Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Training Walk

Well, lots to report today.

First off, I had a walk planned with a friend... then I sorta invited my sister along, then my husband turned out to have some free time. In the meantime, my friend got busy and wasn't able to do the actual walk with me.

However. My friend, Laura, was able to talk with the manager of a local shoe store that sells the shoes I have been prescribed by my doctor. Amazingly, they gave me a free pair of shoes and the second pair at 30% off, which Laura paid for. And, as if that wasn't cool enough, she also bought me a t-shirt which should help considerably with training.

I walked into the store unsure of why I was going to it, and walked out with $200 worth of merchandise, most of which is crucial to my success on this walk.

With that in mind, I want to thank Brooks Sports, Inc for the free shoes, and Laura White for the other pair and the shirt as well as for hooking me up with the free pair in the first place.

Laura also has some more ideas for fundraising, which is appreciated since I'm very poor at it and I've got a long, long way to go.

As for the training walk itself... not so good. My new pack works great, I had a lot of energy, but the lower leg pain started up soon before I reached the half mile point and didn't go away. Eric and Lisa kept walking way ahead because I just couldn't go as fast as them. I think I need to see a physical therapist and get this pain sorted out... quickly. Luckily, the insurance will pay for that.

I did go the full distance, but I had to stop several times, once for quite awhile, to let the pain drain off before continuing.

This time I took a couple of pictures from the bridge. This is the one you can see in the trestle image.

This first image is looking back the way I came. The trail is on the right bank through here, invisible behind the heavy brush.

This one looks forward. You can see the trestle up there not too far away, and part of the curve of the trail on the right. As I took the pictures, leaning against the wooden railing of the bridge, I could feel the bridge still shaking from the passage of some bicyclists just moments earlier.

Later in the walk I noticed some ice in the shade and snapped a picture.

The ice stood out to me because it's pretty unusual to see bright sunlight and this kind of ice at the same time around this area. It's also not really that common to see this kind of ice at all, for that matter. They were fairly large slabs, and I'm sure we could have picked them up like plates. It was a cool thing to see and a reminder that, despite the sunlight and warm temps, it's still winter.

The distance of this walk was the same as yesterday's walk. Tomorrow I'm saving up my energy for the evening swim, then I'll be walking with the Bouncing Betties on Thursday evening. Friday is crosstraining day, so I'll do some exercise bike, then I'll just have to see how it progresses from there.

Energy Bar review: I finished off yesterday's Clif bar. Nothing new, sorry.

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