Training begins..

Despite a rather stubborn ear infection that's been hanging in since Christmas, it is now time for me to start training for the MS Walk Twin Cities I'll be doing in May. I'm doing this in honor of Mark Lowry, the best male singer to my ears, and it's a good opportunity to help me keep in shape. The walk itself is 9 miles. I'm hoping to break it down to 3 walks of 3 miles each in terms of training.

As I said, one of the side benefits of this is to get in better shape. I'm happy to say that I've been able to stay at the level I got to in September when I lost 13 pounds. But now we are well into winter here in MN and the motivation to stay active while indoors is a challenge. A co-worker recently loaned me a few Richard Simmons "Sweatin' to the Oldies" videos and a Leslie Sansone walking tape. Now, those were a lot of fun to do. But if I'm going to train right for this thing, I've got to do some authentic walking. Leslie's got some steps in her video that aren't always actual walking, so that won't quite work for me in training for walking distance. And during the week, when you work all day and commute back and forth and have to have some life at home, who's got time to go to the gym or malls to walk?

Over the weekend, I came up with the simple answer. Turn on the Dance channel on my cable system's music choice channels and just use my living room and kitchen as a walking track. One of my Christmas gifts to myself was a pedometer, so I put that on and just started going...and going. I found that I didn't really have to like the music all that much--as long as it was rhythmic and helps me keep my pace. My first goal this first week is a mile a day, and I made that easily. Next week, it will be a mile and a quarter a day each week, and so on.

Yeah, I hope to lose some more weight, too. It would be cool to be in shape for "Senior Trip" in April. I'd like to hit there with my red hat, feather boa and say "I'm 50 years old...how the heck do I look??"

I'll keep you posted.