I’ve always liked walking. It’s certainly better than running, in my opinion, since I’m not usually winded and feeling like my lungs will explode from a good walk – which even a 1/4mi run will do to me. Also, based on what my doctor has said about my knees, running is dead out. So, it’s walking for me.

And with the marathon slowly approaching, about 6 months out, I feel like I have sufficient time to ramp up so that I can cross that finish line not limping…justwalking. Naturally, this requires that I find ways to get my endurance up, such as training walks during the week on the treadmill at my office’s fitness center. Those are a bit tough lately, what with my calendar turning into a sea of red from meetings piled on top of meetings, but I’m trying to get back into a 3-day/wk fitness center schedule. Then we get to the weekends, and things invariably get odder.

So this is where I noticed that as I was leaving the Y this morning, after dd’s swim class, I was curious about the mileage from our house to the Y. Turns out that we’re 5-ish miles from the Y. Hmm. That means I could send dh with BOTH kids to the swim class next week (ds would sit in the stands and watch) and walk over to meet up with them. Of course, that throws off the usual Sunday schedule of one parent at swim class and the other at the grocery store, with kids split evenly between us, but sometimes you have to make such sacrifices.

The loop I did last weekend turned out to be 4 miles (which was why it was such a breeze), so I’m looking to push the distance, even early in the training cycle. I could stay off the main roads and just stick to a loop around secondary & tertiary streets, but then it’s a matter of which ones have sidewalks and making sure I’m appropriately brightly colored for the ones that don’t.

What I would like to get my hands on is an iPhone app that helps you track how far you’ve walked in distance (not steps), so that I don’t have to rely on Google Maps to give me mileage. Don’t get me wrong – Google maps does fine, especially now that they have the walking directions feature – but it would be nice to have something I can just use to measure these right from my phone. I’m sure there’s one out there, but I haven’t seen one that really fits my bill just yet (so suggestions are more than welcome!).

It’s hard to figure out how to fit it all in. When your schedule during any given week is like playing a game of Jenga, it seems monumentally difficult to wedge in exercise/training time. I know that you have to prioritize it and all, but there are a lot of competing priorities in my life (kids, work, etc.) and sometimes it feels like the true marathon is just trying to go the distance on that without completely dorking everything up.

I’ll figure it out. I really want to walk across that finish line this year, finishing stronger than I did last year. That 26.2 sticker felt SO GOOD going on my car. I guess I just need to figure out how to juggle “marathons” and finish strong across the board. Sounds easier than it is, I’m sure, bu probably worth doing nonetheless.