Seven Days and Counting. Seriously Counting.

I'd have to go back and check, but it seems like it's been a long time since I did my five miles first thing in the morning on a work day.  I'd almost forgotten how good that felt.  This morning, again, I wanted to put it off, either over the lunch hour (remember how well that worked out?) or after work, but one look at Banks' hopeful, plaintive face this morning, and I put my own needs aside. We hadn't been at St. Ed's in a long time, so we focused on that area.  I felt like being completely unfettered this morning, so I didn't take my phone/stopwatch, figuring I"d use the St. Ed's tower clock as my guide.  Well, guess what?  There were no chimes this morning.  I don't know if they don't gong the bells too early in deference to the sleeping students, or if there is some ancient Catholic tradition of no bell-gonging until sunrise, but in any event, I was on my own.  Came home with 12 minutes to spare, fed Banks, and went back out and circled the neighborhood alone.

I know why I'm struggling right now.  It's the unscheduled day off I took last Tuesday as a result of my disastrous, all-day travel adventure.  I try to shoot for Friday as my day off, because the weekend walks are easy, and I like to reward myself at the end of the work week with a day off. But this time, I'm looking at nine days straight before I get a break, and that's been tough psychologically more than physically.  It's confirmed for me that I got it exactly right when I planned for six days on, one day off.  Just knowing that I'm gradually reclaiming that schedule has me in a better frame of mind.

Check in with me tomorrow as I assess the results of my first month.

Nooner

Last night was one of those nights where lack of sleep made it impossible to do my walk in the morning. As I lay awake last night -- 1:30, 2:00, 3:00 -- I finally arrived at the root of the problem.  How many cups of coffee can one have in the morning before the law of diminishing returns kicks in?  Every morning I have two huge mugs of coffee -- no more.  But again, they're HUGE, each one easily the equal of the two "cups of coffee" the health experts refer to.

So I gulped those two (four) down yesterday, then proceeded on to my breakfast with Barbara, whereupon I consumed (I'm estimating) six more cups. We were there almost an hour and a half, and the waitress refilled my cup every 15 minutes, at least.  So that explains my tossing and turning last night. That, and the fact that Matthew (on PBS' Downton Abbey) will probably never walk again, after the injury he suffered in the war, not to mention the death of his loyal servant William, who died trying to save him, and not only will he not walk, but won't be able to procreate, and how is that going to work with the hot-blooded Mary?  Really, I've been through a lot.

I decided to take my walk over the lunch hour.  (Banks, I'm SORRY!  Tomorrow, I promise!)  I'm lucky to have a flexible job, where it's not a problem to take an hour and half lunch, then just stay an extra half hour in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the 1.5 hours turned into closer to two as I became distracted on the Lady Bird Lake trail, lost my bearings, realized I was way over the halfway time mark, and then tried to shave off some minutes by, inexplicably, taking a shortcut through Austin High School (literally -- I walked through the halls and past the cafeteria -- it made sense at the time) and then dodging speeding vehicles as I walked, vagabond-like, on the narrow sidewalk alongside Cesar Chavez.  I think from now on I'll stick to a more sedate route for those time-sensitive lunchtime strolls.

Sunday morning coming down

Poor Banks.  He missed Friday's walk, and today's. My friend Barbara and I planned to meet at a new-ish breakfast place, Another Broken Egg on Guadalupe.  I googled it -- 4.7 miles from my house.  Of course I had to do it.  I've learned that I love having an actual destination at the end of my five. 

How can someone say they're "not a morning person"? Everything is so....new in the morning.  The day is just there, a blank slate, waiting for you to make of it what you wish.  If you wake up at 10:00, you've allowed someone else -- the universe -- to set the tone for you.

Another week starts tomorrow, and a month ends on Wedneday.  Looking forward to stepping on the scale and sharing my first results with you.

Full Circle

I've got a lot to catch up on.  Wednesday and Thursday evenings were typical and uneventful SoCo walks with Banks, but I HAVE learned one new thing.  (It is so embarrasing, being this tech-clueless). If I take my iphone with me, all I have to do is click on "clock" then "start" and it times my walk for me.  No, it doesn't figure out averages or anything like that, but at least it doesn't freeze up, and it's free.  So that's my go-to gadget for the foreseeable future.  That icon has been on my phone since I got it.  Again, embarrasing.

Yesterday I made a difficult trip to Houston to see my Uncle Frank for the last time.  He's 94 and in hospice there, and is very much in the end stages.  He was unresponsive, and I have no way of knowing if he heard me, as I held his hand and whispered my goodbyes.  My cousin and cousin-in-law, Barbara and Rita, were there and they, along with Uncle Frank's two sons, have been keeping around-the-clock vigils in shifts.  It was a sad and tearful visit, but I left grateful that he is so loved and cherished by his family.

Uncle Frank was an avid exerciser into his late 80s, and I know he would have loved my blog and my commitment to five miles a day.  I dedicated that day's walk to him.  I had business in Spring, about 40 minutes away, and decided to do my walk there.  I landed in, I believe, "Old Town Spring," an older section of the city featuring tons of little shops -- herb therapy, candles, meats, dolls, birdhouses, New Age crystals -- just about any specialty you could imagine -- placed, improbably, in the midst of a rather run-down neighborhood.  I walked through the streets of both the shop area and the community (Have these people ever heard of a sidewalk? I muttered to myself, dodging cars and strollers), and finally found a park-like setting that gave me a good couple of miles. 

