Two of My Favorite Things Today. No Wait, Three!

Three of the things that I LOVE to do are rowing, walking and reading.  And I did all three of them today.

I finished reading my current book, and can’t wait to start another one.  Sometimes a book is so good, you really don’t want it to end.  And sometimes a book is still good, but you’re ready for it to wrap up, just so you can crack open another one.  That’s the case today, and I look forward to starting a new adventure tonight!

According to the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure training schedule, I should finish tomorrow with a total of 24 miles walked for the week.  And I’m on track this week!  After missing a whole week of walking due to a horrible cold (worst cold I’ve had in several years), I wasn’t sure how I would do this week.  But I was able to walk 3 and 5 miles on Tuesday and Thursday, and today . . . I WALKED 11.9 MILES!

Now, in my lead-in paragraph, I said that walking is one of the three things I love to do.  That’s true, but I just realized tonight that this is really starting to become work!  It takes time to train!  Who knew?!  So far my husband is very supportive, and I just hope that continues as I spend more and more hours on the weekends walking. But, we did have a great time rowing this morning on Lake Union.  I think as long as I can work in rowing time (and short walk in the morning to Starbucks), he should continue to back me up on this venture.  I just need to get him to start walking further so he can join me on part of my route.

I was going to title this post “Just Another Day on Lake Union”, but there, I worked it in anyway.

First, not only were the police boats out, but this one was spraying water.  I’ve wondered why the police boat does that – do they help put out fires from the water, or is it used for crowd control?  Sure glad we weren’t too close.  That would have swamped us!

Next were the planes.  I love it when Kenmore Air flies over us or right next to us.  I know that they might be heading to Victoria, B.C., and that’s one of my favorite places to visit.

Finally, the Steamship Virginia V was out practicing some maneuvers, like picking up a buoy.  I really wanted to get a video clip of the Steamship when it blew it’s whistle.  I love that sound!

For a while, I was trying to figure out what the flag was, on top of the Space Needle.  When I finally got the binoculars out, I saw it was a rainbow flag – Pride Festival!  I should have known!

Life is Good (Again)

The sun was out today after hiding from us for many weeks.  At least it seems that way.  Last week I was so tired of the gray clouds and rain, I think I was depressed.  But give me a day of sunshine, and my spirits are lifted!  We have a friend from Portland visiting us this weekend, and I am now updating this blog, listening to Pandora Radio on the computer, along with some great speakers that Eric gave us.  Very pleasant, indeed!

Many things have happened since I last wrote.  Over Mothers’ Day weekend, my sister and I took a road trip to our parents’ house in Central Oregon, in High Desert country.  To continue my training for the Walk, we took a walk, on gravel roads, and I was having a hard time catching my breath!  I thought, I must really be out of shape all of a sudden.  I didn’t say anything to my sister at the time – I didn’t want to appear to be a “wimp”.  My first day back at work I took a good walk during my lunch break, and it just seemed so easy.  Then it hit me!  The altitude at my parents’ house is over 4,000 feet!  No wonder I was  having a hard time breathing.  I totally forgot.

My walks have been easier, most of the pain is gone from my feet.  I finally figured out the best shoes to wear walking, and everyday at work.  But because of my work schedule (4 days, 10 hours/day) it’s sometimes hard to work in longer walks during the week.  But I am going to really make an effort to improve that.  Since it’s light much later, I may even take walks in the evenings.  Even though we had terrible weather over Memorial Day weekend, I decided to go for a long evening walk in the rain.  It was warm enough that it just didn’t bother me, even if I did get soaking wet.  That evening when I went past the Wildlife Sanctuary across from the ferry holding lanes I heard so many different birds.  I could see some beautiful black and orange birds in the distance, and decided that I need to pack my small pair of binoculars the next time.

Another reason life is good again – we got to see our grandkids this weekend.  Words cannot express how much joy we feel just being around them.  And when you can tell that they are excited to see you, too, it’s overwhelming.

I’m determined to step it up next week with the mileage.  I feel ready.  And if I listen to music with my new speakers, I think I can update my blog more often.  I’m determined!

Back in the Groove

It’s been so long since I’ve written!  I thought I got sidetracked before, but that was nothing.  Many things have been happening, on many fronts.  Because of some issues with pain in my feet, I took a few weeks off of my pre-training.  A week ago we returned from a week in Cancun.  We had a wonderful time with family:  father-in-law, son, daughter-in-law and our grandkids.  Even though we had terrible weather (torrential rains, very heavy winds), it was warm and we had such a great time with the family.

