Gift of a Daily Walk - Happy Birthday to Me!

I don’t need to tell any of you how tough these past months have been. We are living in a time of great unrest. Health concerns, divisiveness over many important issues, and economic hardships abound. I won’t reiterate these in detail because we are all living them daily.

Now, more than ever, we need to do what we can to stay positive. For many of us, our days don’t include the variety we were used to. We think twice before leaving our homes. Things we took for granted for so long are no longer a given.

But here’s the thing. I had a problem, even before our world turned upside down. I sat too much and moved too little. Some of you might be able to relate to this. We all know our bodies need movement. But knowing isn’t enough.

It may have started when my brother remarked that he hadn’t missed his daily step goal in something outrageous like a year. What? Is that even possible? Not in what was my reality. But he’d planted this niggling little worm into my brain. If he can commit to something like getting a walk in every single day, why couldn’t I?  He works a demanding job and has a full life. Technically, he’d have just as many handy excuses as I did to avoid a daily exercise habit.

Please don’t stop reading if you hate the idea of exercising every day. Trust me on this.

When I commit to doing something, I’ve found that I’m better at sticking to it if I make a game out of tracking my progress. But putting a check mark on a calendar probably wasn’t going to cut it. Besides, I used to have a Fitbit watch, and it was fun to see how far I’d walk every day. So I asked for a new Fitbit for Christmas (my old one was long gone, and, besides, the new ones are cute!), and there began my journey.
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Like so many things in life, my journey started small. I had to figure out how to get steps in each day, living in North Dakota in the dead of winter, working in an office building all day, and not owning a treadmill. I’d canceled my gym membership because I seldom used it. But I couldn’t give up before I even started.
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I’d have to walk inside, at least sometimes, for the time being. At home, I paced around inside our house. I got creative at work. When I was the only one in the office, which happened often, I’d walk in our immediate area, hoping no one would walk in and find me looping around in tennis shoes and “business casual” attire. Before long, I was able to get permission to walk on the locked, vacant floor above my office. That turned out to be ideal.

Two givens while I walked: decent tennis shoes (if you’ve ever had plantar fasciitis you understand the wisdom here) and something to listen to. I’ve listened to countless podcasts and audio books over these past seven months. No depressing news stories while walking!

I began my walking journey to improve my health, but it became a lifeline.

In February, I was lucky to travel with a friend to a conference in Arizona, our flight at risk of being canceled as we navigated our way to the airport through blizzard conditions. I got to “do my own thing” while she attended her work events. My thing was writing and walking outside, in beautiful, sunny weather, in the middle of winter. It gave me a glimpse of how it might feel to design my days, doing things I love, unfettered by a set schedule or a harsh climate. I could get used to that!
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By the middle of March, things were starting to feel different. We began working from home, and we found ourselves thrust into a new way of living, one we hoped would be temporary. Life revolved around scary news reports on television. Our college-age daughter came home after her university pivoted to online learning. We wondered whether it was safe to bring the milk carton we’d bought into our home or did we need to wipe it down with disinfecting wipes first and let it sit in the garage for days first. And, by the way, don’t use too many wipes because stores were out of them.
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​Despite everything, I walked. The weather was still questionable outside, so I usually had to do it all by pacing inside my house. I’d start early in the day, take most of my work calls while looping through my living room, kitchen and dining area, driving my husband and daughter nuts. But suddenly, getting my steps in felt like nearly the only thing I could control.

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By the first of April, COVID struck close to home. Not literally, but within our family, while my father was visiting my brother a thousand miles away. Suddenly, the danger and seriousness of what was happening became very real. The details are not mine to share, but suffice it to say it was a very dark, incredibly scary few weeks, and the statistics on the news suddenly became real people.

With time, our prayers were answered as amazing, brave hospital staff worked quickly to discover a treatment solution that beat back what felt to us like a monster—the virus. There was little we could do from afar, and the feeling of helplessness and despair were nearly overwhelming.

​What was this strange way of life we were all suddenly finding ourselves in? But still, I walked.
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Days turned into weeks, and eventually into months. Health returned for our family members, but the experience left indelible scars that will take time to heal.

Somewhere in the middle of the storm, I was starting to realize that my walking was one of the few things I felt in control of, and one day I realized my steps were beginning to add up. At the beginning of January, I committed to walking every day, no matter what (never dreaming how different “no matter what” would look in the not too distant future.) Within a few weeks, I was walking a minimum of 10,000 steps, because I’d heard that measurement thrown around for years and it had always felt unattainable, given my sedentary desk job. For me, this equates to around 4 miles a day. 

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By the end of April, it didn’t feel like things were getting much better in our world. What had begun as hopefully only a month or two at home was starting to feel like perhaps it was the beginning of something longer. When would life “get back to normal”?

