Slow Week

Well it's been a bit of a slow week around my walking. I really needed to give my hip a bit of a rest so I've only done 3km so far. Friday I hopped on the treadmill and the rest of the week I was able to do a bit of core work. Holy man I can feel the abs! The 3k felt pretty good, so I will proceed with my Sunday walk. I have a feeling it might be a chilly one since we are heading out at 8:00am. I'm headed to my sister's so really want to get a walk in before I do, so 8am it is! :-) I am also going to be meeting up with a company called simplyforlife.com They are going to set our family up with meal plans for more healthy eating, so we are pretty excited about that. It's a 12 week program so that should give me a jump start into things. Although I have been walking my butt off and watching what I eat the scale still isn't moving. That is a bit frustrating for sure. A friend and I are weighing in together once a week hoping this will help keep us both on track as well. Enjoy the rest of the weekend I will let you know how my early morning walk goes! :-S Thankfully it's with Toccoa so committing to meet her will make it easier to drag my butt out of bed by 7!! :-)

What great February weather!!!

What another beautiful day to be outside walking. I was hoping to do another 12k this Sunday but had to be happy with 10.58. Even after a painful walk for my friend Melissa last Sunday, she decided to join me again this Sunday. After reading my blog yesterday she did try to back out because she didn't think she could do another 12k this weekend since the blisters on her feet were still in recovery mode. I didn't want her to back out and wanted her to walk with me so I agreed to her only wanting to do 6k. :-)She wanted to tackle the hill that I've been doing so that's what we did. I knew I wanted to do to 12k so I headed out an hour before I was meeting up with her to walk. I only managed to do about 4.5km because walking was actually very painful today. So I did 10.58km in total but it was a tough walk. Thanks Melissa for joining me otherwise I'm not sure I would have even done the extra 6. The good conversation and laughs always takes over the pain!!:-) I love the support, it means alot! See you next Sunday!! :-) Well tomorrow is definitely a rest day and starting this week I am going to start on a 14 week walking program for the half marathon in May. I'm also going to go and check out motion fitness gym and see what I do there for some cross training. Thanks to everyone who reads the blog and supports me in one way or another!:-)

Squeezing a one hundred dollar bill ...

A busy week! So far this week I have logged 17km and tomorrow I will add another 12k. A very successful week!! Tues a neighbor decided to walk with me so that was awesome, I love walking with someone else, it takes the boredom factor out. Thursday it was a lonely walk by myself but I pushed my way through it. So you're dying to do know what the post is about right ... squeezing a one hundred dollar bill!! Well first of all I didn't finish the post title..lol!! It should say "pretend you're squeezing a one hundred dollar bill between your butt cheeks" ..lol!! Thank you Cathy for the tip ;-)!! I met up with my friend Cathy to collect her bottles for our bottle drive (thanks Cathy) and while I was in her company I asked her what the trick to walking faster was, since she has walked a few marathons and done amazing. And that was her response to me ..."pretend you're squeezing a one hundred dollar bill between your butt cheeks" when you are walking,take shorter steps and get those arms moving. So this morning before I left I was demoing (well not really cause I don't have a $100 bill in my posession..lol)for my family what it looks like when you pretend to be doing just that...well holy heck that is actually very difficult to do!! :-S The first time I tried it I completely locked my hip up and didn't think I was going to be able to walk for the rest of the day!! But I stretched it out and tried it again. So during my 5km today I decided try this newly learned technique. It took a while to get in a groove and amazingly enough it works. I was able to increase my pace for part of the walk.It works a totally different group of muscles then I'm used to using when I walk so we will see what tomorrow brings! I think it will be awhile before I can walk an entire walk like that but it's a new goal!! Thanks Cathy ..I think..lol!! I think I might even be able to keep up with Toccoa with this new technique!! :-) We are still collecting bottles so drop us a line and we will happily pick yours or give you a drop off point. A big thank you to the Calgary South Trail bottle depot who has allowed us to set up a big bin inside the depot for people to just drop their bottles off there for us as well! It's located on 130th Ave in McKenzie Towne right behind Home depot. We have just created another event on our facebook group and that is our Survivor Pool for the upcoming season of Survivor which airs on Feb 15th. You don't have to be on facebook to join just drop me a line and we can get you signed up! It's $20.00 to enter and pick your survivor. You will then have a chance to win half the pot of $180 if your survivor wins the game! The other half of the pot is donated to our fundraising. You don't even have to watch it we can just let you know if you win or when your person is voted off!! We need 18 people per pool so join us and support our fundraising! :-) Enjoy the rest of the weekend!! I will check in tomorrow after my 12k! :-)

12km Sunday Walk!!

