Fat Woman With A Band

The word for me the last couple of weeks is “procrastinate.”

There’s tax stuff to do, there’s a FitBit to set up, and there’s some paperwork I need to get to. I haven’t done a darn thing.

I did, however, do another 10km walk and I’m happy to say I shaved six minutes off my time. My goal is to shave another six minutes, and then start to lengthen my long walks. I want to be able to do the 21km in less than 3hrs and 40min.

There are two experiences I have while I’m walking. One I can remedy fairly easily, and the other is tedious. I’ve found now that I have the energy to do the walk, that is I don’t seem to run out of steam before the end. But what I do find is that I get bored, and I just want to finish so I can do the next thing. This, I recognize, is my usual issue of not being in the moment. So with the walking I’ve been listening to podcasts like CBC’s Norah Young and Spark, NPR’s Terry Gross and Fresh Air, CBC’s Shelagh Rogers and The Next Chapter, NYT’s Freakonomics, TVOntario’s Jesse Brown and Search Engine, Spacing Radio, and various others. This definitely helps a lot.

The second experience is physical. I always seem to have something wrong – my hip hurts, my Achilles hurts, my foot hurts. Always something ‘effing thing. And always on my right side. It’s not a huge 10/10 of pain, usually a 2/10 or 3/10. I’d just prefer not to have it at all. I bought some compression tights on Friday and tried them out yesterday to see if they’d help with the right side pain. It could have been one of the reasons I managed to shave six minutes off my time. After walking, and this morning, my Achilles is 3/10. Not good. More stretching required.

I’ll get to my tasks this week. Really. Really. Really. Sh*t.

I wish I was saying last five pounds to lose. I’m not.

I’m saying the last five weeks of training with Jackie begins tomorrow. I’m doing four workouts a week – Day 1 and 3 work on the same body parts, and Day 2 and 4 work on the other body parts. For example, last week I worked on my legs on Monday and Wednesday, and on my arms on Tuesday and Thursday. I also participated in aquafit on Tuesday and Thursday, and did a little bit of walking on Monday and Friday.

This week I’ll be working my upper body on Monday and Wednesday, and legs on Tuesday and Thursday. I’ll be doing aquafit also, and walking. I’m hoping that we’ll have less rain this week so it’ll be more fun to walk.

The last exercise topic for this post is about the Scotiabank Marathon. I’ve signed up for the half-marathon. That’s 21 kilometers on Sunday, September 26. I know that I can walk it, but what I don’t know is if I can walk it while the course is officially open, that is 3 hours and 40 minutes. So the goal isn’t just to walk but to finish in that time.

I’m going to be doing as many training walks as I can, not all the same length as the half-marathon. For example, a walk from my place to the intersection of Bloor and Yonge is 10 kilometers. I’ll going to try to do that this week and get a time measurement. I think I can do that in just over 2 hours. Not bad, but not good enough. I have about six months to improve on that.

I’m finding easier to concentrate on the exercise part of my life rather than the diet part. I admit that I’m not doing as well as I should. I have to find the push to start cooking more at home again. I’m thinking about it a lot, I just haven’t done anything about it. Yet.