Show us your gym and win!  Take a photo of your walking route and if we wish we could walk there, we’ll choose it to be on the opening page of our home page for a week. Not only will you get credit for your photography skills, you will be the winner of a prize from New Balance.  You don’t have to own a fancy camera, just grab your point-and-shoot and head out for your walk. We do need the photo to be landscape orientation. For the rest of you, be sure to check in to discover a new gym!

Strength tip.  Here is one dreamed up to challenge your abdominal muscles and your adductor group (inner thigh). These are two critical muscle groups that, when strong, help to protect your back. The exercise can be done on the floor at home or you could use a park bench when you are out on your walk. If you are at home, lie on your side on the floor. With a slight bend in your knee make sure that your feet are in line with your hip bone. Place your elbow in line with the feet and hip bone and slightly higher than your shoulder.  Lift the hips, pulling the knees back as you pull your body weight up over your elbow that is on the ground. You are now balanced, nicely aligned, on your elbow and your feet. Hold this position to be sure you are balanced.  To add the adductor challenge, pull your bottom leg out slightly in front of your top leg so that you are still balanced but you are able to lift that bottom leg and up and down. Your should feel the challenge at the inner thigh of that lower leg.

Lee is twittering (or is that tweeting?) about walking! Follow her on https://twitter.com/LeeScottWPW  

Words to walk and live by . . .

Today a new sun rises for me; everything lives,
everything is animated,
everything seems to speak
to me of my passion,
everything invites me to cherish it
– Ninon de L’Enclos,
French literary patron

Nutrition tip.  You’ve got to love your low glycemic carbs every day for high performance living and walking. It is common for people to think of eating powerful low glycemic carbohydrates, like pasta and whole grain breads, in preparation for long walks only. It is easy to forget that what we eat affects how we feel and perform every minute of every day. Within 20 to 30 minutes of eating anything, chemical neurotransmitters are being manufactured in your brain determining your mood and your energy. Low glycemic carbohydrates are your best friend for feeling good and energetic. Stock up on whole grain breads and pastas, beans, legumes, nuts, fruits and vegetables every day. The carbohydrates will be stored as glycogen in your muscles and liver to be available for conversion into ATP (adenosine triphosphate) to power muscle contraction. High glycemic foods (such as sports beans, energy drinks) should be reserved for those situations when you have been walking as fast as you can for more than ninety minutes and you need glucose from those carbohydrates to be available immediately in your blood stream to help your body metabolize fat stores for energy. Remember, whether you are eating in every day life or eating on the race course or out training, if you load your body with more carbs than you need, you are not going to feel good or perform well. Keep the glycemic load to one that improves performance. This translates into somewhere between 300 and 500g of low-glycemic carbohydrates spread out over the entire day and about 30g of high-glycemic carbohydrates every 15 to 25 minutes during a race or long training walk.

Classes start now! Eight week sessions start this week for many classes. Don’t miss out on the best few weeks of the year to get a workout. If you’ve got the alarm technology and you are inspired to be out for those early mornings described above, join Lee for her 6am Walking Strength and Balance classes in Oakville on Tuesday and Thursday mornings! Not only are we going to enjoy the best part of the day, we are going to be STRONG at the end of 8 weeks – just in time for summer holidays! Don’t forget to tell friends and family that Jill Pettit is starting Marathon Training Level 1 classes in our new locations in Burlington and St. Catharines this week.

Races. Best races over the next two months in the GTA for walkers include the Mississauga Half Marathon and 10k on the May 9&10 weekend, Alfie Shrubb 8k in Bowmanville (new walker trophy this year!) and the Art Keay 5k power Walk (part of a race walk event) on Toronto Island both on May 31. In our beautiful, leafy hometown of Oakville on June 21, the OTMH 5k Classic offers one of the most scenic 5k routes and race organizers have supported a walking division with age prizes for several years.