John Phillip Helps Me Focus

Two more weeks till the Half Marathon in Lodi. Our weekly "long" walk has jumped dramatically from 6 miles to 9 miles, and next week it will be 10 miles. So, how do I know when I've walked 9 miles?

Aside from knowing that I'm a pretty consistent 20-minute-miler, there is a neat "pedometer" hack for Google Maps - you "record" your walk by clicking on the map, and it calculates the length of each segment as well as the total length of the walk. You can turn on other features, like mile-markers and calories burned (based on your weight.) This is where I walked yesterday. (You will have to zoom out to see the entire route.)

Ah, but you ask, "Who is John Phillip?" Well, here's the story. I've been listening to audio books on my walks to make them a little more interesting. I've walked through Lois Lowry's "Gathering Blue", a couple of pedantic motivational titles, and am currently involved in "Snow flower and the Secret Fan", by Lisa See. This is all good, as long as I'm walking in the green belt parkway or on lightly-trafficked streets. Walking on the levee, however, is much noisier, because it runs right alongside the immensely-busy I-5 freeway. I was looking for something to listen to that I could hear above the traffic noise, and thought that perhaps marching music might be just the ticket. I downloaded a handful of John Phillip Sousa marches from iTunes, along with a couple others that are very different (Irish, New Orleans). Now, I stride along to the tubas and trumpets I remember from my childhood - my dad was in the Army band during WWII, and had several recordings we listened to often - and discovered it's GREAT walking music! Even if you're getting tired, the next march has you stepping right along and loving it! (Photo courtesy of SoldiersMediaCenter on Flickr and used under the terms of its Creative Commons license.)

My Feet

So who would have thought I'd have such an interest in my feet? I've never paid much attention to them before. They carry me around, push things out of the way, sport whatever shoes I decide to wear, tap to the music ... all without my thinking about them too much.

Training for this Half-Marathon, though, has brought my feet to the front and center of my attention these days - at one point last week, I had blisters on 8 of my 10 toes, and I was despairing of ever being able to wear shoes again, much less finishing a 13+ mile walk in a couple of weeks. I bought a new pair of shoes - and returned them when it became obvious they were worse than what I already have. I soak my toes in hot epsom-salt-water every night and grease them good with foot lotion to keep them pink and soft. I trim toenails regularly. I've bought out Rite-Aid's supply of tubular foam toe bandages, and ibuprofen is my Friend! My feet are SO pampered, now!

The blisters finally abated, and I've resumed longer walks again. I have to do 8 more miles this week, then a 9-mile walk on Sunday. Today, I walked 2.5 miles to Curves, did my workout, and walked the 2.5 miles back home - duck soup!