Walk: Sat. Feb. 2 @ Loblaws

Saturday is Groundhog Day, and just to confound the little critter, there's another storm warning out for a big dump of snow on Friday. Mild weather is predicted for the weekend, but please check the Comments space to see whether Friday's storm means we'll have to reschedule the 11K lined up for Saturday.

Here's a link to our route:

http://www.mapmyrun.com/walk/canada/on/toronto/1187081623

Remember, the new departure time is 8:15 am -- that gives us 15 minutes to meet in the warmth of the store entrance before we head out. Please park in non-prime spaces, such as the lot across the street, as we did last week.

At Eva's request, this week's route is less twisty (it's also flatter), and most of it is familiar territory. Be sure to print and bring a copy for yourself.

On this last day of January I can safely paraphrase the nursery rhyme to say that so far this winter: "We've weathered the weather, whatever the weather, whether we liked it or not!"

Last night, with the windchill dipping to the high teens, and winds gusting to 72 kph, four of us proved that when it comes to foul weather, The Shore Things represent!

Chilly Half/Frosty 5K News

The Frosty 5K now has medals! If you've been sitting on the fence about signing up, consider this news about the Frosty from race organizer Kelly Arnott:

Just to let you know that we stil have 250 spots available for the Frosty 5k on March 2nd, 2008. We still have shirts for the next 200 to register and great medals this year plus fabulous food by Frescos and Petes Pepper Palace. We have a new course for you and we will be finishing right in front of city hall.

For those registered for the half: remember that Bob & I can pick up your race kits. Please forward your race confirmation email to me.

Norita and Jan are coordinating transportation to the race, leaving from our street on race day. Check the Shore Things Google Group private site over the next few weeks for details.

Walk: Wed. Jan. 30 @ Shoppers

We found the perfect route for our intervals on Monday -- kudos to everyone who kicked it up a notch!

Wednesday's schedule calls for 8K, Chilly Halfers. However, let's keep an eye on the weather, as cold and wind might make things tough going tomorrow. Check the comments space for the latest update.

This Wednesday we *will* take a few minutes to recap form. Plus, this morning at the gym, Jan reminded me about the walker's best friend: The lunge. If we take a lunge-break sometime, you know who to thank.

Walk: Mon. Jan. 28 @ Loblaws

Speaking of Loblaws, the consensus seemed to be that this is a great place to meet on Saturdays while Tim's is closed. Susan has suggested we delay our Saturday meeting time by 15 minutes to give the store time to open (and people a warm place to congregate). I think this is a great idea -- and will remind you all later in the week.

Hey, gang, we survived 16K! All on a route that turned out to be perhaps not as flat as advertised. Look at those happy faces. Can you tell we know that Rosetta McLain is our home-stretch turnaround?

Tonight, we do 8K, including five 3-minute intervals. See you at Loblaws at 7 pm!

Walk: Sat. Jan. 26 @ LOBLAWS

Folks, please note the change of location this week, as Tim's is closed due to renovation. The Loblaws is at Victoria Park north of Gerrard. Let's not take up our host's prime parking spaces. A McDonalds is kittycorner to the store for early washroom purposes. Afterwards, Loblaws has an upstairs seating area for coffee, and yogurt, choco milk or even sandwiches from the deli will be easy to find in the store.

It's a big 16K map this week, so I'm embedding a link to it rather than the map itself. *Can I get a volunteer to translate this into text?* I noticed that a couple of you did this last week. If you forward it to me, I can post it so people can print their own. Any questions about the route, please email me. For our east-end regulars, some sections will be familiar to you. I've tried to keep it flat, but I take no responsibility if a hill should perversely insert itself!

http://www.mapmyrun.com/walk/canada/on/toronto/306070646

We might only have to grin and bear this for two weeks, as Wendy's reopens on Feb. 4th and we may be able to return to our usual location. Let's see how this works out. In the other suggested locations, parking seemed to the main missing asset. If anyone needs a ride, let me know.

Walk: Wed. Jan. 23 @ Shoppers

Hope no one is feeling too stiff from Monday's intervals. Personally, I felt happier after some yoga stretching this morning. Looking forward to learning more stretching tricks in Norma's class on Sunday.