Just being able to hold hands with our granddaughter and walk around the hotel lobby was priceless!

And we had lots of time to get to know our little grandson as he tried climbing up our bodies.  I’d always heard people talk about kids that were climbers, but had never experienced that before.  Now I know what they were talking about.  Watch out when he starts walking!

We miss them already.

Now, I need to really get serious with my training for the 3-day walk.  And, I need to get serious with my fundraising.  I’m now part of a two-person team, and my teammate is way ahead of me.  Please consider making a donation to Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the Cure through my fundraising page.  You can click the Donation button on the right and it will take you to the Susan G. Komen website and my personal page.  Thank you for your help!

Sidetracked

These past two weeks I’ve had a hard time keeping up with my walking.  Last week I had three short walks on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, with a longer one on Sunday.  I decided to make a new route through the downtown core of Edmonds instead of going up to Westgate and around.  Those are some steep hills!  I didn’t quite make the whole route Sunday, but I’ll get there.

Last week there were other events that got me sidetracked.  First, my mother’s birthday.  She lives in Central Oregon so I wasn’t able to be with her, but had ordered flowers to be delivered.  I talked to her early in the morning and then after work tried to call her to see how her day turned out.  The phone was busy so I thought someone else was probably passing on birthday wishes.  Two minutes later my phone rang, and it was my brother, Tim. His wife, Anna was close by, and they told me that they were going to have a baby!  This is the brother that I thought for sure would be a bachelor, for life.  But he met a young woman that he fell in love with, and married last September.  Tim was able to give mom this wonderful news on her birthday.  I told my mom that Tim’s present sure trumped mine!

Then late Friday night, after we had already gone to bed, our daughter, Sarah called to tell us that Andy had just proposed!  More great news!  We met them for dinner Saturday night to celebrate and look at her ring.  It’s so much fun to see them so excited.  Now the real work begins – planning a wedding!

And lastly, in one week our daughter-in-law and grandkids fly out from Michigan.  It just keeps getting better and better!

Now I hope I can somehow get back on track and start racking up the miles.

The newly engaged couple!

Hard Week for Walking

I didn’t do so well this week.  After my 2 long walks, back-to-back last weekend, my feet needed some recovery time.  I did walk a little bit Tuesday after work, and had every intention of doing it again Thursday after work, but decided to take a break.  I wanted my feet to have time to feel better.  Saturday morning I did a short walk, but decided against the long one.  Hal was out of town, and I ddidn’t really want to get too far from home since I didn’t have anyone to call if I needed a “lift”.  Maybe that was just an excuse, I don’t know.  Anyway, I was able to go the long route today.  It felt great to get out, the weather was fairly warm, and I saw our resident bald eagle on my last corner before heading up to our house.  I think I’ve seen 1 to 3 eagles almost every time I’ve been out.  It just lifts my spirits!  They are so regal, looking out over their kingdom!

Feels Like Spring, Looks Like Summer

I feel so spoiled.  The weather this weekend has been so amazing!  Looking from indoors to the outside, you would think it was summertime.  Sailboats were seen on Puget Sound.  It’s only mid-February!  (Of course the weather forecast shows rain coming, and I’m bummed about that.)  But I enjoyed the sun this weekend while it was here.

We went rowing on Lake Union Saturday morning and it felt so good.  The sun shining on the lightly rippled water created sparkling diamonds.  You couldn’t look at it without your sunglasses.

Later in the afternoon I went for another long walk.  As I was walking along Sunset I saw two men sitting on the front porch of a house.  One of them was someone who had started coming to church recently.  I stopped to talk and was introduced to his friend, and then his friend’s wife, who lived there.  Turns out the woman has had breast cancer, and so has her mother.  Her husband’s mother and sister both have had breast cancer.  Then two young women walked by, known by the woman I was talking to.  This other young woman also has had breast cancer.  It’s everywhere!

This afternoon I did another long walk, bringing my total for the week to 18.44 miles.  That’s 3 more miles than last week!

I also have a teammate to train with soon, and then walk with in September.  She’s a “coffee buddy” and I’m glad we’ll be doing this together.

