In A Word – Blisters

Well it had to come I suppose, I have been pushing myself all week to exercise more, and have been doing a good 2 1/4 mile walk at a fast pace every morning, with the result that I now have blisters forming on the balls of my feet.

I decided to slow things down a bit yesterday morning, which helped, my feet weren’t too bad during the day, but then I went on another 4 mile hike yesterday evening which left them sore again.  I was determined not to miss my walk this morning, but knew it had to be done at an even slower pace.  I also wanted to try and take a swim after, to make the most of my workout routine.

I lost track of how long the walk took this morning, but it was a while longer than the 36 minutes of the previous days, helped along with some more good music from my trusty MP3 player, today being a fresh batch of random songs from the same selection.

The walk starts and ends with going down and back up 6 flights of steps from my 7th floor condo, and within 10 minutes of having got back from the walk, I was changed and back down for a dip in the pool.  I managed 20 lengths, then back upstairs again, by this time just after 10am.  It really is nice to be living in Florida where you can do this sort of thing most of the year.  If anything the summer time is hte worst, since it’s just too hot and humid, even in the early morning.

I was feeling nicely energised after the walk and swim, and not very hungry surprisingly, so I made do with an orange and a banana.  I then set to on the internet, catching up with messages and postings on various sites.

Before I knew it, 1:30pm had come around, so I legged it downstairs for a 3rd time to put the sauna on, then grabbed a light lunch of cheese and tomato sandwich, my favorite since I was knee high to a grasshopper.  I topped this off with a yoghurt.

An hour later I headed down to the sauna, then did 20 lengths in the pool, took a steam, and another 30 lengths, before heading up those steps for a 4th time.   That made a total of 70 lengths in the pool, my daily record, plus I think a record for going up and down stairs.

I was going to have some homemade chicken soup for dinner, but didn’t feel like something that heavy, so I made do with some sliced carrots and ranch dip, followed by an apple and orange.

My day of working out wasn’t over yet though, as I went out for another walk to check out the opening times for the local Farmers Market and for a couple of items to Target.  I hadn’t been to this Farmers Market before, but Tim, who I rent from went today and got some real bargains, all important if you are on a tight budget.  We also discovered a nice park around the corner from the market, with several walks and lots of ornamental shrubs and trees.  I guess we covered about 2 miles in total.

So here I am at almost midnight trying to get my daily post completed before the day ends.  I have spent the evening trying to catch up with comments on my Squidoo Lenses and also on Tagfoot.   And so it’s almost time for bed, catch you tomorrow.

An Early Morning Walk

I decided (see my last post) that as from today I need to start getting out of bed earlier, and to take a good walk first thing to get me moving and to start the day off right.

So I arranged for Debbie to wake me up around 7am this morning with a phone call, however I woke up on my own around 6:45am instead of my usual 8am.  Do you find too that if you need to wake up early, you don’t always need to set the alarm, your body somehow wakes you up at the right time?

I chatted with Debbie for a while on the webcam before she headed out for an afternoon appointment (remember she is in the UK), then checked some of my emails and Tagfoot messages, and headed off for my “hopefully” daily walk around the lake, golf course and nice homes where I live.  It’s a 2 1/4 mile route around the block, with 6 flights of stairs down and then up at the end, which takes about 35-40 minutes if I “hoof” it and make it a brisk walk.

Well I spent a bit too long chatting and messaging, so it was 8:30am by the time I left, but it was an almost perfect day, partly cloudy, a nice breeze, and about 70 degrees.

When I walk alone I always take my trusty MP3 player with me.  It’s about 3 years old, doubles as a flash drive and only has 512mb of memory, but it’s enough for me, since when I mostly use it, I am either walking or flying, and for both I really enjoy listening to a selection of my favorite tracks.  I have it set to play songs randomly, and although it always starts on the same song, flipping to the next I never know what it might play.

This morning I did pretty well, the MP3 player selecting for me a good driving track to start the walk off right, “Highway Star” by Deep Purple.  That saw me setting off to a good pace (I tend to change my walk pattern to match the music), and it was followed by a slower track that I love, “No Se Tu” by Luis Miguel from the album Romance.  Some of you might remember it as the featured love song from the movie “Speechless” with Geena Davis and Michael Keeton (Romance is a great album of love songs by the way, remade hits of the 50′s-70′s in the style of Nat King Cole, but in Spanish).   Then one of my all time favourite songs, “Cinema Show” by Genesis, from the album Selling England By The Pound.  They use a section of this on their medley of “really old songs” in concert, but this was the original, and has one of the best Genesis instrumental sections ever.  By this time I was 2/3rds of the way around the circuit, and the next random track was also a good one, “China Girl” by David Bowie.  Today I recalled the duet of this between Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer – a great movie.   Finally, for the last leg, my trusty music machine kicked out “Kill The King” by Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow, which saw me along the straight, across the road, and up the stairs to the front door.

Home, I took a cool shower, made some Green Tea With Lime for later, and grabbed a bowl of Oatmeal for breakfast.

So how did you start your morning today, and what would be on your listening selection if you were taking a walk before breakfast?