My first.........

Blister!! Ouch. Saturday I was unable to take the 8 mile training walk due to a migraine so I made sure I did the 6 mile walk on Sunday. I was dragging my feet about doing it and then just made up my mind, put on my shoes and headed out the door. I ended up doing 6.5 miles. Yay! About 1 mile in I noticed that I didn't change my socks before leaving. It was cool that morning so I had on a pair of cotton socks. About the 5 mile mark I noticed a little burning pain but nothing too bad. Shoes came off when I came home and there it was. Ouch. This is a good reminder to always double check my equipment before leaving. I got a some new clothes to try today and looked at the Camelbaks. I am deciding which I should get. They aren't cheap! Now that I am doing the longer walks I really need to be prepared for things like having an extra pair of socks with me and moleskin and such.

The training is starting to get a lot more serious with these long weekend walks. I feel the commitment now. I now have two things to focus on, my training and my new job as the assistant to the Executive Director of the Oregon Humane Society. It's pretty much my dream job. I told them about the walk during the first interview and they were excited for me and they liked that I am not afraid of fund raising. Score!!

Oh, I also joined a team fitness challenge. A friend does it online through her gym. It's all about getting points for different levels of exercise and fitness. I figured this would be a fun thing to combine with my training walks. So far, so good. At the end of the first week I am #10 out of #30. I can't believe this is lazy me talking about all this. It feels good.

First group training walk

Today I attended my first group training walk. We are lucky to have a trainer in town since there is no 3 Day Portland. She told me that there are over 300 people in Portland doing walks all over. Today was a 5.5 mile walk. There were five of us walking and wearing our pink. 2 are doing the Seattle walk, 1 San Diego, 1 Twin Cities and me in Phoenix. This was the 6th walk for one gal and 3rd for another. Me and the trainer were the only first timers.

It was really nice to walk with some others that share the same goal. It was also great to talk with those that have done this before about tips and their own experiences. They gave me great ideas on gear too. One gal used the CamelBak which I had decided not to use because my back would get too hot. Her secret was filling it with ice. I might reconsider getting one since it would hold a lot more stuff.

The photo is from a few weeks ago at my local neighborhood parade. I loved the float and their name.

3.5 on a new trail

Today was BEAUTIFUL! 70° and sunny. This is how it should be this time of year but for the last 3 weeks we have been in the 50-60's and rainy. I took advantage of the great day and went for a 3.5 miles walk on a new path. It is a biking/pedestrian path that I have been a bit nervous about walking by myself. A girl has to be cautious. I figured today there would be lots of people out and about and there were so I felt safe. It actually backs up to houses and apartments the whole way and isn't as secluded as I thought. The other bonus is that the path has a gradual decline in elevation so the return was a slight rise which gave me a better workout. My thighs feel it.

I got an application for my Android called Runstar. It records my miles and time based on GPS. It keeps track of your elevation and time too and keeps historical data so you can see how you are improving. I love it!! Since I like to wander on my routes this keeps up with my total mileage. I am sure there are several of these apps out there but this one was free. Yay!!

Nothing

I was a slug today.

3 Miles

Keeping to the schedule, today was a 3 mile moderate walk. Done! I took the waterfront area that has a huge hill to get up and down. Near the end I stopped in a local bookstore and picked up "Portland Hill Walks." There are 20 walks all over town. Most are 3-6 miles so great for training. They go through a lot of historic area and the book describes what you are seeing. I am excited to try one.

At the bookstore I was telling the owner about the walk and she said a friend of hers is doing the Seattle walk. I told her how I hoped to train with some of the local walkers who are doing that one. She then told me her friend was a walk trainer named Bonnie. When I got home from my walk there was an email from Bonnie, a local walk trainer, introducing herself and inviting me to a training walk. How funny is that!

Yay! Good day!

The official start

Over the weekend I received my first official training email for the walk. The weather turned nasty here a few weeks ago and I have been really slacking on the training so I figured this will be my fresh start.

I got in 3 miles today before the wind and rain. I guess I will either have to move the treadmill around into a usable space or deal with the rainy weather the next few days. We are very late in getting any warm weather and I will be so happy when sun gets to be part of my walking.

I went to one of those foot stores a while ago to figure out what was up with my feet hurting. Turns out I have high arches and very flexible feet. They said my feet are "special" so really only a $500 custom insert will help. I don't think my feet are that special. I ended up getting a $60 pair of inserts. The pain was immediately gone from the right, bigger foot. The left foot is 1/2 size smaller so the insert didn't work as well. Today I did some trimming and it seems to be better. The real test will be how my feet feel after tomorrow's walk, 2 days in a row.

24 weeks seems so close!!

One of the reasons I walk

I am one of the lucky ones who's mom is a survivor. We need more stories like this.

