Ten Walks I Have Taken

I have walking a lot this spring. By a lot, I mean miles upon miles. At the gym on the treadmill, outside in the cold weather, outside in the hot weather, I have been walking. In April alone, I logged 101 miles! And I haven’t been walking alone. I have dragged my husband and kids along with me! (Well, Ed needs to walk since he’s walking the Avon 39 with me.)

Before I show you the details of my walking, I need to give a huge shout-out to all the people who have been supporting me in my walking. As many of you know, I’m training for the Avon 39 Walk to End Breast Cancer, and I’ll have to walk 39 miles during the first weekend of June. In order to walk, I need to raise $1,800. I’m pleased to announce that I’ve raised over $2,000! How thrilling! Thank you to all my awesome supporters!
Avon 39 Screenshot

My miles include walking:

10. on the treadmill at the gym: 3 miles. This is the most boring place to walk, but it’s the easiest way to fit 3 miles into my afternoon, especially when the weather isn’t cooperating.

9. to work and back: 1 mile. I’ve only walked to work twice, and I should walk more often! However, sometimes I’m in a rush after dropping off my girls at school and I’m afraid I’ll be late, or I want to run errands after work so I’ll need me car. I’m definitely going to try to make walking to work more of a habit!

8. to the River Trails Nature Center: 3.4 miles. In March, the girls and I walked to Maple Syrup Days at the Nature Center. We were able to sample some maple syrup and French Toast sticks, and Lily got a lesson in drilling a hole for a sap spile. The Nature Center is one of our favorite places!

Maple Syrup Spile Driving

7. at Burning Bush Park: 2 miles. This park is by our house, and the girls can play at the playground while I walk around the track. Three times around is one mile, and the most I’ve been able to fit in is six times around.

6. at Moraine Hills State Park: 10 miles. It is amazing to think that a glacier carved out a piece of Illinois and left a lake behind. In Illinois, where we mostly think of flat corn fields and not glaciers.

5. on the Chicago River Bike Trail and the by the Skokie Lagoons: 12.72 miles. This is the longest walk we took. It was a really cold day at the beginning of April. Because it was so cold, however, there weren’t a lot of bike riders on the trail. The hard-core riders go really fast and I get nervous that they will hit one of the girls. When the weather is warmer, we’ll avoid this trail!

Skokie Lagoons
Skokie Lagoons, on the Chicago River Trail.

4. on the Des Plaines River Trail: 6.75 miles. This trail isn’t paved, and is also used by horseback riders. This is right by our house, and we occasionally see horses. While we didn’t run into any horses this time, we saw evidence of beavers, which was very cool. We stopped by the River Trails Nature Center on our way home (which is on the Des Plaines River, by the way) and asked a Forest Preserve Ranger about beavers. He was very informative and loves talking about animals! (We have asked him questions before!)

Forest Preserve 1

3. on the Poplar Creek Bike Trail: 8.84 miles. Those of us who grew up in the suburbs remember going to concerts at the outdoor arena, Poplar Creek. I saw Peter Gabriel during his So tour, and it was thrilling when it started raining while he was singing “Red Rain!” (Fortunately, the real rain didn’t last and the concert went on.) The concert arena is no longer there, but Poplar Creek is actually a real creek with a bike trail! The trail itself is very nice, but part of it is prone to flooding and was under water even though we hadn’t had rain for over a week. We also stumbled onto the Lion Bridge, which was a nice surprise.

Lion Bridge

2. at Independence Grove, 7.5 miles. My brother-in-law met us up there, and he fished with the girls while Ed and I walked with my sister-in-law. The girls have been troopers, but they are getting tired of taking long walks with us! They adore fishing with Uncle Brian, however.

Independence Grove

  1. around Glenview Lake, 5.6 miles. We let the girls bring their bikes this time, and they rode ahead of us and played at the playground. It was a very cool day, but we were also able to get our walking in before the rain came!

Glenview Lake

Phew! That’s a lot of trails! I wonder how many miles I’ll walk in May?

The Golden Spoons

Stop by and visit the hostesses of Tuesday Ten, Lisa and Rabia!
For more Tuesday Ten, visit The Golden Spoons and The Lieber Family!

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16 Replies to “Ten Walks I Have Taken”

  1. I now live about 1,5 miles from work and could walk it as well. I haven’t done it yet though. Then again, I have only lived here for four days!

    I commend you though on all of your walking. Hoping the Avon 39 will go smoothly.

  2. How cool that you are trained and all fund-raised up to do the Avon 39! That is an amazing thing.

    I’ve been training to do a 5K with my daughter when she does the Girls on the Run 5K on May 15. Wish me luck–I’ve never done one and I’m still not sure I even WANT to do one!

  3. I need to get out to do more walking/running! No big plans for the near future, but someday I’d like to walk the Camino di Santigago in Spain, which is a 500-mile walk across northern Spain that follows the path St. James the Apostle took. It takes at least a month, and a lot of people do it for both spiritual and health reasons.
    A.J. Cattapan recently posted…Cover Reveal for Seven Riddles to Nowhere!My Profile

  4. We did see one horse…just saying! It has been fun, but it’s really time consuming walking 30+ miles per week!

  5. These all sound like wonderful walking routes! It’s so important to take time to walk through different scenes and get that quiet, relaxing time while you’re still in motion. It’s a great way to exercise and to clear your mind. Nice job! Thanks so much for sharing!

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