Who's that girl?

I got up this morning and saw it was snowing, so I went for a run/walk, because I like my neighborhood route and it's no fun when it's icy and slushy, so I needed to do that a few more times before the snow makes me have a few months without.

I got up last Saturday, drove downtown, and ran a 5k in the 20F cold because I wanted to do one more race this year and I wasn't in town for the Drumstick Dash. That was my fifth race of that length since September, if you count the 3 mile Run Like Hell (and I do, it was a blast!)

I pay attention to my pace and time and distance, because I have to improve all of that to participate in the half marathon I already signed up for next fall.

I really don't recognize myself in any of those things, but somehow they're a part of who I am and what I'm up to lately. This all started with the 500 mile challenge, which ended in May with about 440 miles done. A year and a half after goading myself off of my sofa with that crazy goal, I get cranky if I don't get some exercise every few days. Which means I've got a habit of exercise, which was really the goal of the 500 mile project. And so now I'll try and get a spreadsheet going for next year, because 500 miles in 2012 sounds entirely doable.

The best part of this is the friends who have come along with me. Mandie, Jill and Bri have their own goals, but have been awesome cheerleaders and pacers for me this fall and all the way through. I'm enjoying learning to run with them and I'm excited to see what we do in the future.

The agony of de feet

Just kidding. Sort of. My feet are really not what's bothering me. I'm two weeks out from the Indy 500, and my personal 500 isn't going to be done in two weeks. I am 428 miles in. I walked 28 miles in the last week, and while I can try that again a time or two, it's not going to be enough to get me to the end. I'm tired from this past week, and I want to get things done this week that will require that energy.



Pictures are from the NCAA 4Kay, which Mandie and I walked (and ran a little) at the beginning of April.

So I'm keeping going, even though I'm not going to make it. The spreadsheet has been effective. Now I'm trying to figure out if I try for the same thing next year.

200 Miles

I walked my 200th mile on Sunday. It was the tail bit of a kind of epic week, I walked 17.8 miles over seven days.

It's starting to get really chilly. Wednesday morning last week it was 37. I did fine with a couple layers of sleeve and fingerless gloves. It's better when I do some light stretching to start - which I should have been doing all along, but better late than never, right? (Have I mentioned I grew up in Alabama? I do ok till about 45, but below that it's really too cold.)

I still don't have a full-winter plan, although the weather people are forecasting snow flurries later this week. I'm paying way more attention to the weather people than I used to, as well.

I meant this post to be a little more than "yay, 40% in! Dude, it's getting cold!" but that's all I've got in me tonight. 300 miles and about 200 days to go.

Oh, sweet!

What I just said when I realized that my average pace so far is higher than my pace needs to be to finish on time.

Average pace so far: 1.40 miles/day (113.7 miles/81 days)
Average pace needed to finish: 1.37 miles/day (386.3 miles/282 days)

So it's higher, but not by much. A minor travel cold knocked out the first few days after returning from LA, and work has interceded this week. I'm hoping to pack in a few consecutive long walks this weekend. Things are cooling off, thankfully, which is good for the walking, but are a reminder that Winter Is Coming and I should find Something To Do in order to continue walking during the cooler months. My weird class schedule should actually help - I have two free mornings for when it's hot like now, and two free afternoons for when it cools off, so I can walk during the afternoons when it's starting to get really cool.

I'm considering starting some Winter Walking accessories soon, but really I have five million pairs of fingerless mittens and just finished a really warm hat, so as long as I'm ok looking mismatched, I'll probably be fine. Meanwhile I'm knitting for babies. I finished the knitting of a Baby Surprise Jacket, and started a square shawl/blanket from Knitter's Almanac. The baby the blanket is for is four weeks old this week, and I hope to meet him in October. The Surprise Jacket's recipient isn't here yet, so I don't feel too bad putting off its seams and all.

And it's knit night, which is always good for productivity. Yay!

80 miles in

I'm trying to wrap up July in a way that doesn't make me feel disappointed in myself. I had hoped to walk 50 miles this month. I didn't quite make it last month, and it won't happen this month either.

But maybe my expectation wasn't exactly reasonable. I went out of town for two of the four weekends in the month. Most Friday-Monday stretches in June, I walked 7-10 miles over that time. The Fourth Weekend I got less than a mile in, and the week after that was obliterated with work recovery from the trip. At Camp I walked more than the first trip, but still not as much as I might have at home. This week has had meetings keeping me from walking. The second half of the summer term has been rough. But it's almost over.

I'm trying to decide on a New Goal for August. I do want to get 50 miles in a month, and August may be the month, but maybe I should try and eliminate the sporadic non-walking I did in July. I think I'm going to try and walk a measurable and recordable distance (at least a tenth of a mile, preferably half a mile or more) 6 days a week.

Milestones, Baby Steps, and Black Holes

Knitters talk of the phenomenon of the knitting black hole, in which you knit on your scarf or sweater or whatever for days and days and when you're done it's the same length you started with. I'm about to hit a stretch like that with the walking. I hit the 30 mile point on Friday.

I'm three weeks and 30 miles in, and I was proud of me, but so tired. I meant to walk on Saturday after weaving, but I was too exhausted, and stayed home, and then didn't walk last night either. This morning I set out intending to do a 2.5 mile Lap, but stormy lightning sent me home at the turnaround point - so only 1.67 miles were walked today. I'm trying to shake off the "but now it's not even!!!" annoyance and look at it like the knitting. If I only knit something when I can do a whole repeat, it takes me longer than getting a stitch or two in whenever I can. So maybe I'll even things up by taking another turn around the neighborhood loop on Wednesday, or maybe I'll just take a walk tomorrow morning and do the same length as today - it didn't take very long at all for a shorter walk.

