Days Five & Six of the Miles for Monika Challenge

Time Frame: 2 weeks
Group Goal: 181 miles
Personal Goal: 30 miles
Personal Total: 10 miles

There's really not much to be said for Day 5 of M4M. I'm going to consider Friday as my rest day. Between work and dinner at the in-laws' house, I didn't really have time to do much of anything on the treadmill or at the park. The rest was nice, though. It helped me feel refreshed and ready for my Saturday morning walk.

This morning (Saturday) my walking group and I had planned to walk at River Legacy Park in Arlington, but that didn't work out. Since Charles had planned on taking Charlie with him to his office this morning, I went ahead and took advantage of the alone time to go walk at the BBR. Generally when I walk with Charlie and the walking group we have to take at least one potty break for the kiddos, so it was nice just to be able to keep going. It was an absolutely beautiful morning in God's creation. The ducks around the lake were fun to watch and the Lord seemed to provide me with a little wind to refresh me when I was getting sluggish.

Normally I walk about 2 miles or 5 laps around the lake during the week, but today I wanted to double my distance and did 10 laps around the lake. Since I've been wondering what my pace is, I decided to time myself. Each lap around the lake is 4/10 of a mile. I did my first lap in 9 minutes and my second in about 8. As the park started getting busier, I found myself having to dodge ducks and kids on bikes but it wasn't too bad. I fully expected to do the 4 miles in 2 hours, but actually finished up in about 84 minutes. I'm pretty proud of my time. The first 2 miles I did in 44 minutes, and the second 2 miles I did in 40 minutes. That's an average of a 21 minute mile. I'm pretty pleased with that, but I want to keep working on it.

I was worried about going out to walk by myself today. After I got the call last night that no one was going to be able to make it I thought about just sleeping in, but I'm really glad I didn't. The M4M is really pushing me to want to reach my goal. When you get used to walking with a group, you start to rely on them to keep you going and set the pace. I found that my pace alone was quite a bit better than with the group. And I was able to set my own pace (with the help of music) and motivate myself to keep going. Actually, walking alone turned out to be a great time of reflection and even prayer at times. It was quite nice.