Training, Day 02

Correction... yesterday, I walked 10,141 steps, or 5.13 miles and burned 700 calories.  That's probably putting my maximum distance of 11 or 12 miles hiking on-road.

Today, I walked 8,630 steps, or 4.58 miles and burned 599 calories.  It was about 30°F.  What was different about today is that I started using a new pair of cross trainers that I kept in a box until I was ready to get serious about training again.  Now that I am, it was time to throw the old ones away.  It snowed out there and I really should have had my YakTrax on.  It was an inch of very fresh snow and I was getting traction for the most part, but it felt like I was getting resistance from it (particularly at the balls of my feet).

With that said, I was also breaking in a new pair of cross trainer shoes today.  I can feel the rubbing against back outer area of my ankles.  This might result in blistering?

Today, I wore a sweat suit and anti-wicking long sleeve shirt under my rain coat, windbreaker pants. and a winter hat.  My rain coat and windbreakers are made of a similar material.  I was sweating in certain specific areas, which at first seemed like overkill.  But I must have reduced my speed in the later half of the walk, which reduced my body temperature and it became good enough.

Yesterday and today, I was wearing a 21mg smoking cessation patch.  Right now, my blood vessels are constricted because of the nicotine and the caffeine that I had from a large Dunkin' Donuts coffee today.  My blood vessels will be coated with the ill effects of smoking and a bad diet full of greasy foods for weeks to come.  That junk is lining them and hiking is a very vascular activity.  I bet three weeks from now, there's going to be a boost in my performance stemming strictly from my diet.

Don't hold me to that yet.  There's a modification that I need to make in my living quarters that will help bring this all together.

Because of the falling snow today, the one piece of gear that I didn't get to test was my new Columbia TurboDown 650TD vest.  If it would have been 30°F without falling snow, I would have tested it's performance instead of the using the rain coat.