Wednesday's distance for Chilly Half training is 10K -- for the Shopper's group, that's east to Oak Park, south to Danforth, west to Logan and back to Woodbine & O'Connor. Just set a nice conversational pace.

Think about your form as you walk -- as a refresher, why not take a look at the technique tips posted in the right-hand column of the blog. We'll take a few minutes to recap form before we set out.

Dust off those YakTrax. See you on Wednesday at 7 pm!

Walk: Mon. Jan. 21 @ Loblaws

It's 8K on Monday, and we'll work in 3-4 intervals, similar to what we did last week. See you at Loblaws; we set out at 7 sharp.

If you visit the website, you might notice that I've changed the look. There's now a white bar at the end of each post, which should make it easier for you to find the comments link. Also, I've tweaked the colours so you can link more readily to our Google Group. (Note that you must click on the actual text that says "Visit this group" to do that.)

Have a look at our updated Interests lists, too. A number of us have signed up for both the Alfie Shrubb 8K and the Quebec Half. Alfie is capped at 500 entrants, so don't leave it too late.

For Quebec, the issue might be finding accommodations. Apparently, Celine Dion is giving a concert on the Plains of Abraham that weekend. Cynthia has reserved three rooms at a B&B near our house on the island -- please contact her if you're interested in one of them.

Saturday meeting place heads-up: Tim's is closing for renos for a month (Jan. 21 to Feb. 23) and Wendy's, too, though not as long (Jan. 21 to Feb. 4). A couple of alternative meeting places have been proposed; however, here's your chance to weigh in. We need somewhere with parking, bathrooms, coffee and food for afterwards. Suggestions?

Finally, thanks to sharp-eyed member Karin for the tip that Canadian Tire has WinterTrax on sale for $9.99. Looks like they're a light-weight version of YakTrax, but at that price it might be worth picking up a pair, even if you have to save them for next year.

Walk: Sat. Jan. 19 @ Tim's

It's 13K for the Chilly Halfers (Halvers?) and a map is included below. *Please print a copy for yourself.* If you click the box in the lower left of the map, you can show the distance markers to determine where to turn back if you aren't going the full distance. The 5K turnaround would be at approximately Logan; 8K would be Danforth. MapMyRun defaults to miles -- but you can reset to KMs.

See you at 8 am.

Walk: Wed. Jan. 15 @ Shopper's

We had another great turnout and a great workout on Monday. Yes, we actually did intervals! This Wednesday, it's nothing fancy. Just a nice 8K distance -- that's our usual circuit, Woodbine to Pape.

Please *do* use the blog to indicate whether you're coming. It's useful for us all to see whether there'll be company waiting, especially when cool weather makes getting out of the door the biggest challenge. If you sign in as "Anonymous," remember to include your name or initials in the body of the message.

See you at 7 pm, O'Connor at Woodbine.

Stuff to help you walk/train better and safer

I purchased this DVD/CD online from Wow Powerwalking when it first came out about a year ago. It's a fabulous, easy-to-follow guide to walking technique. Lee Scott is an engineer by training, and I think that's what gives her such an ability to deconstruct the mechanics of walking.

Of course, not everyone wants to walk "faster." But I think everyone wants to walk more efficiently. Lee shows you how easy it can be to walk with the greatest effectiveness for the least amount of effort. Less effort, you say? Bring it on!

The DVD comes with an audio CD of two walking workouts (30 & 50 minutes) that I have just loaded onto my iPod. Until I got my fancy-schmancy FM-equipped hearing aids, I wasn't able to use the CD portion. I heard one for the first time last night. If you're walking by yourself, this would be a great motivator, trainer and companion. At $29.95, the DVD/CD combo is an excellent deal. Just an unsolicited, unpaid endorsement by a fan. (Note: see our blog link under Training Support for a one-pager on walking technique inspired by this DVD.)

An easy way to carry ID

While the high Canadian dollar gives us such good value south of the border, it might be a good time to invest in some RoadID. I've had this on my list of Things To Do for a while. These guys make ID tags for your shoe, wrist, ankle or dog-tag style and also sell bright clip-on lights for night training.

