3-Day for the Cure: Training Week Nineteen

Have I mentioned how much I love spring?

'Cause I do. I really, really do. Every single mile I walked this week was outside. Also, because it's been so nice, I've been going in the evening instead of the morning. Alone, either one of these things is cause for celebration, but together? I feel the urge to compose a poem... or maybe a song and interpretive dance dedicated to Mother Nature. She rocks my socks.

As hard as it is to drag myself out of bed in the morning to walk, I am also the sort of woman who really enjoys coming home from work to spend some quality time on the couch with my husband and our cats. (And maybe a glass of wine. Or two.) I really thought it would be harder to convince myself to get home, change into comfy walking clothes, and head right back out the door. But I'm finding that I really look forward to it.

I think it helps that we have an upscale outdoor shopping plaza right behind our apartment. It's a half-mile loop all the way around and makes for great window shopping and people watching. Plus it's well-lit, and - bonus! - they pipe awesomely bad 80s music throughout so I can leave the headphones behind (which, - PSA guys! - is admittedly boring, but also safer). On the downside, there are no hills so I'm unable to get that side of training in and on busier days I have to do a bit of dodging and weaving so as not to run into anyone. (People do not have any better walking skills than they do driving skills when they have a cell phone glued to their ear. And don't get me started on those SUV sized strollers. Sometimes I feel like Frogger, yo.)

I'll definitely continue to use the plaza in the middle of the week for my shorter walks, but as the weekend walks get longer, I'm planning on joining up with other training groups to keep things interesting and make some new friends.

In other news, my New Balance shoes are awesome. I had a small issue with a blister earlier this week, but this was entirely the fault of my socks. The New Balance socks I bought with the shoes are equally fantastic, but I made the mistake of only buying two pairs. On Thursday, I decided they were a little too ripe to wear again, so I donned a pair of my older socks to see how they fared. About four miles in I could feel a hot spot forming on my baby toe. I finished the walk with minimal pain, but they definitely aren't going to be foot friendly for anything over three miles. A little bit of lancing, some Neosporin, and a bandaid, and I'm good as new and have plans to buy more New Balance socks this week. They're cuter, anyway.

On the whole, this week went very well. I do think I'm going to go ahead and pick up some additional cross-training. This past week I did a bit of P90X Kenpo X, but found that it bugged my knees with all the twisting and punching and kicking, so I'm probably going to stick to strength training exercises on my cross-training days.

I so want to be a kickboxing bad-ass, but it might have to wait until after the 3-Day.

Suggested Training
Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 3 Miles Easy Walk
Wednesday - 15 Minutes Moderate Cross-Training
Thursday - 5 Miles Moderate Walk
Friday - 30 Minutes Easy Cross-Training
Saturday - 6 Miles Moderate Walk
Sunday - 5 Miles Moderate Walk
Total Mileage - 19

Actual Training
Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 3 Miles Moderate Walk
Wednesday - 30 Minutes Moderate Cross-Training (P90X Kenpo X)
Thursday - 5 Miles Moderate Walk
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 6.5 Miles Moderate Walk
Sunday - 5 Miles Moderate Walk
Total Mileage - 19.5

Just 124 days!