blisters be damned

So, after walking all over creation … aka Discover Mills, Mall of Georgia, and the Gwinnett Frys, I managed to get a nice blister on my foot that I allowed to foil my attempt to use the treadmill at the gym yesterday. Today, blister be damned, I went and TRIED to begin the Leslie Sansone 10-day walk plan.

Bull. Hockey.

First, let me say that Friday when I went, I wasn’t feeling so bad after 20 minutes so I cranked it up to 5mph for a jog for a couple minutes. The first thing I noticed is that all my workout music is just too slow for that. So, today to prepare myself I found three more workout mixes… 2 hours of music from 140-150 bmp, which should cover me walking at 4.0 or 4.5 for the walking plan.

Second, I wear a heart rate monitor on the treadmill, which I think I’ve mentioned. I’m ENOUGH out of shape that me walking for 30-45 minutes at a mere 2.7 mph (if I jog a minute or two first) keeps me well on the high end of my exercising heart-rate range… which I had to calculate using the book that came with the monitor… when I set the display watch to monitor the range… and the alarm beep that let’s me know if I’m going over or under the range so I can adjust….

So, me, treadmill, a plan, a bottle of water, a nearly empty gym, and I’m all set to fire up what I think is a mere 20 minutes at 4.0…. and I am miserable, cannot keep my balance, cannot get my stride, feeling constantly like I’m about to be flung off the treadmill for attempting to WALK at a pace that I feel should be more of a jog. Yet, I know Leslie. The plan says “brisk walk” not jog, and she is little miss keep it easy on the joints.

Not to mention that about 5 minutes in, apparently my mental state is adding to my heart rate and I finally realize through the beat of the iPod in my ears that my wrist alarm is beeping wildly and notice my heart rate is about 20 beats out of range on the high end. Glorious… so I attempt to fiddle with the watch to turn off the audible alarm without being flung from the treadmill, and decide to dial it back to 3.7.

At last, at 3.7 I get everything situated, get a more accurate pulse reading, and decide to keep going even if it is out of range and just listen to how my body feels about it. I’m sweating, but I feel good, so… screw some generic calculation.

I manage to crank it back up to 3.9 for the last 5 minutes which takes it just up to the I’m REALLY having to concentrate to keep this pace up and not just go flying off, and it is at last over.

Thus, in summary, I think it may take a couple days of trying to get the hang of the 4.0, and I’ll probably try working my way up 0.1 at a time to the 4.5, making the whole thing quite a bit longer than a 10-day plan, but… what the hell. It’s still a plan.