The thrill of inclement weather

Spring conditions and 9 degrees on Tuesday night. Wild winds and -20 degrees last night. Winter storm watch tonight and possibly 30 centimeters of snow tomorrow. We'll never get bored with the walking conditions during a Southern Ontario winter.

I love storms if I don't have to drive anywhere. There is nothing exhilarating about a storm from the inside of a car. But there's everything exhilarating when I can wrap myself in multiple layers and tromp through 30 centimeters of fresh snow. It may not be sport specfic training for a marathon, but it is fun and it is a workout!

If we do have a storm, tell us your storm walking tale. On second thought, why not tell us your storm walking tale before then so we can be inspired to walk our own.

Massage as passive cross training

The slow tightening of my muscles has begun as I get into some of the long distance training and speed work for the spring race season. Also, have I mentioned that my computer screen went black several months ago and I have been able to continue working on the computer's keyboard only with a computer moniter hooked up off to the left? It's creating a muscle imbalance in my neck that is becoming debilitating. If you see me and notice my head seems unnaturally turned to the left, please feel free to stand to my right so that I am forced to contract the muscles on the right side of my neck to speak to you.

In any case, all of this led me to the door of my favorite massage therapist today in search of some muscle balancing. And, oh, it felt good when I walked out of there. It got me thinking that perhaps massage therapy could be justified as a form of cross training. Passive, but effective, cross training.

Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to describe massage as the yin to the yang of marathon training.

Testing real food on the long walks

I've been experimenting with food that has not been "designed" for athletes. For many years, I took only Clif Bars with me on walks longer than 90 minutes. Two years ago I discovered Clif Blok Shots and switched to those as I found the energy boost happened faster than with the Clif Bar and with less heaviness in my stomach. This makes sense considering the Bloks likely have a higher glycemic index than the bar.

Then, this past fall for some reason nothing that resembled a "designed" sports supplement was appealing to my taste buds. So, I have been experimenting with substitutes.

Knowing that I need to ingest electrolytes, I have been taking orange juice cut with some water and a touch of salt added. I like it.

Three weeks ago, I researched figs (since I love Barbara's fig with blueberry bars) and discovered that dried figs are high in potassium. So, for my most recent two long training walks of 18k and 20k I have taken two fig bars. I like these too.

If anyone has suggestions, it's always interesting, educational, and fun to know what works for others. Let's spread the experimentation around!

Ode to the small walks

As many of us write the prologue on our 2008 race training, it seems like an appropriate time to be reminded of the significance of the shorter walks in the training schedule.

If you are taking classes once (or twice) a week with us, you are working at a high intensity. If you are, in addition, getting out for the long walks on the weekends, you are stressing your body with an endurance workout. These two workouts are different but both challenging.

If by chance, circumstance, or planning, these are the only walks you are completing in your weekly schedule, you are leaving yourself susceptible to injury. Two tough weekly workouts are not enough to be prepared for a race. Each time you come to class or go for that long walk you hit your body with a bruising workout.

The two shorter walks placed in the training schedule should be considered an integral part of the training that helps you shore up your fitness foundation between the intensity and endurance challenges of the other walks.

Let me know if you want some suggestions for keeping short walks interesting and manageable. Or, let us know what you do!

More New Year Reading

A few days ago I finished reading A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. I'm still chuckling. Bryson tried to walk the entire 2,000 miles and more of the Appalachian Trail in the summer of 1996. He never finished but I recommend the book as a reminder that finishing is not everything and that appreciating the journey (and having a sense of humor) is everything.

You don't walk the Appalachian Trail, you hike. And there is a difference.

Every once in a while Bryson leaves the trail to search out a little civilization and he discovered what many of us power walkers already know. As Bryson says "hardly anyone...walks anywhere for anything". Moreover, "...in America now, it is not actually possible to be a pedestrian, even if you want to be." Bryson goes on to describe an adventurous one and a half mile walk he attempted in an effort to find insect repellant at K-Mart. He describes a walk that many of us training for marathons have experienced: one with 6 lanes of traffic, no intersections with "WALK" buttons, sidewalks ending for no reason, concrete barriers, bridges with no pedestrian way, and worse.

The bad news for Bryson, when he finally made it to K-Mart, the store did not carry insect repellant. The good news for us is that we're usually just trying to cover miles on our training schedules and we can avoid areas that are not pedestrian friendly. Still, it amazes me that even in my home town of leafy, residential Oakville, which stretches probably 20 kilometres across the shore of Lake Ontario and 2o kilometres north from the shore, that we often walk the same roads again and again because so many routes are simply not feasible for people using two feet.

It's a shame really. And as much as I laughed at Bryson’s description of his attempts to transverse urban America in search of insect repellant, there is a part of me that thinks we should be taking action to institute urban and suburban planning that encourages more walking. Not everyone may want to train to walk a marathon, but it would be good if more people walked to pick up milk and mail.

New Year Reading

So how go the resolutions?

For those of you with fitness resolutions, it was a good day. On the streets of my neighbourhood the unseasonably high temperatures allowed skin on legs and arms to be revealed. Runners and walkers could be seen every few hundred metres outside. This is not a typical site in the first week of January. It usually takes the hardy of personality and the well stocked of winter apparel to be out. For myself I enjoyed a brisk walk in the warm air, although I confess that cooler temperatures and a bright sky would have pleased me more.

For those of you that have challenged yourself to dietary resolutions, I have to tell you that I received one of the best Christmas presents ever this year when someone got me a copy of Alice Waters' new book called The Simple Art of Food. Alice Waters is renowned for her commitment to preparing foods for her restaurant, Chez Panisse in Berkeley California, from locally grown, seasonal, and organic foods. Hers is a philosophy of eating and food that likely can do more to help a person lose weight than any 6/8/12-week, carb/protein/fat restriction, eat for your genome/blood-type diet anyone ever invented.

I further treated myself to two excellent books that put perspective on the total craziness and zaniness behind dieting. Both were published in 2007 and both of them I recommend if you are in the mood for making a brain shift about eating. An Apple a Day: the Myths, Misconceptions and Truths about the Foods we Eat is by Dr. Joe Schwarcz, The Director of the Office for Science and Society at McGill University in Montreal. This book is plain good fun for any nerdy information geeks like me who want to get to the bottom of such thorny issues as should I be eating fish for omega 3 fats even when I am told they are also full of mercury, should I eat soy to lower blood cholesterol or avoid it to avoid thyroid problems? The other book is titled Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss - and the Myths and Realities of Dieting. Written by highly respected science writer for the New York Times, Gina Kolata, it’s another good book to help us reconsider our punishing attitude toward food and our bodies.

Interesting that both An Apple a Day and Rethinking Thin have the word "myths" in their subtitles! Yes, it may all come back to Alice Waters and the Simple Art of Food. Even Dr. Schwarcz in his book's opening line says "Eating used to be simple". I'll report back after a more thorough reading, but for now if a diet as one of your new year resolutions, consider first power walking over to the bookstore for Alice Water's new book. Savour it for a new approach to eating: one with an emphasis on flavour and on enjoying our food. As much as eating used to be simple, eating used to be enjoyable. Once we know how to enjoy food, it’s so much easier to stop when we’ve passed the point of enjoyment.

If you received any interesting books on walking or eating over the holidays, post here. There’s nothing like a good afternoon of reading after a chilly January training walk!