National Puppy Day coming up!

March 23 is National Puppy Day, so celebrate humanity's long and fruitful relationship with dogs.

What does this have to do with Nordic walking? You may have thought you wanted to take up Nordic walking, but how in the world would you walk your 4-legged child as well? Come to McCallum Park on 3/23 to find out more.

Here are some ways to do it, including my preferred approach.

This video shows you can let the dogs  walk with you off-leash, but that means they have to be well trained. Some of you might be saying, "Good luck with that!"



This next video shows the walker holding leash and pole in one hand. She's able to hold the leash because she doesn't use poles with  Nordic walking gloves. Hand fatigue and strong dogs may be concerns.



This third video shows a walking using a waist belt to which the leash is attached. It's inspired by the sport called canicross, In the same way Nordic walking grew from cross country skiers who wanted to stay in shape without snow, canicross developed by dog sledders who wanted to keep themselves and their dogs in shape during the off season. You dog may need to be trained well enough stay at your side.



Here's my preferred approach: use one pole, making sure your pole has quick release gloves. You can hold the leash in one hand and push off with pole on the other. That way, you can easily switch arms. You only need one pole because it's ambidextrous. The gloves are left and right-handed, so you just wear the gloves. You can easily hold the leash in either hand, allowing you to get the upper body benefit for which Nordic walking is known.

Here's a video. Notice the walker is pushing off with the pole with one hand and holding the leash with the other hand.



Happy walking!

Nutrition, wellness, and community

Nutrition is an important part of wellness and goes hand-in-hand with exercise. According to this article about a grocer who started a faith-based nonprofit,  Harvest Community Charities, to combat food deserts, nutrition is also a community effort and an important part of overall community wellness. There is also a spiritual element in the enterprise.

Main point: “We’re trying to eliminate food deserts in the state, reduce food hardships and see folks saved,” Campbell said. “We want to bring them in, feed them, organize them into churches and establish relationships that make all the difference.”

Key points:

• "Food deserts are low-income communities without ready access to healthy and affordable food."
• "It [Harvest Community Charities] doesn’t work with donated food — it seeks to build up ways for a community to access and afford healthy, nutritious food directly from grocery suppliers."
• “What we do is not a giveaway; it’s a long-term, sustainable program to get good quality food into a community.”
• "Harris said at the end of the day, it’s about meeting people at their place of need, both with accessible food and the love of Christ and even with help finding a job so they can better afford food in the future."

The overall impact appears to be in mobilizing local churches to partner with the rest of the community. Stop listening

Maintaining and fixing the snap (external) locks of your adjustable Nordic walking poles

The video refers to trekking poles. The shafts and locks of adjustable trekking/hiking/walking poles are the same as the shafts and locks of adjustable Nordic walking poles

The video covers:

• Fixing the lock when it doesn't tighten
• Cleaning inside the poles