Kate:

Okay, we’ve been slacking on this blog.  Apologies to anyone who reads this regularly!  The reason I haven’t been posting is because I didn’t want to take up the blog with continual postings on falling off the wagon.  Who needs all those “Woe is me” posts?  I don’t like writing them and I’m sure no one wants to read them.  I promise to write more often!

So, I’ve started to get things back on track, and I feel great.  What prompted this post was the fantastic weather a few days ago.  It was close to 80 degrees here in Chicago, and it’s been awhile since we’ve had such a beautiful day where I felt like getting out for a walk.  If you’ve ever been to Chicago, or seen a weather map for that matter, you know that it’s pretty miserable here in the winter.  When it snows, the sidewalks shrink to icy one-lane paths.  Wind chill is so bad that you don’t want to travel more than absolutely necessary.  So, my walks took a back seat to hibernation.

I left my apartment (okay, dragged myself out of the apartment since I made the mistake of checking my email when I came home from work, and that lead to other internet surfing) and headed south.  I walked for a mile and a quarter then turned around and came back.  It took me about an hour to complete the round-trip.  I walk with purpose, but I’m not trying to win a race.  I usually go for length of walk rather than speed.

I read this MSN article yesterday that lets me know my way is okay:

Endurance training (about an hour at a moderate intensity) has been shown to keep your calorie burn revved for up to 7½ hours post-exercise. Long walks will help maximize results because there is a dose response to exercise; that is, the more you do, the greater the benefits you’ll receive. These will likely be the slowest walks you do in the program.

Yesterday I walked again, this time setting out from work and walking towards home.  I walked about 2.6 miles before taking the bus.  I wasn’t wearing the best shoes and didn’t want to get nasty blisters that would prevent me from walking more often.  My goal is to eventually walk all the way home from work.  That’s 7.28 miles, and should take me about 2 and a half hours.  I’ll work up to that!

Want to track the miles of your walk?  I love Google’s pedometer.