Rackin' up some more...and we're not talkin' 'bout playing pool...

And we're diving right in to Rachel's update:

Rackin' Em up

Heh – I said “rack”…

Damn I’m old! Well, not really. I just feel a bit old and creaky today. I kicked butt with my walking this weekend! And to keep things even, it kicked my butt in return.

During the week, I do most of my walking during lunch at work. Our office is in the south end of San Jose, in the Almaden Valley. There aren’t any other office buildings on the road – it’s basically residential, which makes for some pleasant walking. I keep my mid-day walks pretty short, simply because I don’t have a ton of time. So I have 2 loops – one that’s about 1.4 miles and the other loop is nearly 2.5 miles. Depending on how I feel, I either do the short loop slowly as a recovery walk, or the longer one and work on speed. I’m not out to do the Avon walk as a power walk, but I don’t want to be out there for 12 hours either.

Saturday I went out on my own, and extended the walk in my neighborhood – I work on speed there too, as it’s really flat. I walked just over 6 miles, and was pretty pleased with the results; since I started training, my average speed has increased by over a half-mile an hour. Not bad. If I can increase by the same amount again, I’ll be able to do the walk in what I’d consider a reasonable amount of time. Especially if you take into consideration that I’m very much on the short side and I take 3 steps for everyone else’s two. Ok, maybe four.

Sunday was the tougher one. I was tight from Saturday’s walk so I got to Los Gatos early, and put in a really good stretch. Our time was limited, so Nathalie and I just walked until half our time was up, then turned around. We walked over 11 miles! Not too shabby. I high-tailed it home, cleaned up, and then drove with some friends up to Oakland for a knit-in at Rachael’s house. I felt good after the walk, but the 2 hours in the car and 4 at Rachael and Lala’s on the couch made for one stiff body, and I’m still feeling it today.

So just over 17 miles this weekend – I am pretty pleased with that. Next week, we’re hoping to get a 15-miler in. We have to start doing things as if we’re on the walk, though, so the plan is to rest more – not just for bathroom breaks – stretch regularly throughout the walk, and grab a sit-down snack at some point in the middle. Sunday’s walk was done with no breaks or stretches, and I realized that even though it wasn’t very difficult for us, it’s not the right way to do it, and it won’t work as we increase mileage.

In the meantime, I’ll be nursing my first blister ever from this training. I’ll blog all about that next week. Ok, not really. But if it starts looking really gross, I’ll post a picture for sure. Heh again…

Happy Boobie Tuesday, see y’all next week!

Rachel

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Yeah, that down time and sitting still will get ya good. For the whole week after the walk, I did a simple stretch routine several times a day - with a few quickies after sitting still for a while. OK, people. Quickie stretches. Jeez.

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Rhett Contest hint of the day: It's a characteristic of my apartment.