Walking 18 kms

Last January Lori Lang of recipegirl.com issued a challenge to get healthy in 2010. She called it the 10 in 2010 Challenge: Ten Weeks to Healthy on 2010.  I decided that Arch and I should participate so we signed on and set goals.

By changing our eating habits, walking and, for me, yoga we met our 10 week goals (it took Arch 12 weeks but he made it).  I decided that I wanted to keep going and lose another 10 pounds before summer. I walk each weekday morning with my sister. The church she attends decided to have a fund raising walk-a-thon on June 19 2010 - the distance 18 kms. So we decided that our goal would be to participate in that walk. After training all winter and spring the walk was yesterday:

 It was a beautiful day. Fourteen of us started at out from St Paul's Church in Seabright. That is me with my ever-present water bottle dangling from my waist. We were joined by others along the way. The parish consists of 4 churches around St Margaret's Bay so the idea was to walk from church to church.

Here we are leaving church #2. St Margaret's in Tantallon after a coffee break. That is my sister Mary in the foreground. The first 9 kms of our walk were along the Peggy's Cove Road so we had a RCMP escort - you can see his car in the background. The group was beginning to scatter at this point as each person walked at our own pace.

There was still a long walk ahead.

At the half-way point we were able to move onto The St Margaret's Bay Trail. Built on the former rail bed this is a great walking, biking and hiking trail.

The trail was a very busy at the Bike and Bean. A great neigbourhood coffee and bike shop in the old train station.

A view from the trail

Shining Water's Marina in the distance. We walked by there 3 hours previous.

You can barely see the spire of Church #3, St George's through the trees. We walked by this one as there was no good exit from the trail in this spot.

And, finally, the end - a barbeque at St James. Took us three hours (not including coffee breaks) to complete the walk. After lunch I came home and rested in the hammock for 2 hours :)

But it is not the end of the 10 in 2010 challenge for me. So far I have lost 25 lbs and plan to keep going until I lose another 5 to 10 lbs. Any suggestions as to what my next walking challenge should be? I plan to take a bit of a break for the summer. Mary and John are going to Australia and New Zealand for 3 months in early September so I will be on my own this fall so don't make it too difficult.

And a special thank you to Lori Lang for getting me started on this project. I wonder how many lives you changed by issuing your challenge?