The walk

Last Saturday I made it 3/4 of a mile! You read that right 3/4 of a mile. I know, my normal walk is about 6 or 7 miles, so why is this little distance so significant? Well, it's because I was carrying an extra 80 lbs. I was attempting to carry all the weight I have lost. I say attempting because my goal was to make it the whole 4 or 5 miles with it, but I did make it a good distance and I am still proud of myself.

It was certainly an eye-opening experience. Just loading up the backpacks was shocking. I found two 22lb dumbell wieghts that I put in a backpack. When I zipped it up and tried to get it on my back, I couldn't even put it on. I had to have help. So, I decided to put them in separate backpacks and carry one around the front and the other on my back. Once I had figured out the legistics, I thought I was ready enough.

I woke up at 5:00 am (way too early for any human to be awake), and starting loading myself down. I wrapped beach towels around each of the weights in the backpacks to keep them from hitting me as I walked. I put on backpack #1. Then I put on backpack #2. Then I took off backpack #2 and then backpack #1. With them on I couldn't put on the ankle weights that I had. So.... I put on the ankle weights (4 lbs a piece) and put the backpacks back on. Then I grabbed my handweights (10 lbs a piece). Once I got all this on, I wasn't quite sure I had enough weight, so I hopped on the scale to check it out. 251 lbs. Wow, never thought I would see that number again. So, I grabbed my water bottle, oops, couldn't carry that and the handweights, so I left the water bottle and headed out the door.

As I got started I began to appreciate the fact that we began so stinking early in the morning. It was still dark, and so no one was able to see me in this ridiculous get-up. I do kind of wish I had a picture to share with you, but just trust me, it was quite amusing.

There were two others who decided to carry their weight with them. They had about 25 and 45 lbs to carry, so not quite as bad. (Awesome, isn't it) So, our walking plan was to make a large figure eight from our starting point so that we had the option of dropping weight if we needed to. I had to drop my handweights before we made it back to the starting point because the pressure on my shoulders was just too much for me. That was the 3/4 mile mark. Then, maybe less than 1/4 of a mile later, I was able to drop my front backpack. I probably could have carried the weight if it had been distributed a little better, but the strain on my shoulders was just too much. So, I carried the other backpack and the ankle weights for a while longer, but then when I finally shed it all, it was so freeing!

I am so glad to be free of that bond! It feels great to know that the hard work that I have put in over the past 6 months has been such a success and I have been able to shed so much weight. It comes off so slowly, that at times I wondered if it was really making a difference, but now I see. It has!

Walking

I have been walking alot. Just ask anyone in this town. I get comments all the time about how somebody saw me walking the other day. It's really a bit commical. But, I have also had some people ask me about how I track my walks. I have borrowed a case that straps to my wrist and holds my phone and I use an app that tracks wherever I go on my Android phone. It's called mytracks. I'm not going to say that it's the best app you can find, because I just heard someone else say they use it and so I downloaded it and that's what I have been using. But, it works well, so why fix something that isn't broken. The app uses a gps signal and tracks the length of time that I walk, the number of miles that I walk, and the average speed for my walk. That's really all I need to know. Oh, and it also shows a map of where I went. That's kind of neat to look at once in a while, but not really important info.

I like to average at least 4-5 miles for each walk and lately I have been walking over 4 miles an hour. If you aren't a big walker, that might not mean much to you, but for me, this is monumental. When I started, my fellow bacon lovers figured that we would need to average at least 3.6 miles per hour in order to finish our half marathon in the 4 hour time limit. And let me tell you that I was not sure I would be able to do it. So, to be walking at 4 miles per hour or greater for 5 miles or more is just thrilling for me. Now I'm thinking about making my goal to finish the half marathon in 3 1/2 hours.

The other day I was talking to my husband about the amount of weight I have lost and how I can't hardly wrap my head around the extra 75 pounds I had and how that felt and he suggested I take one of my walks with that amount of weight in a backpack. Now, I have been thinking about this and it sounds like a great thought provoking assignment, but I am kind of terrified at the thought. I might give it a try. But, I think I might have to do my walk at the high school track so I never get too far in case I'm not able to carry all that weight for the entire walk. That seems so weird to think that I couldn't carry that weight, when just a few months ago, I was carrying all that weight around 24/7. So, I will let you know if I attempt this experiment.