Shoelace tricks for sore feet

On another subject, now that we're getting into longer distances, you might be interested in how to avoid those black toenails and blisters. The solution could be as simple as tying your shoelaces. Thanks to the Stellar Runners for this (free) link to some shoelace tricks from Runner's World. Have a look at the online videos or bookmark for later.

Walk! Magazine offer

Those who did the Alfie Shrubb 8K last year received a copy of Walk! Magazine in their goodie bag. I have just noticed that the mag offers a subscription deal to walking clubs: you can subscribe for $6 a year if there are 30 of us, or $7.50 a year for 10. It's not a bad little magazine, and it is expressly for walkers. We'd have to subscribe in one block, pre-paid. Please let me know if you're interested.

P.S. Don't forget to let Norma know if you want to join her yoga class. She tells me that her class size is limited to 10 -- and our family just claimed 3 of those spaces.

Walk: Mon. Jan. 14 @ Loblaws

Hey, Winter Walkers,

The Chilly Half gang will be doing "a mere" 6K on Monday. Isn't it amazing that we can say that?

If we follow the schedule, we should be including five 2-minute intervals in our walk. After a 10-minute warm-up period, that's five 2-minute intervals of walking faster, with one minute of recovery between each(roughly 15 minutes of revving up in the middle of our walk).

How fast? Follow the talk test: when we're walking faster, it should be hard to speak a complete sentence without pausing to breathe. By contrast, conversing during warm-up and cool-downs should be easy.

See you Monday!

P.S. Check out the new photos on our Flickr site. If you have photos to upload, the ID and password are shown on our Google Groups page.

Walk: Sat. Jan. 12 @ Tim's

It's 10K this week for the Chilly Halfers. I've created a northbound loop route that takes us to the lookout over the DVP, similar to last week's, which I think people enjoyed. *Please print a copy for yourself.* You can click through on the map to get a larger version for printing. Click the boxes in MapMyRun to change from miles to kms and to show the distance markers.

OR, we can take the Boardwalk route to Fallingbrook, as the mild weather might make it one of the rare January days that path is accessible. Beachers, please keep your eye out for walking conditions there. However, the downside is that the Weather Network predicts we'll have the wind in our face on the way back.

See you at 8 am.

Walk: Wed. Jan. 9 @ Shoppers

What a great turnout we had for our Monday walk! Wednesday's distance is only 6K -- that's the loop west from Woodbine to Greenwood to Danforth, starting at Shopper's Drug Mart on O'Connor. Start time is the usual 7 pm.

Some of us will be at Hot Docs on Wednesday so will miss the walk. Bob, Jan & I are talking about trying to meet up early Thursday evening to make up the distance. Let me know if you're interested in joining us.

A big happy birthday to this week's birthday girls, Olwyn and Jan. Nature decided to give you her "warmest" wishes this week.

H.

JeansMarines Deal

So many of us owe our start in this walking thing to JeansMarines. There's nothing like training for and completing a marathon to show you what you are capable of. All I can say for myself is that joining JeansMarines in 2003 changed my life.

That's why I wanted to put in a plug for their new membership deal, which runs till Jan. 26th. Even if you're not thinking of doing a marathon yourself this year (or ever!), perhaps you know someone who'd be thrilled by the challenge. Great news for 2008 is that it looks like there will be only one base camp -- which ensures the critical mass for bonding, especially for walkers, and lots of "Bob & Jean" factor.

Jean & Bob are hosting two potluck info sessions at their home in January -- the first one is tomorrow (Mon. Jan. 7): bring or send a friend or friends (attendees bring a dish of food).

And here's the discount: if two women join together before January 26, their combined membership fee will be $350 + GST ($371), which is a savings of $100, or $50 each. These can be any combination of women: an alum and a newbie, two alums, two newbies.

For details, click on the website at:

http://www.jeansmarines.com/news.asp

The potluck dinners take place on:

Monday, January 7th from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Monday, January 21st from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

At 660 Pape Avenue,Unit 111, one long block south of Danforth on the west side of Pape in an old church. "Pape" subway station, and Green P parking behind the church.