Finally Adding Miles

I became impatient and couldn’t wait another week to increase my miles.  Last Sunday after we walked to Starbucks for our morning coffee and paper, I decided to make the big loop up to Westgate and back down through Edmonds.  Cardio-wise, the walk was just fine.  But my feet got sore!  Instead of heading down to the waterfront after coming into town, I went straight home.  But I walked 6.5 miles that morning!  I was quite proud of myself.  We hadn’t walked that route in probably 3 years.  When I got back home Hal decided he wants to work towards increasing the distance of our walks.

Monday was a holiday so I drove up to Bellingham to spend a few hours with my sister.  We met up with her daughter-in-law and granddaughter, and Hannah’s mom, and we walked along the waterfront in Fairhaven.  Since that was more of a social stroll, I didn’t count that walk.

Yesterday I had every intention of walking after work, but wimped out.  It was raining and cold, and I just couldn’t force myself to do it.  Even though I knew I would try to go to the Ash Wednesday service tonight, I decided to walk after work today.  The sun was out, the wind was up, and it was cold!  My spreadsheet tells me that I have walked 22.27 miles since I started my pre-training 2 weeks ago.  I feel pretty good about that!

3rd Time’s a Charm?

Well, my #2 pre-training 3-mile walk happened on Tuesday.  I was wearing my new inserts in my shoes, but they’re New Balance, not Nike, as reported earlier.  At least I got the “N” right!  My feet felt much better this time.  But I forgot my bottle of water and really missed it after about 35 minutes.  My throat was getting dry.  I saw the two eagles again although they were in a taller tree farther north on Sunset Ave.  It was fairly dark so I didn’t try to take any pictures.

I took a day of vacation today in order to do my housecleaning.  My house really needed it.  In addition, I took my #3 pre-training 3-mile walk.  This time I had the bottle of water (yay!), but I misjudged the weather.  I was wearing a t-shirt and a very light fleece jacket.  As soon as I started up the first street, I realized it was raining.  I decided to continue on – after all, I need to be able to walk in all kinds of weather (is that a song?), and it was fairly warm outside.  I got so wet, that by the time I was two blocks from my house, my rain-soaked hair was dripping down my face.  But I didn’t melt, and I now know that walking in the rain is no problem.  But next time I will wear my jacket.  Wonder what I’ll forget on walk #4?

Is the weekend really over?

The last several days have been filled with sun, fun and music.  Since my 3-mile pre-training walk, I decided I had to do something about my feet.  They hurt way too much.  And I need to be walking a lot more!  My sister told me about Superfeet, and my best friend told me about Shoes ‘n Feet stores.  So Thursday I went and bought a pair of Nike inserts for my shoes.  Even though the arch support started out kind of hard to get used to, my heels felt wonderful.  I’m hoping to do another 3-mile in the next few days and we’ll see if they do their job.

Saturday felt like springtime!  I really think it’s here.  I know, there’s still a lot of winter left, but I just have a feeling that we will stay warm.  We went out for a row where the lake was like a mirror.  The sun on our faces even felt hot.  Well, at least it did to me.  Hal was just finally becoming “not so cold”.   After dinner at a favorite Indian restaurant in the U-District, we came back to our little Edmonds theater and saw Up in the Air.  It was a good movie, but a bit depressing.

My sister and I finished our first “Sister’s Virtual Bookclub” book and compared thoughts.  We both realized we should have written notes while we were reading, but will add that next time around.  We read “Her Fearful Symmetry” by Audrey Niffeneger.  You can see our review of the book by clicking on The Atkins blog on the right.

Today was the dedication of our new organ.  This was celebrated in the worship service this morning, and in concert this afternoon.  The music was beautiful, and was a wonderful way to end the weekend.

Pre-Training

The official 24-week training schedule starts in April.  The information says that you should be able to comfortably walk 3 miles, 3 mph.  Since Hal and I haven’t taken our long walks in probably a year (our walks are fairly short right now), I thought I should see how it felt.  Boy am I glad I tried it today!  I really need to work at this to just get to the starting point.  I was able to easily walk the 3 miles, in the allotted time, and even took several hills, but my feet really  hurt!

I’m so glad I left work early today to do this.  I finished a huge report and got it filed with the Conference office.  They told me I should celebrate, so I left early.  Down on Sunset Ave. I looked up, and there were two huge eagles sitting on top of a medium-sized tree.  I love eagles!  Whenever I see them, I always seem to take it as some kind of sign.  For me today, I believe I’m doing the right thing in starting this journey.

So tomorrow I will take a day off from walking, and hopefully my feet will be ready for the next day.