The plan was to do another 10km this morning. I headed out with one of the Arth-Kickers team members (Toccoa) and a friend from Okotoks and we walked down into Fish Creek park. It was a great walk and when we hit the 5km mark I decided to push for one more km before turning around to head back for the second half. Oh my word Toccoa can walk fast and for her this was a nice leisurely walk in the park..lol!! I didn't feel too bad but I still broke a sweat, I don't think she did..lol! My friend Melissa did great, she hasn't been walking and she tackled this walk with us this morning and did amazing. I hope she's not too sure in the morning and cursing me..lol!! Although she was prepared for 10k this morning and so I think I may have put her over the edge with the extra 2. Sorry Melissa! But it was fun, walking with friends is so much nicer and makes the time go so fast. It did not feel like we were walking for 2 hours. I feel like I'm getting back into my groove and so I just need my body to cooperate. :-) I was alittle bit nervous about this morning because doing my injection last night and taking benadryl makes me feel pretty crappy and when I first woke up I wasn't sure I was even gonna make it 5km. I think walking with friends definitely made it better, otherwise walking by myself I would focused on the fact that I felt horrible and used it as an excuse to walk a shorter distance. So Toccoa and Melissa were just the support I needed this morning to get me through. And really I don't feel too bad at all, hips are alittle sore but no worse than when I headed out this morning!! Thanks for the great walk ladies and the support!! :-)

Success with 10km!!!!

It was the greatest feeling to accomplish 10km yesterday. It's hard to believe that I really did do a full marathon in Oct 2010 and now I am excited to accomplish 10km these days. Set backs have been a huge part of my journey and all I can do is keep moving forward and set my sights on Oct of this year. :-) So onward I go. Not only did I do 10km yesterday, but I walked that darn hill that almosted got the better of me on Sunday..lol!! I have to say it wasn't any easier yesterday, maybe even harder because it was the last 3km of my walk! I knew I would have no choice but to do it if I made that the last part of my walk, otherwise I would have been sitting on the side of the road all day waiting for hubby to get home..lol!! Today is a bit of a rest day as my hips are alittle sore from the walk yesterday, but I did walk 2km this morning with the dog. :-) Tomorrow and Saturday will be shorter walks as I'm planning another 10km on Sunday with team mate Toccoa and another friend Melissa that's going to join us. So off to fish creek park we go Sunday morning!! So if you see us give us alittle cheer!!! :-) This weekend is injection weekend for my meds so Sunday's walk will definietly be a challenging one as it's usually a couple of days of not feeling so great. So doing this one with friends will definietly make it easier! :-) Don't forget to contact us to come and pick up your bottles, so we can work on our fundraising! Enjoy the sunshine again today!! Don't forget to visit our website: www.arthkickers.com

Tried for 10km ...

Well after being stuck in the house doing workouts both on the treadclimber and the xbox workout (which by the way is kicking my butt..lol)I was happy to be able to walk outside today. I woke up this morning and was planning to walk 10km. I told hubby where I was planning to walk because there and back would be 10km. Well he so graciously burst my bubble and told me it wasn't going to be a 10km walk. No biggie, I would walk that route and then add a couple of km's the other way on the way home or just walk alittle further past my intended turn around point. Well that didn't go as planned...the route I walked was great for the first 3km (easy peasy) and then I reached my original turn around point and started heading back. It was easy going cause it was ALL DOWNHILL!!! Oh my word the walk back was crazy, it was uphill the entire way back with one spot that was a flat spot. There was one hill I felt like stopping and calling hubby to come and pick me up..lol!! But I didn't I kept going. Needless to say I didn't walk the extra km's on the way home because my legs were already burning. I have to be nice to my body and my hip and at that point I think it was already a bit unhappy with me..lol!! But it's all good, yes is was only 6km but it was a GOOD 6km and a great workout. I think it's a great walk to build up my endurance for sure!! I love tracking my walks and workouts on dailymile and now that Heather and Tracy are logging there's it's great motivation for everyone!! It's great to see what the rest of the team is doing. You can check out our dailymile workouts on the website www.arthkickers.com. We are still looking for corporate/businesses to sponsor our team with a donation to the Arthritis Society and be put on our training jerserys. If you have family or friends please pass along my email info@arthkickers.com . Personal donations are great as well and any amount is appreciated.:-) We still have lots of bracelets left to sell as well, so please support our team and purchase a bracelet! :-)They are $5.00each and you can email info@arthkickers to find out where you can get one! :-)

Calgary Half Marathon

Well it's official, I'm registered for the Calgary Scotiabank Half marathon on May 27th. The arthristis society has also been chosen as a the charity of choice for this marathon so that is exciting news. The arth-kickers will be there as part of the Arthritis Society's Joints in Motion Scotiabank Group Charity Challenge team for the half marathon. So come out and join us for an exciting day as some of our team members complete their first half marathon in preparation for the full we will be completing in Oct. Support our team by donating to one of our personal fundraising pages. We will be using this half marathon as a fundraising event for our team and need your suppport. :-) Keep warm cause this is crazy cold weather!!It's definietly keeping me indoors, thank goodness for a treadmill and my now favorite workout .. the X-Box! :-) There are some great work out games and they are fun so it doesn't seem like work at all!! 200 calories burned in no time!! :-) Have a great day everyone!!