Wendy’s Picks

Gadgets I Love
I am a gadget lover. I want data. I want something to play with while I walk. These gizmos will help you plan or track a better walking workout.

SportBrain iStepX2
www.sportbrain.com
This pedometer not only counts your steps, calculates distance and calories, and acts as an alarm or stopwatch — but it also uploads all of your data to your personal Sportbrain website where you can see your information graphed out and tracked. It is perfect for those of us who want to track our walking steps, distance, and speed. Everything is automatically calculated. Without the website, you can still view all of your data on the SportBrain iStepX2 and use all of its functions as with any full-featured pedometer. But the web-upload makes it a gadget to desire. Online, you can add notes to your walks and track other health indicators such as your weight, cholesterol, resting heart rate, etc.

Garmin Forerunner 201 GPS
Personal Trainer
www.garmin.com
When you want to know your true speed and distance, this wrist unit GPS is a great training companion. As you walk, it tracks you via satellite and displays speed and distance on the wrist unit. It can even point you back to where you started. It has pace alerts and a virtual training partner to tell you when you lag behind. The drawback is that it works only outdoors, and best when it has a clear view of the sky rather than in wooded areas. Unlike a full-featured GPS unit, it won’t tell you where you are, just how fast and how far you have gone.

Mio Shape Heart Monitor —
Calorie Tracker Watch
www.miowatch.com
This sports watch also tracks calories and heart rate — without a chest strap. Just press your fingers against the sensors for a heart rate reading, and the Mio tracks workout calories and helps you stay in your chosen heart rate zone. Input the calories you should eat and the Mio will help you stay on track, alerting you when you are at your daily limit. It also has a stopwatch, chronometer, and alarm.
— Wendy Bumgardner
walking.about.com

Wendy Takes Walking
to New Heights
This is one place walking can take you. Wendy enjoys tandem paragliding with “pilot” Dino above Grindlewald, Switzerland.

Story Teller Plans
Cross-Country Walk

History presenter Steve Jordan is planning the trip of a lifetime — a walk from San Diego to New York City. Jordan, who gives presentations as Ben Franklin, plans to be on the road for Franklin's 300th birthday in January.

Jordan's trek will start on Veteran's Day, November 11, 2005. He will receive a send-off in San Diego from the Marine Marching Band. He will travel to New York City, arriving on September 11, 2006.

“There are several reasons I'm making this trip. But first, I want to thank our veterans for protecting. Second, I want to encourage kids to get moving. If I can walk across the country, surely they can get up and play outside or take a walk. It's also an amazing educational opportunity. Kids can learn about geography, history, and physical fitness by following my progress across our nation. Next, I want to encourage people to accomplish their dreams. So often, we let life get in the way of pursuing what really matters. I hope people will be inspired by my journey to start one of their own. Finally — and this is the most important reason — I'm doing this because I can!”explains Jordan.

Jordan will be traveling through Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Washington D.C., Maryland, Pennsylvania, and finally New York. He'll stop along the way to perform in retirement centers, veteran's hospitals, schools, and other venues.

Jordan is currently seeking help funding his endeavor. For more information or to get involved, please call him at 503-723-9515 or logon to www.walkwithben.com.

BOOK REVIEW
Portland Hill Walks:
Twenty Explorations in Parks and
Neighborhoods

By Laura O. Foster

With Portland Hill Walks , you'll take 20 meandering, view-studded strolls from the city's forested canyons to its cityscape peaks. Explore Portland's streets, stairs, trails, and hidden passageways.

Like the city, the book is laid out in five sections: Northwest, Southwest, Southeast, Northeast, and North. In all, 37 neighborhoods are covered. The neighborhoods and their personalities formed independently of the automobile. Many started out as separate towns, and most have thriving business districts, libraries, restaurants, and community centers just steps away from a resident's front door.

Each hill walk focuses on the city’s history, geology, and built environment with anecdotes sprinkled throughout about colorful past residents like Oswald West, Maurine Neuberger, or Lilla Leach. Each route also provides offbeat horticultural information, even delving into the uses American Indians made of native Northwest plants. Some walks reveal the secrets held within the city’s public art; others reveal the secrets of our much-altered landscape: which mountainside was terraced in stairsteps, which lake was buried under tons of muck, and which prominent rock shuddered in the onslaught of the earth’s most catastrophic floods

Each chapter begins with an overview of the walk, including how to get to the starting point and what to bring along. Mileage, elevation, safety issues, (and the most important tip), location of restrooms and drinking fountains.

This book is a great place to start if you are looking for a new walking location or are adding walking to your fitness regime. Portland Hill Walks costs $19.95.