Hurting

I haven't been getting too much walking in this week because, basically, it hurts. I have tried just about everything. It's getting to where my feet feel bruised all the time because I keep trying. I think I am going to have to suck it up and go see a podiatrist. I hope it's not too expensive. Since my job ended a couple of months ago I no longer have the good insurance. I now have a crummy plan that hardly covers anything but hospital stays. Eh, it will be worth it in the end when I can walk, walk, walk without pain.

On the bright side, I am kicking tail at my fundraising!! Woot!!!

Well here it is, my new hip pack. It is from a company called Sherpani and it's really cute. It also didn't seem to rub anywhere wrong on my first test walk with it. It has a lot of room and interior compartments. It is nice and flat so I don't look any wider. I like that! Now that I am back from vacation I have started walking again. I got a couple of good 3 mile walks in last week. I am still having a foot pain issue and trying to decide what to do. Since being unemployed, my medical plan is not great and costs me a lot of money. I would like to try everything I can before seeking a medical solution.

Today while walking I started hurting around the 1.5 mile point which is where it happens each time. We took a path that let us back through my local downtown area and since I was able to keep some $$ in my hip pack, we were able to stop and pick up a dish of Gelato for the last of the walk home. After about 10 minutes of not walking my feet felt better for the last part of the walk. They seem to feel better as soon as I am not walking. Tomorrow or Tuesday I am going to try a 3 mile walk in the morning and then see how an afternoon or evening walk will go. Maybe I can work in 3 x per day. Fingers crossed.

I am excited to hear about my teammates Missy and Laura taking really good long training walks. Keep up the good work ladies, i'm trying to keep up. :p

Busy!

These past two weeks I have been so busy. Two big work projects and I have a friend in town for a couple of days so there was big cleaning and cooking to do this weekend. I managed to get in about 3 miles every other day. I still have the foot pain so that is all I can do right now. I ordered some new inserts to try and help. Hopefully they will get here soon and work.

This past weekend I went to the one and only "Get started" meeting here in Portland. It was mostly walkers planning on the 3 day in Seattle. I was happy to find out that we have at least one leader here in the area who sets up training walks. Woo Hoo! I also decided that I needed to get serious on starting my fund raising. I started simple by posting on Facebook and already have 2 donations totaling $300. Someone I worked with 10 years ago gave me $150. How awesome is that? Woo Hoo!!

No miles today

My feet are still hurting from the 4 miles yesterday. I don't know whats up with that since I just got new shoes that feel great. I did some research and it sounds like I might need to get some fancy insoles.

Instead of walking today I saw "A Single Man." I have a goal of seeing all 10 best picture nominations before the Oscars Sunday night. The movie was really good. Colin Firth is an amazing actor and Tom Ford did a great job directing his first film. The movie was set in 1962 California so mostly I sat there and drooled over the sets and costumes. Now I just need to see "Blind Side" and "The Hurt Locker."

After the movie I went to Oregon Humane Society (OHS) to work on my new volunteer project. The program gives anyone who qualifies on public assistance a spay or neuter at OHS for $10 per cat. We even have a small group of volunteers who will taxi them back and forth for people who can't make it. You should hear the calls I am taking with people desperate to get their cats fixed. The female cats are coming into heat right now and I can hear them yowling away in the background. Luckily we are scheduling them pretty quickly. The goal is 10,000 spay/neuters this year.

Anyway, that was my day. I am going to try and walk tomorrow. I feel like right now I might need consistency more than mileage right now. Walking needs to become a habit and something I do everyday!

Camping?

4 miles today and I fit it in on a pretty busy day. My feet hurt a lot still but better after resting. If they are OK tomorrow I am going back out.

While I walked today I started thinking about the camping part of this event. Yikes! Camping is typically not an activity that I enjoy. I like modern conveniences far too much. As a kid my dad would take us camping with our cousins in the New Mexico mountains. It was so fun however, I was always the kid that got hurt or fell off the log into the water. As a teenager my I went camping with my BFF and her family a couple of times in Florida. This is what sealed the deal with my dislike of camping. Bugs, snakes, humidity......oh, it's just so awful!

Camping at the event sounds much better than my past experiences. They will have some modern cons and I will be with fun people. I will also be so tired that a pile of leaves will look like the Hilton. As long as I don't have to cross any streams via a log I bet it will be great and I will do just fine.

My mom and I love the image posted above. This has been posted in my workspace for a while now. It fits.

My first post

I can't believe I have a blog. I do not enjoy writing about me and I have horrible spelling, grammar and punctuation. Hopefully all the edit buttons on this will help with some of that. Please excuse the mess that this will probably be.

So, November 12 - 14 I will be joining team Trekkin' for Ta-Ta's in walking 60 miles in 3 days in Phoenix. I am going to be a walking fool until then so I don't let down my teammates when the big weekend comes.

I am all ready to get this party started! I have new shoes and socks, fresh tunes for the Ipod, big supply of Power Bars and a great team of friends and family to cheer me on.

Diego is my own personal cheerleader. In the above photo he is modeling a Calvin Collar from The Cat in The Clover on Etsy. My teammate is selling these and donating the profits to her fund raising goal.