Taking the weekly walking out of suburbia...

I had the opportunity this last weekend to ditch my neighborhood sidewalks and gain some miles via a two day backpacking trip through the Superstition Wilderness just east of Phoenix. We did about a 6 hour hike back to an area called Reavis Ranch. In the late 1800's, a recluse named Elisha Reavis built the ranch. He made a living by selling fruits and vegtables that he grew to the local mining camps. Although the ranch house itself burned down about 10 years ago, some old farm equipment, an apple orchard, and a small creek still remain making Reavis Ranch a prime destination for a weekend adventure.

The heavy rains we saw this past monsoon season made for a very scenic albeit difficult trail. The flowers were abundant and the various plants were all a very healthy and vibrant green. A nice change over the dry conditions we have been seeing for the past few years.


Unfortunately however, these healthy plants took over in many spots making it difficult to navigate. It never seemed to fail that the thickest patches of bushes also had the largest thorns.

When we arrived at our destination we found most of the apple trees only had a few fruit left, primarily in locations a tired hiker may not want to climb. Although we did fit into that category, we were determined not to leave empty handed. We got about 5 apples each which later that night we cored and baked with brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter. As I sat there eating the fresh apple desert under the clear night sky, I listened to the creek flowing a few feet away and wind blowing through the needles of the pine trees and found it very hard to believe we were only about 35 miles from the Phoenix metropolitan area.

The breeze that had started that evening fortunately stayed with us the entire day Sunday, which is nice because about half of the trail runs through desert terrain and lacks any kind of shade. The breeze did an awesome job of making even the most grueling climbs in these parts more enjoyable.

My legs are a bit cut up from the brush and my muscles are still soar from the trip but all in all it sure beats the eliptical for getting those weekly miles.

Broken Records!

We broke the single week record of 330.7 miles set by the Cobra Kai in week 3 with our week 4 effort. Our team finished with a total of 344.047 miles. Great job team, it is truly a team effort and everyone has contributed greatly.

Daniel contributed a new individual record for our team helping us to break the team record with single week miles of 64.8 Miles.  I will now keep the top three individual miles on our blog as well so we can target those for individual motivation.

We are now only 9 miles back from The Easy Striders.  This is definitely a surmountable lead.  We are all going to have to step it up a little but we can make this happen and then set our sights on 1st Place.  

Consistency is key, keep it up and let's repeat... like a broken record.  Keep up what you are all doing.  We are doing great.

Vegas Miles

I racked up some good pedometer miles in Vegas last week. I racked up a few miles with Bill on Wednesday and Jeff from KC and I racked up some miles on Thursday. The weather felt great in the evenings, especially when compared to our lunchtime walks here. The toughest walk I did was Friday, I decided I would walk down the strip in the direction of the airport until I reached a point where I was two tired or was out of time, then I would take a cab the rest of the way. I made it about 3 miles(proudly sporting my IB shirt), then I stopped and had breakfast and caught a cab. I has hoped to go further but my bag and laptop were weighing me down a bit. Overall it was a good time and I felt great that despite racking up over 10 miles walking on Wednesday, I was not sore at all on Thursday. I know that would not have been the case if not for the competition and all the extra walking I have been doing.



As a team, we had a great week and I can't wait to post or totals and see where it compares to the field. Great job to all, I am really excited. Let's just say records were made to be broken. Dan and Chris, I hope you both have some fun pictures from you walking vacations as well. Let me know if you have any interest in posting and I would be glad to help you out.



Go Bolts!

Subway Walks - Insain Bolts Shirt

Here are a few pictures from a recent team walk to Subway.  Notice my IB t-shirt in the first picture.   I will make sure I take it with me to Vegas this weekend.

Feel free to post any of your walking / exercising adventures.

Still in 3rd. Let's keep fighting!

We had a great week. We met our goal of surpassing the single week record.

Our team total this week was 262.158 miles. Unfortunatley, 3 other teams broke the single week record as well with higher scores and the Road Runners are gaining.

