Best Walk Ever

Walking, walking and more walking

Since I returned to Canada a couple of weeks ago, I have been walking close to five (5) miles or eight (8) kilometers a day.  This includes the wonderful, green Quebec hills that we find here in the Eastern Townships.  Hills are few and far between in South Carolina.  I love it!  My feet are complaining.  I made a mistake a couple of months ago and bought what I thought were great walking shoes.  They were slightly wider in the toe area and they felt very comfortable.  What I didn’t allow for was the cushion that I need for my feet because of the terrain I walk on here in Canada.  The shoes were fine for the smooth sidewalks in South Carolina but that is not what I have here.  I have gravel roads, some sidewalks, some grassy fields and lawns, some paved road and lots of hills.  I need more cushioning.  So, I broke down and bought my favorite shoes when I was back in the states last week.  My feet had been complaining, especially in the morning, and improved during the day.  Once I get going they don’t bother me at all it is only when I have been off them for awhile that they begin to complain.  I have even taken to soaking them in warm water with Epson salts which helps quite a bit.  Our yoga teacher gave us some massage ideas that can help with leg and foot problems using two tennis balls in a stocking.  I have used them to massage a sore back, you know that time when you pull the muscle just under your shoulder blade and almost can’t breathe because it hurts?  Well, putting the tennis balls between my back and the back of a chair and moving over the tennis balls really works out the kinks.  So, now I am working on my feet and calves.  Yoga starts up again here in a couple of weeks and my feet can’t wait!  Here is a link to a YouTube Video about Tennis Ball Massage for your feet.

A Goal with a Purpose

With that being said, things are about to get more intense for my feet and I suspect a few more pair of shoes will make it into my closet.  I signed up for Pledge the Pink which is a 3-day 3 island walk in South Carolina in September.  I have been mulling this over for a few weeks now and decided that it was time to cut or fish bait.  I need a goal, this is a great one and it is a series of walks I haven’t done before.  To clarify a bit, in 2002, my daughter Katie and I participated in the Avon 3-Day walk which was 60 miles in three days and we walked from Framingham, MA to Boston Common.  It was miserable weather in May but we did it.  We trained for months.  Started in February and walked six miles four or five days a week and then farther on weekends.  It was intense and incredibly moving to participate in something that big.  We raised a lot of money and that was also very impressive.  This walk is also to raise money to fight cancer but in a different way.  It will be just as demanding.  It is half the distance but that doesn’t mean it is going to be easy.  Yes, I can walk every day and a decent distance but if I intend to walk 10 miles a day for three days, I need to do some much longer walks here.  So, I have a training plan and I am going to start it in a couple of weeks.  There are three training plan options, one for beginners that is 12 weeks, one for intermediate walkers which is 8 weeks, and one for the more advanced which is 6 weeks.  I consider myself an advanced walker but will go with the 8 week plan as I haven’t done a lot of long distance walking since last summer.  It is different and you do need time to recover so a day off here and there is advised.

An Experiment in Wine

Ever the experimenter and wine lover, I came across an article about Dry Farms Wine while perusing information on the Paleo style of eating.  Their headlines appealed to me as they advertised that their wine was:

• Farmed organically or biodynamically
• Dry farmed
• Chemical free
• Fermented with native wild yeast
• additive free
• unaltered

In addition all Dry Farms Wine has to be:

• Sugar-free
• Low in sulfites
• Lower alcohol than typical wine (generally 12% instead of 14-15%)

This really, really intrigued me so I thought I would go ahead and order  six bottles and get my penny bottle as well.  I had a great experience working with them as I had some issues making the order and then getting the shipping address corrected and they could not have been more helpful.  I have since enjoyed two bottles of red and one bottle of white.  I didn’t care so much for the white as it was quite dry and I have been drinking something much different.   The first red was good and I enjoyed it.  It was dry and tasted a lot like a light pinot noir.  The second bottle of red had me looking up how I could get a case of it.  It was perfect.  I have tried other “organic” wines in the past and found them seriously lacking in taste and substance.  So far, I have not found that with these wines.  If you are interested click on their name above and read more.  In the meantime, I will pour a glass of wine!

A Recipe to Try this Week

From my favorite store, Olive the Above in Beaufort, comes another delicious recipe.  I did try last week’s recipe and it is a keeper.  Here’s the link to it if you missed it – Grilled lemon herb Mediterranean chicken salad recipe.  I made it for dinner one night and then had leftovers for lunch for the next two days.  I used chicken tenders which gave me quite a few pieces of chicken to cut up onto my salads.  Our Farmer’s Market opens on the 24th of June but some of the local farms are beginning to sell their early lettuce and asparagus and I have even found tomatoes but I know they were green house, it’s way to early for garden ones.   So here is this week’s recipe, hope you give it a try and let me know if you do.  It sounds delicious.

 

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