Day 5

I took yesterday off as Sunday is the Lord's day. Not really the reason but it sounds better than the actual reason of I didn't want to shower twice. I desperately needed to shave (it's been 2 weeks), I shave with an electric and that's it so I can't come home from a walk and be all sweaty and then shave, so I decided I'd take the day off, shave then shower and relax. I told you the first excuse sounded better.

I had planned on weighing myself at work since we don't have a scale at home. It's a industrial scale so who knows how accurate it is but I guess as long as I use only that, it will show any loss. I wasn't really expecting to lose anything already, but I wanted to get a weekly record of it and Monday seemed as good as a day as any. Maybe tomorrow.

I did walk today though, I wasn't sure I was going to as they were calling for late afternoon showers, plus I had to leave work, pick up Cheri and then head over to our contractors for a meeting. When we were done there we had to grab the kids at my moms and then head home so I figured after all that, I wouldn't be in the mood, but I more or less forced myself to go. I didn't want to have 2 days off in a row.

I just did my minimum, it was hot and a little later than I normally go plus once I got going, my shins started to hurt again. I had shin splints when I was younger when I played basketball on asphalt so I wonder if that's not rearing it's ugly head.

My goal as I'm walking is to keep at least a 3 mi/hr pace so I was conscience of slowing down and I tried not to. Even as I was getting towards the end and my shins were really hurting I kept up my pace. You can see up above that I averaged 3.1 mi/hr but since I was actually leary of slowing down, apparently I sped up.

Apparently at one point I got up to 5 mi/hr. According to the app, it was around the 20 minute mark when I did which would actually be after the half way point. So kudos to me, maybe that's the real reason my shins hurt.

Not as hot as it's been but I'm sure the heat index or realfeel was hotter because it was pretty muggy and as you can tell, pretty sunny. Although as I type this, it's pouring rain now so I guess it's a good thing I went when I did.

Don't worry, I kept my music in line as well.

Between You and Me (DC Talk)

Shut Up And Dance (Walk the Moon)

No One Like You (Scorpions)

the Stroke (Billy Squier)

Knock Three Times (Tony Orlando & Dawn)

Get Stoned (Hinder)

Stolen Dance (Milky Chance)

Mighty Wings (Cheap Trick)

Here Without You (3 Doors Down)

I love that song, it was great to walk to as well. The beat went right with my strides.

Days walked - 5
Currently miles walked - 12.8 miles
Minutes walked - 3 hrs, 56 minutes

Day 4

I'm posting before noon, who else is shocked? That's right, I actually went for a walk before 10am. I get up at 5:15 am during the week for work so I usually sleep until around 9 or 10 on the weekends. Except for this morning apparently. I woke up around 7 and couldn't get back to sleep so I layed there for an hour before getting up. Trevor had a friend stay the night and his mom was coming by around 8:30 so I got up, checked to make sure they were up and grabbed a banana while I waited. They showed up and left a little before 9 so as soon as they left (and my phone got done updating) I headed out. The plan was to go the usual route (2 miles) but that can always vary depending on my mood.

Well, it varied.

That's right, 3.59 miles. I was feeling pretty good when I headed out. My shins felt stiff if that makes sense but it wasn't painful so I kept going and to be honest, I didn't really feel really sore and probably could have kept going but I figured I shouldn't push it. If you actually follow the map, I stretched it over to the main roads on both sides of the neighborhood.

I upped a couple of my trophy's with my longest walk, time and distance. I'm guessing the fact that I went earlier in the day and not after being on my feet for over 8 hours had a lot to do with that. This also helped.

Another advantage for going in the morning, it was much cooler. The forecast was for 90 degrees later today so it was definitely a good idea to go this morning. That might have attributed to the longer walk as well. I haven't figured out how to carry water with me while I walk so at this moment, I don't take any. I don't want to carry it in my hands and haven't figured out how to strap it to myself. I suppose I could probably shop for something, I would assume they have something that I could strap around myself.

I may do this everyday as well, as most of you know, I love to listen to lots of different types of music, so I'll throw out the songs that I listened to. Why not? I listen to my Anything & Everything playlist which the title says it all. Here's what I listened to this morning.

Something From Nothing (Foo Fighters)

50 Ways to Say Goodbye (Train)

That Don't Impress Me Much (Shania Twain)

No Boundaries (Adam Lambert)

Rollin' (Limp Bizkit)

Headlights (Eminem, Nate Ruess)

Paranoid (Megadeth)

Jump (For My Love) (the Pointer Sisters)

Longer (Dan Fogelberg)

Don't (Ed Sheeran)

Come With Me Now (Kongos)

Beaches of Cheyenne (Garth Brooks)

Should've Said No (Taylor Swift, Jonas Brothers)

Love Don't Cost A Thing (Jennifer Lopez)

Music For The People (Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch)

Tequila Sunrise (Eagles)

Score from Halloween (TV/Movie Themes)

No Way We Are Not Ashamed (Carman)

More Sold Out (Whiteheart)

Why Do Fools Fall in Love (Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers)

Watch Over You (Alter Bridge)

City Lights (Tim McGraw)

Fat Bottomed Girls (Queen)

I think it was funny the last song was Fat Bottomed Girls since I'm trying to get my fat ass smaller.

Days walked - 4
Currently miles walked - 10.83 miles
Minutes walked - 3 hrs, 21 minutes

I don't have to much going on today, I plan on teaching my daughter how to play poker and maybe a couple of other card games. I'll ask my son if he wants to play but knowing him, he won't want to leave his Xbox.

