walking thoughts

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Wednesday Walks Wrap Up

This is one thing I just do not understand about my psychology: Even though I love taking walks, even though I derive joy, inspiration, and refreshment from being outside, even though I feel mentally and physically better when I move my body surrounded by nature, I still often have to talk myself into going for a walk. Maybe it’s not a psychology issue, but one of physics? Either way, it is super annoying that I know all these things and still, still I sometimes have to prod and cajole and force myself outside for even ten minutes. 

That is all to say that I am very grateful to Elisabeth for spearheading another month of walking through the CBWC. Somehow, knowing that I am accountable to Elisabeth (I am 100% not accountable to Elisabeth, this is all in my head) helps me win the battle against inertia more often than not. 

October 29: 

I got my butt outside after lunch for a 30 minute / 1.8 mile (2.9 km) stroll. The sun was out, the sky was blue. I was wearing a tank top with my leggings. I passed several other walkers… all wearing winter coats, some with winter hats, one with a hat and gloves on. My body exists in a separate climate from others, apparently. 

October 30:

Today, I had a meeting with one of Carla’s teachers and then I did a strength training workout. I tried to muster some energy to get outside and failed. Some of the amazing women reading this right now manage to get a walk and a workout in every day. Every. Day. And often those same women have full-time jobs and multiple children. HOW, is my question. After school, Carla and I went to her pediatrician’s office and got our flu shots; I also got a Covid shot (Carla will get hers on a different day). I was delighted by one of the trees in the parking lot and horrified Carla by photographing it. I am so embarrassing.

October 31:

Well, thanks to my double shot yesterday, I slept terribly (my arm was throbbing) and I woke up feeling dreadful. Stupid effective Covid shot. Fortunately, I had a walk-and-talk on tap which got me outside. My 2.5-mile (4 km) walk felt like intense work, but chatting with a friend made it much more pleasant.

November 1:

Okay, yes, technically the CBWC challenge ended yesterday, but I did miss a few walks during the month, so I’m going to try to make them up. We had a busy day today of chauffeuring Carla to and from bat mitzvah events, but I managed to squeeze in a 1.7 mile (2.7 km) walk in the late afternoon. 

November 2:

Today was a busy day chauffeuring Carla to and from various sporting events. I had been hoping to do a walk-and-talk, but my friend wasn’t available. Nonetheless, I urged myself to go outside anyway and got in a quick 1.5 mile (2.4 km) power walk. 

November 3: 

You will perhaps remember my plan to keep my wake up schedule despite the time change, so I could have time to workout before taking Carla to school. Well. I have been easing into this plan by waking up at the correct time (4:21) and then not exercising. But I did meet up with my writing partner for a 3.7 mile (5.9 km) walk. Our typical walking trail is so gorgeous right now. It seems like the landscape changes daily. We each stopped multiple times to try to capture the autumnal beauty with our phones. 

November 4:

Today I got set up with my CPAP machine, which required extra driving. And then Carla had a school event forty minutes from our house. So I was in the car for around four hours. I did make sure to get outside for a quick 1.4 mile (2.3 km) walk. So many trees are completely bare right now, but others are just transforming into fall colors. There are leaves everywhere. 

A Month of Movement

I did skip a few days, and that irritates me. But when I look at the month(ish) as a whole, I’m okay with where I ended up. There are four days where I didn’t exercise at all. (October 12 and 13 also have no green exercise dot, but I was in Boston/returning home from Boston on those days and I did plenty of walking – 16,000 steps Sunday and 10,000 Monday – so I am not counting them as no-exercise days.) 

Today I have a little extra time, so as I hit post I am going to head down to the gym. I will also try to walk today, although it’s another day of lots of ferrying Carla around. I anticipate at least three hours in the car, which means there’s less time to walk while also making walking more of a necessity. 

Thank you to Elisabeth for hosting this month’s movement. And thank you to you for enduring my recaps! 

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Wednesday Walks

It’s another week of walking along with Elisabeth and dozens of bloggers around the world via the CBWC challenge! According to Elisabeth, this challenge is more about ten minutes of intentional movement each day than about walking… so I am going to say that this past week was a success, even though (yet again) I skipped a walk on one of the days. 

