Top of the Leaderboard!

While training has definitely taken a lot of effort and made for some frustrating days one of the perks is frequently being at the top of the leaderboard on my FitBit weekly report!

I will take those small victories where I can get them!

Speaking of the leaderboard, I hit a big fundraising milestone today, thanks to my mom. I think she has been paying closer attention to my fundraising status than I am and the fact that my total stayed at $990 for several days did not sit well with her. This afternoon I got a donation alert email - that my mom had donated $10 (on top of her already significant contribution) bringing my current total to $1000.20! 

Only $799.80 to go! 

Less than Ideal Results

Today was not an ideal day for a walk.

The snow was melting, leading to some nice, clear sidewalks, some slushy messy sidewalks and gigantic puddles, often hidden by snow that looked solid, but most certainly were not. 

I was supposed to walk 13 miles today. 

I ended up getting in about 8. 

This afternoon I did six miles, around DC, basically walking until I got to a block with snow/ice/giant puddles and then turning around and going a different way. In some cases that meant backtracking a full block. in others it was just turning left or right when I planned to go straight. After first my right shoe ended up in a giant puddle (mile 2) and then my left (mile 4) I was doing whatever I could to avoid the puddles! 

Once I got back into the downtown area I stopped and bought another pair of socks with the plan of returning to my office building and using the treadmill there for at least 3 more miles. Unfortunately I forgot that just changing my socks wouldn't dry out my very wet shoes!

So, I quickly gave up on that plan, but did take advantage of the locker room there to shower and change - including dry socks and snow boots - and headed out to meet some friends for dinner and a comedy show. I was way early, so I did some added wandering near where we were meeting, then we walked to the show, then I walked back to the office where my car was parked, giving me those two extra miles. 

I really hope next weekend is nicer. I'll take cold - I'm fine layering up, but I am definitely over the icy, slushy, miserable sidewalks!

Dedication

Yesterday I had a few people comment on how dedicated I am to training for the Avon Walk.

Prior to receiving the comments I was thinking about that very topic while I did my 7 mile walk where the "feels like" temperature was 7 degrees when I left the house. I flipped my weekend walk, 7 miles yesterday, 13 today, to try and have the longer walk be in better weather.We'll know in a few hours how that worked out for me. But, for now, I want to write a little bit about why I'm doing this event.

Honestly, it started because I wanted the physical challenge. I completed two 10ks last year, both about 90% walking, 10% jogging. It seemed like the next step would be to run a 5k but... I've tried the Couch to 5k program and discovered running just isn't for me. When I set out I thought it would be the inability to breath that stopped me, but it's actually major foot/leg pains. And yes, before you ask, I do have the fancy shoes from the running store where they examine your gait and everything. And still, major pain after about 3-5 minutes.

So, with running out, the idea of a walking challenge like this seemed appealing. Incredibly daunting and overwhelming, but appealing no less.

And while I'm sure there are other organizations that do long walking events, as soon as I had the idea to do it my mind was set when I thought about the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.

When I try to count how many women in my life have battled this disease it's pretty astonishing. Family members, friends, colleagues, It's in the double digits. And honestly, those are the ones that quickly come to mind. Luckily many of them won their battles and are doing well. Or, in the case of both my grandmothers, beat breast cancer but ultimately passed away from a different type of cancer. I know a few people currently going through treatment and fighting their battle right now.

So when I thought about how miserable I was out in the cold yesterday, dodging icy sidewalks and climbing over snow mounds, I thought about how I made the choice to be out there, to be training for this event even in crappy conditions and how the women (and men) battling this disease don't get to make a choice. They have to keep fighting, even when they don't want to do it, so I needed to keep walking and raising money and awareness for this disease.

A woman has a 1 in 8 chance of developing breast cancer in her lifetime.*
Every 3 minutes, there is a new diagnosis of invasive breast cancer.*
Approximately 230,480 women and 2,140 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year.*

So there is my why. 

I'm doing this walk for me - to prove I can meet this incredible challenge of walking 39.3 miles in two days. But I'm also doing it to raise funds and awareness to help end this horrible disease that impacts so many. 

I'm pretty close to the halfway point on my fundraising goal $78.40 will get me to that 50% mark. Please donate if you can. 

Ticking Away the Miles

I've been keeping up with the training plan as best I can, though winter weather does make it challenging at times!

This past weekend had two shorter walks - 5 miles on Saturday and 6 on Sunday.

I was able to do the 5 outside with a friend, but by Sunday morning the wind chill was in the negative numbers and gusts were at 30 mph so walking outside was not really an option.