Anyway, I'm looking for tips for the next 350 or so miles. Any ideas on how I can keep this interesting? I'm going to be walking elsewhere in July - two long weekend vacations will take me somewhere else and I plan to walk in both places. I have monthly goals to try and meet. Anything else I can do to make it fun?

Not there yet.

I woke up this morning and I really didn't want to walk. I had clean walking clothes, and it was before it was hot, but I really didn't want to go. I was tired, and there will be other less-fun tasks happening today, so eh. But I went anyway. I had downloaded a couch-to-5k podcast, and while I started the walk with the most recent Popcorn Dialogue, I switched to the 5k thing about 10 minutes in. I was able to run about two of those intervals, and I didn't even try several of them. But the beat of the music was good for getting me moving. So that's something. I think I did get done faster today, so that's something to think on.

Ok. 22.5 miles is not something I want to walk for as much as 20 or 25, but it's a step along the way. Tomorrow I'm hoping to be 5% in. And there will be knitting content soon, I promise.

I can apparently embed my spreadsheet in a post. I'm having issues doing the same with a sidebar widget. 7 Laps as of today. Realizing that branching out and extending the walk are going to be fairly natural. Yay for that, at least.

Are you having a good time?

Another Lap today, and I'm fifteen miles in. Six Laps total since last Monday.

Classes started back this week, so that's been an extra pile of work and activity. My walks are kind of a respite, hanging out with myself and my thoughts and my music. I definitely was glad to have it this morning. I like looking at my neighborhood, saying hi to other walkers and joggers, and waving as people drive by. It rained a little today as I was getting toward the end, and I liked that too. It's part of the way the world works, and I'm not going to do this 500 mile thing if I'm going to let a little rain stop me.

The pedometer issue is still unresolved. I replaced my el cheapo with another el cheapo, but it's seriously sad and icky. When I wore it on my 2.5 mile Lap (calibrated the same as the old one), it recorded about 1500 steps and 0.7 miles. Not ok. I can live without one for a while, but I'll definitely want to figure this out before I travel over the Fourth weekend. Sarah suggested the Omron, which another friend wears daily for a health insurance discount, so that's definitely in the running. Tammany and Kristen do the Nike+ thing with the iPod, and my dear Pod is four years old and starting to show it, so that's an option as well, but definitely the priciest of them (but if I have to replace one anyway...).

Pushing Through

Today I was going to walk. Yesterday was my first day back at work, and so I planned for an off day from the Lap, as I've been thinking of it. I wore my pedometer some at work, and some while shopping afterward. I'm still not sure whether to count that - I have a vague desire to only count in-daily-action pedometer steps in months that contain an R. (For whimsy, one might say.)

And this morning it rained and I really didn't feel like getting out of bed. So I went to work, and said "oh, I'll leave at a reasonable time walk when I get home, before knitting." Which is something, friends, I have said before many times. "I'll do it when I get home." And then I don't. I don't leave work on time, or I get home and sit down and stop, or I get sidetracked by an errand or two.

But today I didn't. I came home, changed into workout clothes, sat and watched tv for 20 minutes or so, and then went out. Stormclouds were threatening, but it wasn't raining, so I figured I would do the short walk if it got nasty out. I had deleted my playlist from earlier in the week so I just ran with my Defense playlist (made to psych me up for my dissertation defense four years ago), and went on out. It did not get nasty out, so despite some bargaining with myself about short-walk-or-long? I'm 3 laps in now.

(And I just checked my pedometer for yesterday's mileage and it's gone dead, so boo for that - need to get a new one before Saturday and the fiber festival.)

One lap down, 199 to go

My 500 started a little before 9 this morning, and I walked 2.5 miles in about 50 minutes. I stretched after a little warm-up and afterward, and I'm feeling really good, except for a little sunburn, but that has to do with yesterday, not the walking.

So there are a couple new links in the sidebar. One is to Timeanddate.com, which is a fabulously geeky calculation website. It's a countdown to next year's 500. The other is to my google spreadsheet where I'm planning on tracking my mileage.

As to how I'm tracking mileage - here's my two major tools: Gmaps Pedometer and a fairly standard $5 pedometer. I haven't gotten the little digital pedometer quite calibrated, but it's less egregiously undercounting than it was two weeks ago, so I'm feeling better about using it. And truly, I'd prefer it undercount than overcount. The Gmaps tool will be used for pretty much everywhere I walk or hope to walk more than once. I've already measured 1.6 and 2.5 mile routes in my neighborhood, and the block around work is .5 mile.

I hope to check-in here every week or so, and let y'all know about any cool/fun walks I run across. This Saturday I'll be taking a couple laps around the Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival. See, fiber hobbies don't have to be sedentary!

I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)

So this has been May, and while I've had some time to relax and not work and to think about life and goals and stuff. And to clean my house some. And meanwhile I've spent major parts of three weekends now at the racetrack. I live in Indianapolis, and a love I've learned from my husband is the race-fan love. IndyCar racing is pretty cool, and the Indy 500 is amazing. He's been watching and listening to races his whole life, and the way he gently turned me on to the sport and the event is a testament to how well he knows me.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to wake up and walk 2.5 miles in my neighborhood. Two and a half miles is the length of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway track. This will be the first lap in my own Indy 500. I got back tonight from attending my fifth 500. And I have a goal to walk or run 500 miles before the next one.

I have more to say, but I'm going to leave that on the table tonight. Tomorrow will be time for details, and tracking, and all that. Tonight I'm gonna be the girl who will walk 500 miles.