Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Walking for my Health

I've taken up walking again, started last week, without my dogs this time. They have this tendency to want to sniff everything, chase squirrels, visit people, and pretty much are impossible to walk together on one leash (the height difference doesn't help). I've tried two leashes but then it becomes one of those cartoons where they go in opposite directions and either pull me apart or tangle me in the leads. They still get their daily walk through the woods and a visit with Uncle Butch and his pups, but for my power walk I leave them with Uncle Butch.

Last week I managed to walk 3 days, and took about 35 minutes. It wasn't as tiring as I expected so I'm not in as bad a shape as I thought, but I'd like to work up to an hour. I'm only walking down 2 village streets so far, I figure adding a 3rd will get me up to 45 minutes but it isn't easy walking. The streets are not plowed very well, there are no sidewalks and the pavement is a little slick.

Yesterday, even wearing my rubber boots I slipped half a dozen times and a couple of those nearly had me on the ground. So I'm not walking as fast as I'd like. I also have no idea how far I am walking as I have misplaced my pedometer. I could drive my car around and get a rough estimate, but that only works if I can get it up the driveway. There's about 6 inches of new snow, it hasn't been plowed, and my driveway is up hill. The Taurus will be staying in the garage for now.

I did manage to walk to the post office today, with the dogs, and as my driveway is 1/4 mile long and it is my land on either side, the dogs were not leashed so I got to walk as fast as I could to and from the P.O. So I got in a half mile today. I'm hoping we don't get the next 6 inches of predicted snow and I can get in another power walk tomorrow. Or I could just slog back and forth through 12 inches of driveway snow and get plenty of exercise.

In the meantime, Rocket and Luna would probably like their woods walk soon, visiting the P.O. just isn't enough.

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