Please let them know if you'll be sending someone (and who that is) or bringing someone by e-mailing: tracey@jeansmarines.com

If you've been thinking of joining up, now's a great time. If not, pass the word along!

H.

Walk: Monday, Jan. 7 @ Loblaws

For the Chilly Half trainees, the distance is 8K. That will take us on our westbound loop from Loblaws to the tunnel in Monarch Park and back. A route is posted below.

Some chance of rain is forecast, but it looks like it might be over by our start time of 7 pm. Assume that we *will* be walking, unless a steady downpour comes. Dress for a bit of wetness -- if we let the weather stop us too often, we'd never get our training in!

This is a good time to bring a set of Yaktrax, just in case. I save my slightly worn pair for weather like this. The effect of rain on the snow is sometimes to pack it into ice. Better to spend a few bucks on Yaktrax than a few months in a cast!

Saturday, Jan. 5 at Tim's

Hi, gang,

Saturday's forecast is warmer -- but as we're unsure now what this will mean for the roads and sidewalks, I've mapped out two possible routes (see below). The Chilly Half distance is 11K, but you can turn back at any point.

We'll take it easy and slow, with a short warm-up before setting out, as most of us have missed walks over the holidays.

To declare whether you're coming, go to our "website" (the blog). There's a link to the website at the end of the email version of this message. Look for and click the word "comments" under the maps on the website (there'll be a number before the word). This will open a comments window. Fill out a comment, sign it with your "nickname" (or name) and hit "Publish comment." Then we'll all be able to see who's attending, without the use of email.

Cheers, from the land of frozen toes -- and see you at 8 am,

H.

Recap -- how to post a reply

Hi, gang,

There seems to be some "how to" confusion, so here's the play-by-play.

To generate the least amount of email traffic for our group, please do *not* reply to the email you receive for our walk reminders AND do *not* create a discussion topic on the Google Groups site. Let's save the latter for "bigger topics."

Instead, visit the blog online (www.theshorethings.blogspot.com) and post a comment. Mouse over the word "comments" at the end of the reminder post and click. A comment window will then pop up. (There is also an email symbol - a little envelope - there which will send a private email to me. Ignore it, unless that's what you want to do.)

For your comment to show up on the site, you can log in with your Google ID/password OR use the nickname you've created on our Google Groups site. It's that simple.

To find out who's coming. Just visit the blog and read the comments there.

To get to the blog, there's an embedded link at the bottom of the email for each blog post (if you subscribe via email or digest). Or, if you RSS, you can click "Read more" at the end of the excerpt.

If anything's still unclear, email me directly.

Happy New Year!

And Happy Birthday to our own Donna T! Hope all your celebrations were merry and bright.

This is to inaugurate our blog as the reminder for our weekly walks. Tonight is Wednesday -- our regular date is Shoppers (Woodbine & O'Connor) at 7 pm. If you want to reply aye or nay, please visit the blog (www.theshorethings.blogspot.com) and fill out a comment at the end of the blog. Then people can easily see if they'll have company. You can find the scheduled distance for tonight on our blog through the Chilly Half Schedule link. Check it out.

In order for you to all receive this message, I have set everyone's settings in our Google Group from "No email" (the default) to "Email", except for those who have chosen Digest. Please excuse me if this over-rides what you have done. It was necessary for me to see who really has selected no email. I'm now asking you all to go to the Google Group page (there's a link in the right column of our blog) and select the level of email you prefer.


When you visit Google Groups, have a look at our private pages there. Under Discussions, you'll see info about how to post your pictures to our Flickr page and a discussion topic about Quebec. Under Pages, I've started an info and discussion page for the Chilly Half. There may also be a copy of the most recent blog post. However, I will generally be deleting these from our private site to simplify "what's where."


The pictures on today's blog are how Bob & I are doing our cross-training in Québec. In the picture of me, I am resting between shovels on a seat carved from the snow on our roof. Hope you're all keeping well. We'll see you on Saturday!