 km)

· Duration: 56:00 minutes (50:05 minutes)

· Average Pace (Min/km): 11:11 (12.16)

· Steps: 6.3k (5.4k)

· Calories burned: 519 (402)

· Elevation gain: 14.1m (12m)

· Average cadence (steps per minute): 114 (110)

While this is only my second measured workout of the year, there is marked improvement in every measure. I put the previous workout in brackets. The workout was six minutes and one kilometer longer, my pace per kilometer was more than a minute less… all of that, with a heavy wind in my face on my trip back. Still and all, my worst kilometer this time (5^th kilometer, 11m43s) was over 30 seconds faster than my best kilometer last time (1^st kilometer, 12m16s). My best kilometer (2^nd, 10m32s) was 1m44s better than my best kilometer last time.

Improvement is expected; what is not tracked by my app is that my first time out, I made three stops. Today I made only one. As well, my last 2.5 km were done with five pounds of groceries in each hand.

I have a long way to go until I get back to jogging, or even to my extremely respectable pace of walking. Hopefully by the summer I will be there. In the meantime, I am not at all upset about today’s workout. I just wish that I would not be so frustrated by other things when I came home!

Getting back to the title of the article. The last time I went out for a measured walk, I made several stops, and so I asked myself if it was really a workout. Today I walked five kilometers, but was it a workout? It was really split pretty evenly into two 2.5km walks. I know that I was pushing myself from beginning to the end of each one. Maybe, instead of looking at it as a single 5km walk, I would have to split it into two 2.5km walks. Either way, I am happy with it. My feet were starting to feel it by the fourth kilometer, and I know I built up a sweat. Yes, it is a workout… or maybe it is two.

As an added note: The last time I came back in, I noted to myself that I was not dressed appropriately. Today I was also inappropriately dressed… but differently. On my last outing, I wore my heavy winter jacket. Today, I wore a better jacket with a breathable shirt. Check! Instead of my felt hat, I wore a golf hat. The only thing that I did wrong was to wear my blue jeans. They are comfortable for everyday wear, but they are still pretty tight, and they are not the right pants to exercise in. I will make a note to change that up on my next walk.

Although I accomplished none of the work I was planning to do today, I did manage to book my airfare to go to visit Leslie in June. By that point, she will have visited me seven times, and I really want to see where (and how!) she lives. I am really excited about it… although I am also nervous about something that has nothing to do with her or with flying. With any luck, things will go fine and there will be nothing to worry about.

I just looked out the window, and it is snowing… I mean, really snowing. I thought the cashier at Fortino’s was crazy when she told me that it was going to snow later today; I suppose I owe her an apology. I will say that I am glad that I went out in the morning, rather than waiting until the afternoon. Yes, I have to take HRF Princess Sophie outside, but she will not want to spend more time outside in this weather than is absolutely necessary. After we come back in, I will start preparing dinner, and then to prepare for my evening class. Have a great afternoon/evening folks!