My Pacific Crest Trail Training Journal Day Ten

I have not been as diligent as I hoped or intended to be in writing this but I am back again for another installment of my PCT training journal.  I have updated my mileage to show my final mileage for last week.  It was a hard but good week.  I am starting to get most of the soreness, from the mileage increase, worked out of my body.  I took Saturday off to rest because I had a lot to do and I need to rest.  The old body does not recover the way it once did when I was younger.  I have been sleeping a lot more because I just do not have the energy to walk those kinds of distances on for or five hours a night.

Week of 9/29/2009 

Mon.   15.0

Tue.      4.8

Wed.    5.8

Thr.      8.0

Fri.       8.7

Sat.        0

Sun      5.0

          47.3

The other day I heard that Lance Armstrong is going to ride the tour again next summer.  I would be interest to know how much harder it is for him to start the real training required of him for professional bike racing then it was four years ago when he started training for his seventh tour.  Even he is human, so even if he probably is still the best professional cyclist in the world I am sure time is starting to catch up with him as it does with all of us. 

I have started stretching more.  Historically I have not had to be a big stretcher but alas time is fast catching up with me.  I have been stopping several times on most of my walks to stretch the muscles in my lower legs.  Since I have started doing this my feet feel better before, during, and after my walks.  I can see the end of my shoes' life coming on the horizon.  They are still good for right now but I am walking on concrete much of the time so the shoes will break down faster.  I want to buy another pair in about a month of so.  I think I have about three hundred miles on them right now.  Today's walk should be easier on the shoe cushioning because I want to go walk the dirt trail at Knob Hill to walk after I take Lauren to school this morning.  

Week of 10/06/2009 

Mon.   12.2

Tue.    10.3

Wed.    4.0

Thr.      0.0

Fri.         .

Sat.       .

Sun.        

          26.5

Yesterday I took another rest after twenty-six and a half miles in three days.  I needed to sleep so I could recover.  I did the ten point three mile walk in two hours and twenty-three minutes.  A fifteen-minute mile would be ten miles in two point five hours so for right now I was going at a pretty good clip.  I am working right now so I can get to where I can do ten miles in two hours but that will take me dropping some weight and a couple more months worth of consistent training. Several years ago I walked five miles in fifty-four and a half minutes on a track but I was fifty pounds lighter and weight takes about two seconds a mile from a runner so I can only imagine what it takes away from away from a walker.  I know I have to work much harder today to walk a sub fifteen-minute mile then I had to to walk a sub twelve minute mile when I weighted one hundred and pounds.  One Tuesday night I was doing well until I got about a mile and a half from the finish line and I pooped out.  I need to go to a track to see what I can walk individual miles in right now.  I have been measuring my distances with my car and that is not very accurate.    

I did walk around the neighborhood and picked some cans at construction sites but I did not have my walking shoes on and I am sure my total mileage was less than a mile so I am not going to count it.  I was talking to Tom who is one of my neighbors yesterday and he is going to give me his aluminum cans.  He said he fills up a big garbage bag of crushed cans about every three weeks so that will help with the shoe money.  I have one full bag of crushed cans in the garage right now that weighs about twenty-five pounds but more is always good.  I have metal that I need to take the recycling center now. 

Time to go get the girls up so I will see you in my next installment.