I am about to go on a long walk and I think it’s important to campaign on behalf of walking. Especially because some people are just so fat and hopeless.
The best thing anyone can do is literally take a step. Just try. Get up and go do something for the day that can make your heart rate climb a little or a lot. Put yourself in motion and let your thoughts die down for 30 minutes just one time. You won’t believe the impact it’ll have on your mental health much less the physical side of things.
I started walking seriously in the summer about 6 months ago. I had a bad wrist and couldn’t lift weights but needed to start exercising. Jogging would have probably killed me so I started it easy with a long walk and now I’m here:
Almost 210 miles in 70 workouts, which puts me just shy of 3 miles and 1 hour per walk. Numbers I would not have ever cared about 6 months ago and now I’m warmly imagining my 100th walk. My 500th mile. My 100,000th calorie. In that sense, I feel lucky to have stuff to care about now.
The weird thing is you don’t have anything to care about until you do it. Like this blog for instance. It’s not about one blog, or one great blog or a couple funny moments. Instead it’s about a daily commitment knowing some days are going to suck and most stuff doesn’t go my way. Whatever. The best I can do is try my best.
That’s how I feel about walking. I was in such bad shape over the summer and all I wanted to do was get my body healthy to work out again. The best I could do for a little bit was walk on a trail with old people and honestly it was a little humiliating to start. Especially when my wife would see me dressed in workout gear only to learn that it was for a brisk walk while listening to Game of Thrones on tape. Pretty hard to inspire confidence from your significant other under those circumstances but I digress. The important thing is that it was a starting point to go outside and do something.
Fast forward and I’m still listening to Game of Thrones on tape. I’m still very far away from a marathon much less a 10k. And I may never be the same healthy athlete that lives in my fucked up imagination. But I’m still out here getting my steps in and enjoying nature and all that bullshit and honestly it feels really good.
You should give it a try if you can relate to any feeling of wanting to do something but not knowing where to start. The nice thing is that you can walk outside in warm clothes and build up a good sweat. You have really low injury risk and a great opportunity to listen to something you value that can take your head away from stress. You’ll feel better and that’s really important to everyone in your life, particularly yourself. So don’t be bashful and treat yourself to a good old fashioned walk.
I’ll circle back after today’s walk with some pictures. In the meantime maybe you should get off your butt cheeks this week and join me. I would like that very much.