I was meeting a friend for lunch in Annapolis, so I headed out to Annapolis Mall beforehand, to be a mall walker. I have to say, while mall walking - even with an audio book - does get boring, Annapolis Mall has a pretty good set up for it. One lap is a mile and they have .10 mile marker directional signs on the floor to help you stay on track. I managed to do almost 4 laps there, before boredom kicked in hard core. I had intended to hit the treadmill for the remaining laps, but by the end of the day, after lunch and some shopping my Fitbit tracked me at over 7 miles so I decided to just go with that and be done for the day.

My walk yesterday was outside, in my snowy neighborhood and tomorrow I'll be hitting the treadmill for 4 miles after work.

So, while not much has been exciting to report, rest assured, training is still at the forefront of my mind!

10 Miles Completed... Not Entirely as Planned

Today's training walk was 10 miles and I had mapped out a plan earlier in the week, thinking through every detail including snacks to carry and where I could stop for potty breaks and water bottle refills along my route. 

So of course, not much went as planned once I set out. 

Well, the route itself worked fine, and in the end was perfect in terms of distance. (Note: FitBit is off on the mileage here, I trust what I mapped out a bit more.) But the timing, oh the timing. 

My thought had been I'd leave the house around 9, walk a mile to the nearest Metro stop, swinging by a popular (foreshadowing here) new donut shop on the way and Metro to Columbia Heights, and then walk back to Alexandria from there. I was thinking I'd arrive in Columbia Heights a little after 10 and be home by 1. That would have given me plenty of time to eat lunch, shower and rest a bit before heading to the Avon Walk Kick Off Party in Arlington at 4. 

Instead... 

9:25    Left the house

9:40    Arrived at Sugar Shack

10:13  Left with my delicious donut - yeah, they are popular. And have only been open for 2 weeks. 

10:18  Arrive at Metro (1.1 miles complete)

10:36  Yellow line train finally arrives. Gotta love weekend schedules. 

10:39  Discover the end of the line is Mt. Vernon Square, three stops prior to my destination

10:55  Find out we're single tracking for several stops, meaning lots of sitting and not moving. 

11:25 After transferring lines I finally arrive in Columbia Heights to start my walking

During my time on the Metro I found out my cousin Allison was in DC for the weekend, visiting a friend who lives near DuPont Circle, which was right off my walking route so... 

Near DCA along the
Mt. Vernon Trail

11:51 Arrive at her friend's apartment to see her (2.6 miles complete)

12:20 Depart and start the long walk home.  

12:20 - 2:00  Walk past the White House, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, over the 14th Street Bridge and past National Airport. 

2:00   By this point I'm about 7 1/2 miles in to my 10 miles and am quite hungry. So when I see the Mt Vernon trail split, with the option of staying straight for Alexandria (my original plan) and veering left for Crystal City, I head towards Crystal City

2:20  Arrive at Chick-fil-a

2:30  Continue walking, yummy sandwich in hand. 

3:13  Home!! 10.2 miles complete. With very tired feet. 

3:55  Back out the door for the kick off event, which is a post for another day!

So, all in all, the walking went well and while my feet were sore and I was a bit hobbily immediately after I got home, I feel pretty OK now, which is awesome. I definitely need to rethink my plan of involving a metro ride in my longer walks as it's just no fun. At all. But, tomorrow's walk is only 3 miles, which I'll do in my neighborhood so all that rethinking can happily wait for another day!

Bring On Spring

bundled up for my walk today. 

While I haven't been very good at documenting it, I have been good at keeping up the training schedule.

Last weekend I had to do 6 miles on Saturday and 5 on Sunday. I did a mix of in my neighborhood walks and downtown walks. During the week I stuck to the treadmill for my three miles, though on Tuesday I ended up trying a Zumba class offered in my building at work (hated it.) and decided that hour of exercise was the equivalent of doing 3 miles.

This weekend I had to do 8 miles on Saturday and 6 miles today.

Yesterday I ended up meeting up with someone else who is training for the Avon Walk at a local mall and doing most of the walk there. In the morning, when I set out to walk it was 28 degrees with a "feels like" temp of 3, so being a mall walker was OK with me.

My route ended up being a bit longer than
necessary, which is a good thing. I guess. 

I did my last two miles yesterday in my neighborhood while running some errands. At that point it had warmed up some, but was still no where near actually being warm out!

For today's walk I thought about just doing a long loop in my neighborhood, but I was very focused on getting lunch at a sandwich shop that I'm currently obsessed with so I was trying to figure out how I could work that into the walk.

In the end I decided to walk a mile to the metro and then take that to near their Arlington location. Then I walked home from there.

It wasn't the most scenic route, coming back to Alexandria via Glebe road, and it was pretty chilly again today, but, I had the super yummy Logan Square salad that I love, so that was totally worth it.

This week's mid-week walks are still both 3 miles and by next Saturday I'll be up to 10!