Nordic Walking

I was reading another blog about getting back to fitness. the blogger was saying that things had gotten in her way to prevent her from sinking her teeth whole-heartedly into her fitness regime.

I really want to get fit too.I

have written it before, and I will say it again.... I am NOT fit and am not too good at sticking to a fitness regime. I don't have much spare cash, so buying a gym membership that will inevitably be neglected after about two weeks of committed use, is not a good investment, for me anyway.

Well, it is the new year, and as always, there is that dreaded "resolution" word that gets bandied around throughout the first month.

I never tend to make resolutions - like rules, they are meant to be broken. Instead I have blinkered myself and have set about making some positive changes in my life, that would seem to resemble, very strongly I might add, the dreaded old new years resolution.....but for fear of jinxing myself, they aren't. OK?

I want to get our finances sorted. I want to start a savings plan - DONE. My husband and I committed our first allotment into the not-so-easily accessible savings account. This account has been opened for almost two years now, but until yesterday, had secured and harvested only spider webs, moths and salt damp.

The plan is, that this money be used for the purpose of holidays. We both love to travel, but since the kids have entered the scene, we have gone nowhere the frequent flyer program could not take us...and now that we have depleted that little avenue for escape, we had to take matters into our own hands, and save like every other person has to do - sigh!

The other thing was to get some regular exercise.

I am a bit of a homebody; bit of a social boob; shy and tend to prefer anonymity. While I could while away the hours reading, writing, thinking and other such stuff, these activities don't do much for ones sense of groundedness.

A marathon running friend of mine was telling me about her running club. I hate running. I am terrible at it. All the runners reading this are likely shaking their heads - it is just one foot in front of the other, right? How hard can it be? Well I find that I can run about ten metres before I begin chanting "I think I am going to die". My lungs burn and my brain feels like a dehydrated walnut rattling around in my head with each thumping jolt of foot upon pavement - "TAXI".

I do like hiking though and walking. These are activities that calm me.

Anyway, my friend was telling me that her running group also had walking groups. One was Nordic Walking. I had never heard of it and figured it was a hiking group and that the Nordic part was merely their club name. I was clueless to the fact that this was a style or walking technique.

Nordic Walking was developed to aid the training needs of alpine skiers during the summer months.

The walking is done with poles to work the upper body.

Today was to be my first day of the group...but it snowed and I commented to the other blogger that I was tempted to use my weak Australian constitution as an excuse for not going....but I didn't.

Thanks for holding me accountable (she called me a wuss). I went. It was GREAT and I certainly feel a whole lot better. I even got to talking to some of the others in the group, which heightens the experience, for me anyway.

I am thinking, this walking group might even give me confidence to try something a little harder down the track.....a LONNNNNG way down the track, perhaps even the walk to run group.

I can do this!