So I kept walking. With the arrival of springtime, I was able to transition to walking outside in our neighborhood. We live in a small community outside of a small city, so I usually only encounter one or two other walkers. Social distancing is never a problem out here. 
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One day, I noticed I was three months away from my next birthday. What if I kept walking my 10,000 plus steps every day until then? If I kept my commitment to myself, something I’d never done in my life when it came to daily exercise, how many miles would I have walked? I remember feeling a jolt of surprise over the math. It would be an impressive number. Something fun to strive for, this game I’d started playing with myself on January 1 of a year for which I’d held out high hopes.

But it wasn’t a nice, even number. What would it take to hit an even bigger number, one with a nice ring to it? How much farther would I have to go every day to beat that? If I pushed just a little harder, walking at least 12,100 steps from then until my birthday, that nice round number no longer seemed quite so out of reach.

I’d proven to myself over the past 128 days that I could walk every day, no matter what. Why couldn’t I walk that extra couple thousand? I was still staying home almost all day, every day. The weather was so much better. I bumped up the daily goal on my watch and felt a little thrill at having something new to strive for amid a still very uncertain world.

Today is my birthday and  I’m turning 54. I started walking every day on 1/1/2020. I tracked my steps, stuck to my commitment, and never missed a day. On July 23rd, I watched as my Fitbit hit 6,777 steps in the middle of my morning walk. I’d done it, with five days to spare.

​Me, who had never stuck to an exercise routine in my half a century on this planet, hit my target.

I’d walked 1,000 miles since the first of the year.

Walking has been my touchstone, reminding me that while everything else in life feels topsy-turvy, there are still things, essential things, within my control.

Why am I sharing this journey of mine? Because I’ve learned some valuable lessons, and if by sharing, I can inspire you to challenge yourself in some aspect of your own life, that is what I’d love to be able to do.

​Lessons learned:

• I’m not a quitter. Even though I’d quit every time I started exercising in the past, I’ve proven to myself my limiting belief was just holding me back.
• Walking was never about a number on the scale. Sure, I’ve lost a few pounds, and I have no doubt I could have lost more weight if I’d have ditched ice cream at the same time, but my clothes fit much better, and my energy level is noticeably higher. Better nutrition will be a new focus going forward.
• Tracking my progress in a fun, simple way helped me see not only how far I’d come but revealed I could do so much more than I initially thought when I started.
• It was fun to keep my stretch goal to myself. Even as I got closer to my target, I only told a few people what I was doing. Pursuing this big number was for me. To prove to myself that I could do it.
• Good shoes make a difference. Don’t wait until the bottom is nearly worn off the old ones before replacing them!

• There is beauty all around us. There are times of extremes in nature and a cycle of life to all things. I’d lost sight of this, rushing around in my car every day. Grass, trees, flowers, even the sky itself are so much more beautiful than anything humans can make. As humans, we work hard to temper wide swings in our lives, to keep things clicking along within narrow bands of what we consider to be both acceptable and normal. Nature isn’t like that. There are times of raging temperatures, wind, moisture, and so much more. We are thrown off by variation, but the physical world outside has been a place of great diversity since the beginning of time.
• Doing something every day, for months on end, will, at some point, become a habit. It no longer feels like something extra I have to fit into my day. Walking is now part of every day.
• Some people are pigs. Plastic bottles tossed out of cars often litter the walking path I take. In a sign of the times, I’ve even run across face masks and plastic gloves while walking. Disgusting.
• Karma is real.

We need to live in harmony with others and with nature. One day, early in my 2020 walking journey, I thought I was utterly alone on the vacant floor as I did my laps around, listening to “The Secrets We Keep” on audio. I noticed something out of place in the large, carpeted room, now void of the rows of cubicles that previously lined the floor. A small smudge of brown, poised against a vast expanse of wall, no bigger than an apple, caught my eye. It was a little mouse, watching me.
 
I stilled, curious at the utterly unexpected sight. I’m sure the mouse felt the same. Normally, I’d have hustled downstairs to find our maintenance man, let him know some traps should be set up. But I paused. It watched me but didn’t scurry away in fear. I continued with my walk, careful not to pass too close to it, and kept an eye on it. It kept an eye on me. I snapped a picture of it, blurry because I didn’t dare get too close. In the end, I let it be, and it left me alone. A month later, that little mouse might have been the only one roaming the halls, since we humans had all gone home to work in the face of a pandemic. 

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• And lastly, if I’m not “working” while walking (listening to a conference call), I’m filling my head with helpful information or positive entertainment. Occasionally, I leave the earbuds out and let the sounds of nature soothe me. It is never just a walk. I’m either filling my well or allowing my mind and body to relax.​

So I will keep walking. It feels like the first 1,000 miles was just the start.
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Our journey along the dash between the day we are born and the day we die is ours to do with as we choose. These past seven months have reminded me that there are things in life we can still control. Don’t let the chaos of the outside world make you forget your strength. We’ve got this!
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​Cheering you along!   Kim