Let's keep up the good work and see if we can improve on the 262 miles. I know I am going to vegas this week and I will set some lofty walking goals that should be resonable to achieve since there is plenty of places to walk about while I am there. Also, Daniel is going on a heavy duty backpacking trip this weekend which should help as well. I hope that  he posts some pictures of his adventure. I still owe you all some Subway walk pictures, and I will try to get a few from Vegas as well.

As long as we can remain consistant and not allow the leaders to get to far ahead, I think we can stay in the race to the finish line. In the end, let's be sure all of our miles are quality miles so that no matter what, we are sure to win by becoming more physically fit.

Go Bolts!

Week 3 Goal

In week 2, we completed 249.506 miles.

So we finished second only to Cobra Kai who had about 7 miles more. Which means we also gained a little ground on the leaders(The Easy Striders).

Let's try and improve upon our team record of 249 this week.

Let's set a goal to beat the current record by the Cobra Kai. All we need to do is pick up One Mile Each for the week and we could get it done. That is only an extra .14 miles a day.

Keep on walking, running, working! We can get it done. We are doing great and are only 15 miles behind second place. Consistency will be the key. We can do it.

Go Bolts!

Great Job Team!

We have moved up in the ranks to third place! And, we gained a little bit of ground on The Easy Striders. Keep up the good work. We had another fun walk to Subway today. Also I took some pictures of our walk last week including my IB t-shirt which finally came last week.

Let's keep it up, set daily, weekly and monthly goals.

126 Miles Down - 11,173 To Go

Great first week. We are right in the thick of things although The Easy Striders look to have a strong team after a great first week.

I think if we all do a little more this week we can make up some ground.

For now, let's focus on improving up on our Team Record through personal goals. At this point, we have a Team Record for a single week of 126.378 miles. Since that was in just 5 days, we should be able to improve upon that number with relative ease. When we see what the number is for a full week, we will have a new target.

I am going to try to step up my game a little. I have set some personal goals regarding extra work on the weekend. However, my main focus will be on minimum daily miles, not including my standard workout plan. I think if I just set a goal for a minimum for each day for just walking about, I can just supplement with a jog at night or do a short additional workout if it looks like I will come up short of my daily goal.

I am looking forward to another NAC- Insain Bolts walk to Subway we have scheduled for tomorrow.

Why Walk When You Have the Subway?

A group of us walked to Subway for lunch today. It was about 1.5 miles round trip (we took a round about way). Janesse, Eric, Daniel and I walked so it combined for 6 miles total toward our team goal. It was a little warm, but not too bad.

It was nice to get outside and enjoy a walk and talk vs sitting at a table talking. Sounds like we will make it a weekly trip. So Jeanne, feel free to drive over here from corporate if you are feeling like some Subway. Our plan is to go on noon this coming Tuesday and the Tuesdays thereafter.

Brett also went with, so I must admit, our excursion did contribute a little to the competition as well.

Mile Tracking Excel Doc

Kriston Rutherford sent this updated excel doc to me so I could share it with my team. Of course you can keep track of your miles however you want. However, this is kind of nice because it automatically converts your hours to miles and totals everything up.

Right click below link and 'save target as' to save this to your PC.

Ckick Here for File

Also, I noticed today, as some of you may have noticed, if you do not set the time on your pedometer, at midnight it will roll to the next 'day' and start tallying mileage under a new day. My plan is to just keep track of my mileage daily for a bit to be sure I do not lose anything. However, it looks like you could use this to track a 7 day period so it could work that you clear each day on Monday Morning and then run it for the week and tally up on Sunday Nights.

Go Bolts!

It's On!

Looks like we are set to start tomorrow.

I hope you all have your pedometers setup and your gold shoes set out, ready to go.  

I am looking forward to seeing what kind of walking I do in a normal day tomorrow(outside of my workout).  I know this will be a long journey but this week will give us an idea of what we are in for.

Once you accept the invite to this blog, as an author, you can create new posts.  Feel free to share your thoughts, motivation, pictures etc.  

Let's go Bolts!