Another 5 km logged today and yesterday. So that's 20.69 km and over 3200 calories since Monday. From last Friday it's a total of 35.07 km and 3982 calories. The calorie burn is only an estimate from my Nike+ unit and doesn't take into consideration that I'm using the poles now.

I feel good and have less aches and pains in my legs since I started using the poles. I'm not getting any younger so I figure saving my joints now will pay off down the road when I'm older and still want to be active.

This morning I realized I've become much more fluid with the poles and don't drag them on the ground anymore when making the forward motion with them. I feel more confident using them and plant them properly about 98% of the time.

Other than that not much to report. Another 5 km this morning with the dog in tow.

More poling

I walked just over 5 k on Saturday, Sunday and today. I'm going to take at least one day off a week to give myself a break. My pants keep getting bigger but the scale keeps staying in one place. Well I guess as long as I'm getting smaller then I can assume I'm heading in somewhat of a right direction.

Tomorrow morning will be another 5km. I was limiting myself to 30 minutes in the morning but started getting up a little earlier to squeeze another 30 minutes in. I'm going to try and punctuate my nordic walking with occasional running and inline skating.

June 1st

Another 4 km done this morning using the poles. I can really feel it now when I use them and I'm getting a lot more comfortable using them. Best of all is that Cedar dog doesn't mind me using them. They do get in the way a bit when

I did notice that I am possibly dragging them a bit too much as the pads are already showing wear. I'll probably order a new set soon since everything is replaceable on my poles - the handles, the foot and the pads.

Now I'm feeling it

Ok, so second day out with the new walking poles and I can't feel their effect. The back of my arms, my shoulders and back are all feeling sore today.

I did 4km this morning in 40 minutes, which is a little slower than if I was just walking, but I am still feeling the effects of my recent 10km walk in my lower legs. A couple days off should fix that up.

Numbers of interest: I have approximately 120 km on my new runners now. I'm also at 323km total with my Nike+ unit.

Of note with my poles, I learned that when the roads and side walks are wet from rain I need to be more conscious of planting my poles properly so they don't slip.

Ok, so later on meant later yesterday

So I went and bought my own pair of walking poles yesterday at the Running Room. They are made by Excel and are of a mid to upper level of construction amongst their poles. I picked a length of 125 cm as 130 felt to tall and 120 was a little too short. The 125 cm length is also what the manufacturer recommends based on my height.

I can say now that without a doubt proper sizing of the poles are very important. Right away I noticed a huge difference when using these new poles over the ones Marla has. It was working my arms much more effectively and I had an easier time planting the poles to get the proper bite into the road and sidewalk.

I only did my regular 3k walk this morning but I can't give times or pace as I forgot to start my Ipod's Nike+ program. I'm fairly certain I did it a little faster than normal, but for the next little while I'm going to concentrate on getting my technique down before trying to go faster.

Nordic Walking

I have a small new pasttime now. Nordic Walking. What is Nordic Walking? Well, it's walking with poles. I guess you could call them hiking poles, except they have rubber tips for hard surfaces. It's been quite fun and gives a good workout as it uses both your upper and lower body. As of right now I've been using poles that I found for Marla and to be honest they are a little short for me. I'll be picking up some propertly sized ones soon.

All in all it's a great work out and takes pressure off of lower joints. I'm not quite in the demographic in North America that uses them however, that goes to women over 30. Nordic walking is huge in Europe though and is the biggest growing physical activity there. I haven't actually seen anyone else using them around here, but that's not a big deal to me.

Anyway, I'll keep my training with the poles updated here.

Yeah, yeah, ok, I haven't updated this in a while. I've been busy at work and it's been far too nice outside to be doing a blog;)

Anywho, not much happening. My duties at work have changed a bit. I'm now doing the mid month, monthly and quarterly credit reports along with user administration for our credit system. It's been a somewhat steep learning curve and I'm still not 100% on a lot of things, but I'll get there soon enough... not that I really have a choice as my coworker who is training me leaves on friday for a month.

Such is the work life;)

Our fence is being installed tomorrow. We didn't go with the cheapest contractor, but with one who recently installed another fence here in town. I erred on the side of caution when marking out our property line just so we don't have any issues with neighbors crying foul about encroaching on their property. I was disappointed to find that our builder dug up both steel rods that mark the back corners of our property. Luckily Marla's cousin Jeff - who lives next door - has the same size lot as us. So I measured from his marker over to where ours should be. I'll see about getting some pictures up tomorrow after it's done.

On other news, Chrysler has been sold. I'm a little iffy on what Cerebus will do with it, but they do have controlling shares in a number of other large corps. The fact that Chrysler will be a private company is both exciting and unnerving. Exciting in that they can tell the union to F-off, unnerving in the sense that they don't have to make anything public anymore about business transactions. I am leaning towards feeling that the sale will actually be a huge positive for Chrysler - which by the way is bringing back the pentastar logo=)

Facebook

Hey Scott, time to get on Facebook! (www.facebook.com) Marla is on there now, my brother, father, old friends, new friends, etc. I know your busy, but it would be a good tool to keep in contact with your friends while you're away!

So yeah, I'm not addicted to facebook but there are plenty of people I haven't talked to in years on there and I've reconnected with a number of good friends already. Such a great networking tool.

On the exercise front I've been running consistently over the last little while. This last week saw a total of 29 km run. I'll probably beat that this week as Cedar and I logged a 8.5 km walk, averaging just under 10 minutes a km. I felt quite good and would have gone further but had to go help my in-laws install a new counter top.

It's been quite the nice week here. Yesterday the mercury reached 27. Today it was in the mid 20s. Nice breeze and no mosquitoes yet. Fields are dry enough that farmers are out prepping the fields (fertilizing, etc). No snow piles left to be seen. Ahh, so nice. I did get a bit of a sun burn yesterday though as I was outside for most of the day.

Anywho, going for another walk with the doggie now.

On the road with no destination

Just stealing a lyric from U2's "Beautiful Day" for the title of this blog post because, well, it's a beautiful day here again. A subtle cool breeze, blue sky and some puffy clouds. Very nice.

On the dance front Marla and I learned the Rumba (dance steps here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumba_(dance)) yesterday. I quite enjoyed it and I find it easier to dance to a rhythm instead of trying to find a beat. We both had a lot of fun and it is the first dance we've done so far that feels sultry.

I also visited the Running Room yesterday to get fitted for a proper pair of runners. I've been getting terrible shin-splints as of late while running and my buddy Scott told me that it could be that my current shoes were worn out. Anyway, long story short: my "runners" weren't runners at all and more of a cross trainer, although not really a cross-trainer either. I ended up trying on around 10 pairs of runners and decided to go with the shoes shown below: Asics Landereth II. They are last years model so were on clearance for $99.

I had my first run in them this morning and they are so much better than my old Nikes. Way better shock absorption and I didn't get shin splints until around the 45 minute mark (vs 10 minutes in my old shoes). To be honest it wasn't really shin splints, but just my lower legs being tired.



On the home front we got some quotes to get a chain link fence installed around our backyard. Quotes ranged from $2700 to $4800 for the same style of fence. One of the contractors is coming to Stonewall on Tuesday to install a fence so we're going to go check it out and get them to come and give us a more official quote on paper. We're going with a 5 foot tall black chain link with a couple gates. Should be nice.