Day 3

Apparently this blog has now become a blog about my exercise, or more specifically, walking. I guess that's just the natural progression of the blog. It has been a little of everything in the few years I've had it. Blogging, Book reviews, movie reviews, a journal, you get the idea.

Now that school has started, it will be detrimental for myself to just get off my lazy ass and go. I planned on going after work. Come home, switch my work boots to shoes and then head out. Now that the kids are back in school, I get off work, go over to my moms where I sit on my ass for an hour while I'm waiting for them to get off the bus, then go home. It's harder to get motivated after sitting on my ass.

I went for my second walk this week. I set my goal for a mile and a half after the 3 mile hike earlier in the week kicked my ass. I figured I'd better start smaller and work my way up. I went pretty much the same route as I did earlier in the week but I cut some of it down. I walked my planned route and it actually ended up a little more than the mile and a half that I expected. Let's check it out.

As you can see, I went 2 miles on the nose so I will probably stick to that route for awhile and build up some endurance. It would probably help if I actually walked every day to build that. I headed out the same route for the most part, when I left my apartment though, I walked across the parking lot and walked around the outside of the complex until I got to the entrance and then went across to the neighborhood. I went down, did the 2 loops then came back. When I got back I came in the entrance and hung a right and walked along the outside of the complex again until I got back to my apartment. Like I said, it ended up being 2 miles on the nose so I'll keep that route for awhile.

My speed was down a little which surprised me, I figured a shorter route I would average faster but I guess not. I still did it in 36 minutes which I suppose is alright. It's been about my average lately.

I took this picture on my route so I could see the temperature at the time of my walk, I forgot to do that on the last post but I now see that it actually has the temperature on the map above. I could have used a headband, I had to keep wiping the sweat off my forehead. I plan on walking the next 2 days, we'll see how that goes.

Days walked - 3
Currently miles walked - 7.24 miles
Minutes walked - 2 hrs, 12 minutes

3 miles, barely

If you read my last post, a couple of weeks ago, it said that I was going to try and walk more often. Well, this post is to tell you I went walking again, yeah, first time since then. So much for that. I did go for a 2nd time though, so let's celebrate that.

As my last post said, I was going to go through the neighborhoods across the street so I headed out after a few stretches on the stairs. I actually set a goal this time so I set out trying to accomplish something. I got going and was feeling pretty good, like I was thinking about a slow jog good. That didn't last to long, but I set a decent pace and pushed on. I kind of looped back and forth through the neighborhood and by the time I was heading back up the street that goes into the apartments, I was hurting. I pulled out my phone to see if I was close to my goal and I still had a little less than half a mile to reach it. Damn it! My feet were hurting and my legs were tired but I really wanted to reach that goal. So I did a lap around the apartments and I was still a tad short so I did half of another. I barely made it up the stairs when I got home but I did it, I reached 3 miles!

You see I ended up at 3.17 miles and I did it under an hour. I don't know if that's good or not, but it sounds good to me.

Let's take a look at my route.

I went from my apartment (the flag) and went straight out the entrance and across the street. I took that road all the way to the dead end and followed it to the right and around. Then I stayed on that road all the way to the last road and looped it around which is the 1 mile mark. On that long stretch, I walked by a house where there were 2 huge German Shepherds laying in the front yard and the home owner (I assume) was up on the roof hanging shutters. As I walked by I saw out of the corner of my eye one of the dogs get up and head my way. I didn't think anything of it, I just assumed it would stop at the road and I was on the other side of it. Next thing I know, I feel a nose up my ass, it startled me, not because it was a dog but just because I really wasn't expecting it. I reached around and gave him a quick pet before he trotted back to his yard.

The dark blue is my 1-2 miles track. You can see where I hit the 2 mile mark, Why they can't have another color for the 3rd mile is beyond me. After I looped around after the 2nd mile marker is where I pulled out my phone, hoping I already hit it but I hadn't. I decided to just go back to the apartment anyways. You see in the 2nd picture on the way back where it looked like I was going to go down that road but turned around? I actually was walking that way waiting for traffic to clear so I could cross. I was afraid if I stopped, I may not get it going again. I got into the apartment complex and stayed towards the outside, hoping when I got to my apartment, I'd be done, but I wasn't. I still had .21 miles left at the apartment so I continued on but I moved to the inside of the parking lot once I hit the entrance. You can see I hit the 3 mile just after the entrance, I checked it not long afterwards and you can see when I cut back towards the apartment. At the very end, I cut through apartments just to get back and it was all I could do to make it up the stairs to the apartment. I was wore out.

The first time I walked, I didn't really feel all that horrible when I finished, granted it was over a mile shorter, but this time I was really feeling it. As I type this, 5 hours later, I don't feel too bad. I think I was on the verge of a blister on the ball of my foot when I got home but that is feeling better as well. That might be more my footwear. I wear my sneakers anytime I leave the house, except for work. I've had them for a few years now, I just replace the cushion and arch support occasionally, which I believe is what I need to do.

This app keeps awards, to bad it's not money, I might walk more. Let's see what I achieved on my 2nd walk.I earned 5 but these 3 are the only ones I'm counting. The other 2 was most Calories, which duh, I walked further and one for reaching my goal. Longest distance I already discussed as well as the longest duration so we'll get to the fastest speed. My fastest speed was 4.8 mph which is actually an improvement on my last walk which was only 4.2 mph. If you go back to the top screenshot, you'll see my average pace was 3.0 mph, last time it was 3.2 mph but I'm telling you, I was dragging ass the last stretch so it probably really slowed that one down.

Maybe next time, hopefully there will be another, I'll set my goal at 2.5 miles and work my way up to 3 miles.