Walking with Gene Kelly

I can't say that I did any dancing this morning -- for which the universe should be grateful, my being a grandmother who never managed to master the Hustle -- but I did knock 6.64 miles out in the rain, thanks to Tropical Storm Lee. This system is supposed to get worse in the coming hours. I would not have gone out if conditions had been worse, of course, but what was out early was enough to sort of get myself over the mental block of getting out in the rain. From now on, I will choose not to walk in the rain (unless I really want to) rather than say "I can't walk in the rain."


Because, obviously, I can.

I did take some precautions, given how dark the skies were, and because I knew in these conditions I might be less visible to motorists. Here was how I dressed for success.

A big thank you to my friends from the Pacific Northwest who sent me that fabulous reflective harness. I wear it on early morning walks if I get out there before the sun is quite up, and will wear it if I get back to my night-time walking (which I love, and miss, but nobody will let me do it anymore), and it really is important to make sure you're as visible as possible out there in yukky conditions.  

The rain hat was great, too: my long suffering husband plunked that on my head before I left the house. I'm glad he did. It did a swell job of keeping the rain out of my face.

That black thing around my waist? It is AMAZING for being able to tote your phone with you. I tried one of the arm things, but don't like them at all. This is incredibly comfortable, and it protected my iPhone from the elements just great!  It's one of the best investments I have ever made for walking. 

To your left is a bandanna. I always tuck one of these onto that waistband. Sometimes my nose runs, or allergies get to me, and I haven't yet perfected the art of the snot rocket. Actually, it's not an art I think I will ever even try to perfect, come to think of it. Also, I have reasons to think having a tourniquet handy on a walk is a good thing. I am, after all, married to a man whose motto is "Be Prepared."

To your right is my pedometer. I wear this almost all the time, exercising or not. I find that when I wear it I am more inclined to move more no matter what I'm doing. Get yourself one.

So. I'm putting that in my DONE bucket.

Total Miles: 6.64 

Total Time: 1:42:58

Pace: 15:30

A Mile (or so) In My Shoes

There are two very important things I should tell you right here and now:

1.  I am obsessed to a certain degree with exactitude where my times and distances are concerned.

2.  This is my father's fault.

The man has a spreadsheet for everything. Somewhere in his house are all the records from all his runs, back in the days when he ran nearly every day. When he was recuperating from the stroke he had 20 years ago and was having to learn to walk again, and then having to build up endurance literally a foot at a time, he recorded the distance he traveled on the driveway of his home every day -- and logged it into an Excel Spreadsheet. Seeing proof in black and white of your progress is a tremendous motivator.

When I first started out walking regularly for exercise I would drive to Vaughn Road Park (less than 2 miles from my house, and to which I now walk), and the only way I tracked my progress was by how many laps of that .6 mile track I covered. I was relying on the signs in the park that measure the distance, you understand.

At some point during those early days, I invested in a pedometer, and after my husband helped me calibrate it (which is the most important -- and easiest -- part of the process) I checked it out by heading to the park and doing a loop. I about cried when the pedometer read .57 miles. 

I cannot tell you the laughter that ensued when I shared with my online support group at Weight Watchers how annoyed I was that I would have to do the calibration all over again. I came to my senses, realized that I was going to have to let go of at least a measure of my obsession, and get on with it.

This is the Omron HJ-112.
There is nothing overly fancy about it, but it does what it is supposed to do. Accurately. You need one. You will thank me for telling you this. They've added a calories burned field since I bought mine. Hmmm.....  You might shop around for this, though. Manufacturer's sites are almost never the best way to buy anything, seems to me.

Fast forward a little bit to the day my son finally talked me into buying an iPhone, which led to a new hobby: downloading GPS apps! I've used several, but my favorite right now is this one:

What I love about it is that I have several different playlists on my iPhone -- most not for exercising. I have a playlist for when I want to go a bit faster, and one for longer walks where my pace is more moderate but I still like a little speed spurt. All other apps I had tried would only shuffle using your ENTIRE iPod library. This one allows you to choose a playlist and shuffle the music only with it. (We'll talk about the music/no music while exercising debate some other time.)

What I do not love about this is that there is no "walk" option for reporting updates to social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), and I found myself feeling like I had to explain all the time that no, I didn't RUN 5 miles. Okay, so that isn't really a major problem, but it's a little irksome. 

And I discovered this week yet another drawback to it -- more substantial this time.

Unless you work for military intelligence or the Secret Service, or can afford a gazillion dollar personal GPS, it is probably never going to be entirely accurate. That's just a given. I'm not talking big variances, but just enough so that my Distance Calculation Zen wasn't disturbed. This week, though, there was considerable fog and cloud cover one morning, and the GPS dropped a fairly good portion of my walk -- like almost the entire loop of Vaughn Road Park. That's cool -- other apps I had used would allow you to edit your map online if that happened -- but not Nike. I don't like guessing. 

The next morning, I strapped on my Omron, and re-walked that exact route with no "intervals/jogs" since the pedometer is not calibrated for the shorter stride those necessitate for me. Problem solved, but it wasn't exactly the easiest solution. 

The most fun thing about this app, though, is a feature called "Cheers." You can post to your social media outlets that you are heading out on a run, and when people hit the like button or comment you hear, through your iPhone, cheers from a crowd! It really was fun, but it's a feature I decided not to use for each walk, reserving it now only for those LONG treks where it's nice to have something to break the monotony.

That's probably enough about all of this for today. Lots of folks just drive their cars to measure distance, and some folks just measure time, and some just get out there and could care less about either. There is no wrong approach to this.

***

WALKS THIS WEEK

Monday: 4.63 miles

Time: 1:08:49

Pace:14.52 minute mile 

Tuesday: 5.55 miles

Time:  1:24:41

Pace: 15.15 minute mile

Wednesday: 3.84 miles (intervals)

Time: 54:13

Pace: 14.07 minute mile

Thursday: 3.84 miles

Time: 57.01 

Pace: 14.51 minute mile

Friday: Day off in preparation for distance walk tomorrow.