October 15:

Getting myself moving was tough today. I finally forced myself to do the teeniest little leg and back workout. It was short but challenging and that was all I had in me for the day. 

October 16: 

Today I got in a morning arm and shoulder workout and followed that with ten minutes of core exercises. Then Carla had a “surprise” practice after school, which I learned right as I was in the car line to pick her up. I did a Trader Joe’s run and then got in a 1.77 mile (2.8 km) walk. The leaves were kind of drab today, but the bare tree trunks were beautiful in their own way, as were the patterns they made on the pavement. 

October 17:

There was frost on the ground this morning! Carla was so excited; she kept insisting it was snow. She loves snow as much as I do, so I think she’s looking forward to winter. After I dropped her at school, I met up with a friend for a walk. She was having a stressful morning, so we did four and a half miles (7.3 km), stopping several times to admire the scenery and try to internalize the morning serenity. 

October 18:

Today I got in just under two and a half miles (3.9 km) and boy did I dilly dally – I could not stop ogling the trees, which were at peak color. My kid is at the point where she groans when I point out how beautiful the foliage is, simply because I do it so often. Apparently, in the car with my husband the other day, he said something complimentary about the fall colors and she moaned that he “sounded like Mom.” After my walk, I felt like I needed a little more sweat so I did a 25-minute strength training workout.

October 19:

It was pouring today, but I wanted to catch up with my long distance bestie and I love a good walk and talk, so I put on my raincoat and headed into the rain. It started out manageable, but about seven minutes in, the rain was coming down in buckets and it started to hail. Well. As long as the hail was tiny raindrop size, I decided to keep going. (The hail lasted about two minutes.) I did a thirty minute circuit (1.7 miles / 2.7 km) and chatted with my friend. Thank goodness for my waterproof jacket and airpods. My poor shoes were squelching wet, though. They took two days on the heating vent to dry.

October 20: 

Another Monday, another day I found it very hard to get moving. After lunch, I dragged myself outside and then took so many photos my normal two-mile (2.5 km) circuit took me more than 40 minutes. It was 55 degrees (13 C) and sunny with big white clouds scudding across the brilliant blue sky. The day was so beautiful, I went for a second walk with my husband when he got home from work. I really wish he enjoyed walking more – I love our strolls together. 

October 21:

Tuesday began with an incredible double rainbow against the backdrop of a rain-spattered sunrise. Carla took so many photos on the way to school, none of which did the rainbow justice. I guess some things aren’t meant to be captured. The traffic was horrible and I like to think we were all creeping along staring at the rainbow rather than focusing on our commutes. After school drop-off and a frustrating phone call, I was in a full-body clench all day, and only managed to scrape myself out of my office chair after lunch for a 20-minute 1.2 mile (1.9 km) walk. The rain had retreated, the sun was out, and the sky was blue. Our trees were still gorgeous so I snapped more photos of all my faves. We had a rainy, windy night last night so I’m expecting that all the leaves will be gone today. 

Okay! That’s a wrap on another week of intentional movement.

Hmm. Wednesdays don’t seem to be my best days for getting outside. Will I walk today? Will the leaves be gone the next time I get my butt outside? Will I spend more time yapping on the phone (I hope so)? Tune in next week to find out when I post another riveting catalog of my weekly walks! 

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Wednesday Walks

Well, somehow October is already half over. So far, I’m enjoying October a heck of a lot more than I enjoyed September, though. Are we finally finding some sort of rhythm, perhaps? Or have the occasionally cooler temperatures simply mellowed me a bit? Hard to say. 

I continue to walk daily, as part of Elisabeth’s CBWC challenge. Near daily, I suppose is more accurate. Let’s take a look at the second week of walks. Several of my walks took place out of state. Here’s a teaser photo – can you guess where I was?

A truly riveting photo, for sure. “WHY are you taking a picture of THAT?” Carla demanded with disdain when I stopped to snap this shot. Why indeed, Carla.

October 8:

I started the day with a lovely three mile walk, accompanied by my friend and writing partner. After the previous day’s drenching rain, today was freshly scrubbed and shiny. I grabbed a photo of a wooly bear although it’s not the most flattering portrait; I find it slightly embarrassing to ask my friend to stop so I can paparazz a caterpillar. She rolled with it, though. 

