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Saturday, October 6, 2012

Walking

I have been following Dani's walking blog, switched my foot gear to monkey shoes, and despite these efforts have not made much progress in my efforts to try a new approach to getting healthy. Or healthier. Or not so gross. Whatever. But this morning I discovered something. It was too cold to wear my new shoes, my toes were frozen just from my brief excursion into the back yard to put peanuts out for the squirrels and blue jays. And I had just mapped a walking route at Map My Walk after reading about it in aforesaid blog. The idea of trekking out for two miles with cold toes kept me in my chair for about an hour while I finished up  my 'farming' chores online. Then it occurred to me that instead of waiting until I had the perfect 'winter neutral heel walking gear' I could just wear my Nikes. Millions do.

So off I went, without Kaylee because her paw is still healing, determined to make it the whole route. It didn't take more than a dozen steps to realize I was walking differently. Like my body had a different center of gravity and I was using my thighs more and my feet less. Over the course of the next hour while I walked I noticed that as I became accustomed to the shoes the tendency was to push off harder with my feet and my shoulders would hunch and my head would begin to strain forward. I immediately relaxed my shoulders, brought my head back into alignment and took the tension out of my feet - how great it felt!

Gone is the stress of not walking correctly; I will wear my monkey shoes in mild weather to remind myself how if feels to walk, and the tennys when it's cold or wet until I can find something better now that I know I can reign in the impulse to walk out of whack, so to speak.  I think a trip to Dom's today is in order, maybe they have some good winter walking shoes.

Also while walking today I realized that I keep trying to piece meal out my writing.  The reality is that I can't write about one thing (food, walking, craziness) without all the rest. I am all of it, and I should keep it all in one place.  And this is the logical location. I like the new Map My Walk site, I think it will keep me motivated to be able to schedule different 2-mile walks and I am hoping other facebook friends will join me there. But this is where I will write and tie it all together.

Yes, it's feeling a little manic this morning. But it feels good after a bout of crazy.

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