Workshop, Slackers & Shoes

(Article first published as Week 10 & 11: Shoes Provide Little Hope for Slackers on Technorati.)

Blame it on the week-long high school journalism workshop filled with 600-plus kiddos that I had to attend.

Or blame it on a lack of sleep resulting from chaperoning said workshop

Or, let's just blame it on the rain. (OK, so you probably have to be pre-Generation Y to get that rain allusion.)

Perhaps all those factors combined to make it not only difficult to walk, but also impossible to find the time to dutifully report about my inactivity for my 3-day for the Cure training. I only managed to squeeze in four miles or so while attending the workshop. The previous week I kept to my walking schedule racking up two to three miles every day, but I'm such a slacker I neglected to report about it.

I didn't even get a chance to read the second part of the USA Today fitness challenge story.   

I did, however, read with interest another article  about those toning shoes that supposedly will give the wearer a more shapely behind, toned legs and tighter abs--all without having to set foot in a gym.

Oh, if I only had a pair of those shoes, I wouldn't have to obsess so much about my lack of training this past week.

If life were only that simple. If it were, I'd be the first to slap down a hundred bucks or so (plus shipping and handling), and everything would shape up. 

But my hopes for an easy out were snuffed by the seventh paragraph. The article quoted a professor from Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine in Baltimore who very succinctly said those claims were "utter nonsense."

Moreover, according to the article, doctors warned toning shoes can cause other problems with balance and can strain Achilles tendons.

Perhaps  I'm better off with a pair of those ruby red slippers and my regular walking shoes.