Ouch

I found a book in the library that seemed to be written for me. It is called the Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook. In a nutshell, a young(er than I am) woman found herself at a crossroads in her life where she seems to be spinning in the wind, no direction in mind. She has just left her job and on the same day her boyfriend leaves her. What does she do? What most of us would do. She holes up in her house with her cookies and icecream until the time for licking her wounds has passed. Then she straps on her walking shoes and her pedometer and gets ready to move on.

I too, have experienced a big change in my life. Right after my youngest daughter got married, we moved to Pittsburgh and I retired. I wasn't as shell shocked as the girl in the book, but it was a big adjustment. However the real commonality between the main character and myself was the Gung-Ho Attitude.

In the book, each chapter starts with the number of steps she has walked that day. While holed up in the house it was something like 32 steps, 111 steps, 51 steps. You get the idea. Nothing!

Then when she decides to move on she laces up her athletic shoes and hits the road. At the end of the day she has walked 11,232 steps! And the next day her diary reads... OUCH!

In our neighborhood, 'flat' is a term that does not exist. The roads go up and down, and around, but there is no flat. On the day that I decided to pick up my pace I set out. I have walked these roads for 3 years now, so I did the whole 2 1/2 mile route. I rarely paused. I walked at a good strong pace. I huffed up those hills and pounded down. When I got home, I congratulated myself and collapsed on the couch while Rachel Ray prepared a delicious pasta meal. By mid afternoon my muscles were tightening. By the next morning I could barely move. It was 3 days before I was back to normal.

Ordinarily, that would have stopped me, but not this time. I will stay the course. The question is, what have I learned?

The answer---Baby Steps. My new plan is to do one mile at a pace I can manage. Each day I time myself. What used to take 25 minutes I am now doing in 20 minutes, but this has taken a couple of weeks. I used to stop on the way up the hill, but I've learned where the burn point is and I am powering (it is a slow power, ha ha) through it. When I'm comfortable I will raise the bar to 1 1/2 miles. So far I feel good! This is working.
Today's total--11,500 steps.