Perhaps not his best side, but he was a cutie.

October 9: 

A quick one-miler today. This is where Elisabeth’s walking challenge really comes in clutch; I don’t know if I would have forced myself out of whatever stupor I’d been in to go for a walk if it wasn’t for her. As usual, though, I felt much better once I got my rear in gear and enjoyed some fresh air. I also ended up moving all of my vegetable pots – my tomatoes, basil, jalapenos, and zucchini are still producing – in anticipation of some landscaping work we’re having done. 

Now THIS is what fall should look like.

October 10: 

Today, my husband and I loaded Carla into the car, drove to the airport, and flew to Boston for a long weekend! My husband and I have each been to Boston several times, but this was a first for Carla. We checked into our lovely hotel in the Back Bay and took a duck boat tour. Then we spent the rest of the day wandering around Newbury Street. Even though we walked for hours, we only got in seven miles. It felt like more.

October 11:

If you guessed from my teaser photo that we were walking the Freedom Trail, you were right! We took a ferry to the USS Constitution, which was closed to visitors due to the government shutdown, and then did the Freedom Trail in reverse, reading about each stop online as we went. My biggest surprise takeaway was that neither the battle of Bunker Hill nor the Bunker Hill monument took place on Bunker Hill. They were named for where the battle was supposed to take place, but the real battle and monument were on Breed’s Hill. Our day included 9.6 miles of walking and ended in Cambridge. At dinner, my husband ordered a lobster roll, which he deemed delicious. (I prefer my lobster unadulterated by anything but gallons of melted butter.) (I had yummy, yummy halibut.) After dinner, we found ourselves at Carla’s favorite ice cream shop for dessert. She got the same combination (chocolate and raspberry) that she’d fallen in love with during our Paris vacation. We took the subway back to our hotel and I was out like a light.

October 12:

The Nor’easter that the weather people were warning about started spitting on us on Sunday, but we took a train to Salem anyway. I would not recommend visiting Salem in October, unless you love crowds and lines. Everything had a line: coffee shops, bathrooms, kitschy tourist shops. Any attraction available had endless lines and “sold out” signs on the doors. Luckily, my husband – trip planner extraordinaire – had reserved us a walking tour weeks ago. The tour was fun and appropriately spooky, and then our tour guide told us where to eat lunch. The tavern was slightly off the beaten path, and turned out to be a perfect suggestion because not only did we get in immediately, but the food was delicious. My biggest surprise takeaway from our tour was that the Salem Witch Trials lasted a mere thirteen months. Two hundred people were accused, but only (“only”) twenty people were tried and murdered as witches, nineteen by hanging and one by pressing. That minuscule moment in history sure gets a lot of hype! We walked around Salem for 7.8 miles, admiring the creepy sites and shuddering at the crowds, then hopped back on the train to Boston. After a brief stop at Levain Bakery – where we saw the inspiration for my favorite fall cookie in the wild! – we decided we were tired of the rain and weary of walking, so we ate dinner at the Irish pub in our hotel. 

October 13:

I did not do a dedicated walk on Monday, but I will count our pre-dawn hike to the bus stop in pouring rain. No, it was not more than a five-minute slosh from our hotel, but STILL. Despite the growing panic about the storm, our flight was unaffected and we got home around noon. The cat was extremely glad that we’d come home. Apparently the twice-daily visits from the cat sitter AND long daily visits with my parents weren’t enough to convince him he hadn’t been abandoned. 

In this photo from the cat sitter, Leo/Lenny looks like he is on the verge of giving up on life. He has been purring pretty much nonstop since we returned.

October 14: 

Back to normal, and I got in a mid-afternoon 1.6 mile walk around the neighborhood. The leaves are finally starting to don their October finery. I found a tree that matches my nail polish!

Blue skies, gorgeous leaves, and fun fall fingernails!

And that’s another week of fall and another week of walks in the books.  

Have you ever been to Salem? Did you, like me, go through A Witchy Phase (mine occurred in middle school, but I still enjoy witchy things)? What is the most crowded tourist attraction you’ve ever visited?