If you haven't been walking for fitness for over two months due to an injury, you may wonder how to start over again to rebuild your walking program. I've had this experience several times. Plantar fasciitis, knee injury and sprained ankle were the causes for me. But many have had a break due to a long respiratory illness or other malady.  Once the pain had cleared and my doctor gave me the go-ahead, I started fresh and slowly like somebody new to fitness walking.

Here are the baby steps to starting over:

• Discuss when to start with your doctor. Be clear about your goals so he or she understands the kind and intensity of walking you plan to do.
• Will you need any special care for the injury, such as wearing a brace or icing the old injury site after exercise?
• Start slowly, use the Absolute Beginners Walking Schedule to keep yourself from doing too much, too fast.
• Work on your walking form rather than speed for the first two weeks.
• It is common for those getting back into walking to experience shin splints.

Be like the tortoise, not the hare. Slow and steady will win the race to recovery.

Those clever folks at MapMyWalk have a new free iPhone app aimed at dog walkers. MapMyDOGWALK works pretty much like the other iMapMy apps for walking, running, biking, etc. But it is sponsored by Subaru and includes features for both you and Fido. Besides mapping and measuring your walks, you can geo-tag photos and add them to your saved routes. That ability was formerly only available for the iMapMy+ apps and not the free ones. You can tweet your walk or post it to Facebook.

It has ANT+ support so you can pair it with a heart rate monitor, such as their Wahoo Fitness Sensor. As with the other MapMyFitness apps, you can also track your diet, weight, and other workouts. An Android version will be coming in the future.

What walking apps do you like most? Come nominate them for the 2012 Readers' Choice Awards.

10 Tips for Walking with Your Dog
Tell us about your walking dog

Photo © Kevin Shaw

Nominations are open for the  2012 Reader's Choice Awards. You nominate your favorite walking shoes, walking gear, and walker-friendly events and tours. Nominations are open through February 15, 2012. Then our walking experts select up to five nominees per category and you, the walkers, vote for your readers' choice. We have some categories returning from our first awards last year, and several new categories. Come tell us what you like best in each category.

• Fitness walking shoes
• Comfort walking shoes
• Trail shoes
• Pedometer
• Activity monitor/computer-linked pedometer
• App for Walkers
• Budget treadmill
• Premium treadmill
• Walking poles
• Walker-friendly marathon and half marathon
• Walking vacation tour company

Are you taking your exercise indoors because you don't like the wet and cold? You don't have to stop walking, here are options and tactics to keep walking indoors. Yesterday it was pouring cold buckets of rain outside, and for the first time in a year I drove to the mall and spent an hour fitness walking around its two levels before boredom set in and the number of shoppers increased. I was definitely not the only one using it for a workout -- one mom with a stroller was also putting in the laps.

The benefits of indoor walking are easier access to water and restrooms. The drawbacks are the boredom factor for treadmills and indoors tracks. Or even the mall.

• Top 10 Ways to Walk Indoors

If you like doing stairs indoors (or outdoors) for a workout, checkout 50MillionCalories. It's a free site to log your flights of stairs and earn awards for your milestones.

Photo &copy 2006 Krista Van Veen