Folly or Feasible?

Today I went for a walk.

No, not on a treadmill at the heart center of the hospital; my stress test got moved to Friday. (Is it tacky that I’m glad it got moved to Friday once I found out schools were cancelled today and I have an unexpected free day?) I went for a walk outside.

Sounds nice, ‘til you factor in that I took the dog. Obnoxious, ill-trained snot that he is.

I could have left him home, but he’s so darn hopeful each and every time that I leave the house, thinking maybe this will be the time he gets to go. Yet it never is. I guess the joy of a virtual snow day got to me, and having him along did make it impossible to “just see how much lungs/legs hold up on a short little jog”, so I guess he has his uses. Obnoxious, ill-trained snot though he may be.

I am so sick of laying around. Sick of icing this injury and certainly sick of worrying whether or not I’ll keel over with the slightest exertion. I wanted to do something positive for a change. Even if it was to positively determine that yes, indeed, I would keel over.

So I walked. It’s the first time I’ve been active in ten days, and it felt great to be out. It also gave me a chance to try out my new shoes and the waist pack I bought with my birthday gift certificate from my husband.

(I had to lace the shoes a little tighter, since they are larger, and I didn’t notice any significant bounce in the waist pack. Consider that full disclosure.)

The dog and I meandered 1.5 miles in 27 minutes, or 17.39 min/mile.

Of course, that pace includes stops to sniff, stops to sit as other four-legged creatures (which he acts like he’s never seen before) pass, stops to poop (him, not me), stops to pick up poop (me, not him), and stops to untangle the leash from my legs. Based on glances at my Garmin, I’d say the actual walking portions were around 15 mm.

I did wear my heart-rate monitor for the first time in several sessions. I’m not sure why; I guess so that if I did keel over, the medics would know exactly what my heart rate had been at the time. Good thing it didn’t happen, because, as usual, it’s unreliable as hell. Yes, I was meandering, and yes, it is possible that my max heart-rate was 107, but I seriously doubt that it was 37 at any point during the walk, much less multiple times. It may be impressive, but it ain’t that impressive.

Even though it wasn’t particularly strenuous (and I’m not short-changing the fact that 10 weeks ago even a meandering one-and-a-half miles would have been daunting and exhausting), I’m glad to see a workout on the noted on the calendar again. The streak of blank days was getting entirely too long.

I plan to do it again tomorrow.

Without the dog.