Thursday, August 7, 2008

One down, Fifty-nine to go!

I have officially begun! Tonight I did my first training for my 5k. I walked for 20 minutes. I'm not quite sure the best way to do this... so I timed myself for 10 minutes (well... listened to 10 minutes on my iPod), then I turned around and went home. Now, this isn't your normal stroll in the park (... though I did walk down a path... in a park-like setting...). This was much closer, though not exactly racewalking. Now, what is racewalking? Well, among other things, it's an Olympic event...

But for those inquiring minds that want to know... Here's Mental_Floss's take on Racewalking vs. Jogging.

Speaking of the Olympics... they start tomorrow! It should be fun and entertaining to watch... though it officially is going to begin getting depressing starting this year, I think. I'm 27. The great majority of the athletes are going to be younger than I am. I may have missed my window of opportunity to compete in the Olympics. Darn!

Maybe I'll still have a chance if they bring back some of these Weird Olympic Events.

But I digress.

My workout!

It started off well. I didn't warm up or stretch first (no warm up because my workout was walking... which is how I'd warm up!), and no stretching because it isn't good to stretch cold muscles. ... Well, about 1/3 of the way through, my legs were starting to feel it a little bit, and I wished I'd stretched!

Interestingly, 10 minutes on the "out" of my out-and-back walk wasn't as far as 10 minutes on the "back." (I was going to write 10 minutes on my back... but that sounded like I couldn't handle my workout!) And I think my 10 out was a bit longer than 10 mins, too. I was listening to a recording of a live Victor Wooten solo that was about 9:36, but I restarted it twice, so it wasn't fully accurate. On the way back, it was 8:00 minutes of a different live recording of a Bela Fleck & the Flecktones... but I got back at the end of the song! So I walked down the block for another minute or so and turned around and went home

It was a beautiful day here today, didn't even reach 80, I think... but I was definitely sweating and my legs were feeling it a bit. I got down to stretch and I discovered... that it's tough to stretch with this belly o' mine! I never used to have that problem in high school or college!

For however more difficult stretching was than it used to be, it made my legs feel better!

Until tomorrow... happy running!

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