On the way back, I passed a day care center where the children were outside on this glorious afternoon.  Spying me, several ran to the fence and asked what I was doing.  "Just going for a walk," I replied.  The rest of the conversation took place, as playground discussions always do, at top volume.  "WHY?" shouted a little girl.  "BECAUSE SHE WANTS SOME FRESH AIR!!" yelled another.  "IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY, ISN'T IT MISS?"  OMG....I could feel my heart starting to melt.  They saw my iphone and asked why I had that. "I like to take walks and take pictures of things I see along the way."  'TAKE A PICTURE OF US!!!!" they shrieked, in unison.  So I did.  Maybe there are rules about that sort of thing, in this hypervigilent age, but I needed it.  After a half hour in an assisted living facility, with residents in various stages of dementia and other illnesses, I NEEDED to take away with me an image of that youth, that innocence, that utter joy in being alive. 

Uncle Frank is slipping away, and these kids are barely out of the gate.  I walked away and sent up a prayer for all of them -- for health, peace, prosperity, happiness, love and every other good thing the world has to offer. 

Godspeed, Uncle Frank.

Train Wreck

That's preferable to a plane crash, which apparently I avoided twice on my trip to Virginia.  From Austin to Chicago was uneventful.  On the way to Baltimore, there was an issue with icing -- something about fluid leaking -- and so we turned back, and were met with emergency vehicles on the ground.  The passengers were all re-routed to different flights via different airports, and after a few hours, I was D.C.-bound.  A half hour or so before we were scheduled to land, another emergency -- this time an overheated engine, which necessitated "finding the first piece of concrete we could land on," according to the pilot.  We landed at a tiny airfield -- not even an airport -- in West Virginia, again met with fire trucks and ambulences.

That was the easy part.

We were stuck on the plane for almost three hours -- we were in the midde of nowhere, and there were no vehicles to take us anywhere.  There was a lot of fog, and no buses were willling to travel from D.C., about 85 miles away, to get us.  Finally a fire department showed up, and transported us to a small lounge on the property.  Starving (it was 11:00 pm, and no one had eaten since lunch), we raided the vending machines and got ready for the fleet of taxis that American Airlines had supposedly contracted with to take us to the Comfort Inn a few miles away.  Two hours later, one taxi showed up. One.  I was lucky to be on the first round-trip, because I had been willing to wait outside, in the freezing weather, to be at the head of the line.  He took all 50-something of us in groups of 4-5.  The last group, I understand, got to the motel at 4:30.

My group arrived at 1:30.  We were checked in by very sweet young man who couldn't have been more than 18 or 19, and was clearly anxious at the prospect of handling such a large group.  Some were complaining, some were making a party of it.  He said "I'm just glad you're all safe."  At which point I almost burst into tears.  Yeah -- it WAS good to be safe.  We could have been blown to bits upon impact with the ground, or been consumed by a fire before plummeting earthward.  I''m embarrassed to admit that, once on the ground, I gave barely a thought to that, focusing only on my own discomfort and inconvenience, and feeling very, very sorry for myself.  Thank you for that reminder, friend.  I went to my warm room, fell asleep immediately in my very comfortable bed, and arose the next morning to surprisingly good coffee and a more than adequate "continental breakfast."

I completed my business, but missed the opportunity to see my brother and his family.  As much as I'm trying to focus on the gratitude aspect of this whole thing, that one still smarts.

The experience only affirmed my resolve, going into this project, to never take my one day off just because I didn't feel like walking that day, because there are going to be days, like Tuesday, when there is no way I can do my five.  I had an hours-long layover in Dallas/Fort Worth, and toyed with the idea of walking the airport for 90 minutes, but I was traveling alone and had no one to watch my luggage.  So Tuesday it is for this week.

Man, I eat crap when I travel, even under the best of circumstances.  I always come home feeling sluggish and constipated.  Nothing that a five-mile walk couldn't cure; the problem is, where might I be when the cure comes?  Not to put too fine a point on it. 

I'm taking the morning off and am REALLY looking forward to walking Banks tonight.  There is nothing like sitting for hours in a cramped and stale airplane to make you appreciate fresh air and the ability to stride hard and swing your arms.  It's good to be back.

Way Too Early

This morning was the first time I asked myself, Am I carrying this thing too far?  I awoke even before the alarm went off at 3:45.  I was so tired and bleary-eyed that I didn't realize until after we'd left that I'd forgotten a poop bag for Banks.  All I could do was hope that he did number two in a discreet place (he did).

I was cranky and impatient, and found myself pulling roughly on Banks' leash from time to time.  Sorry buddy.  But as usual, after about 30 minutes, things settled into a groove.  I thought about how I'd feel, after a year, if I really did complete 1,500+ miles.  What might my body look like?  That'll keep you moving. Mostly I thought about how subsequent walks will seem like a piece of cake after this one. 

I thought I'd feel weird and conspicuous, being out at 4:00 a.m., but I didn't give it a thought.  I kept to well-lit Congress for the most part, but felt perfectly safe when I wound through the residential areas to lengthen the walk. 

I'm back and showered and waiting for my ride to the airport.  I'll see you in Virginia.