The Accidental Walker

I once took a test that measured a person’s eye-hand-foot coordination, and the result was that I had none.  It’s not that I can’t walk and talk at the same time; it’s just that it doesn’t come naturally.  I am, when it comes right down to it, the very definition of a klutz.

As you can imagine, this meant that I never exactly sought out athletic pursuits over my lifetime, and the athletes didn’t exactly seek me out either.  I was always the second-to-last one picked in school for the team (I had one classmate who was, unbelievably, even worse at sports than I was), but not only didn’t I mind, I understood perfectly. My gym teacher in high school told me that I was the only person he knew who could strike out in kickball.  This wasn’t technically true, because my last-picked classmate also was capable of this achievement, but the point is that I wouldn’t have picked me for the team either.  Truthfully, I would have been happier if I wasn’t on the team at all.

Every time I do give in and try to “play the game” I am in effect courting disaster.  I can predict potential tragedy in the near future, the same way you know that when people in a soap opera are seen riding in a car that a terrible accident is in the offing. I will fall in the river, or break my pelvis when the horse throws me.  Of course, sometimes I am just walking when these kinds of accidents happen.

So, I am conditioned to equate exercise and sports with pain and injury.  Therefore, I never look forward to even the exercise that I actually enjoy doing, like calisthenics, some of the easier yoga poses, and walking on flat surfaces in moderate temperatures.  When I decide that it is necessary to include some kind of exercise in my life as a wellness measure I have to trick myself into doing it, because I will never do it automatically.

My husband and I joined a gym a few years ago and were doing our weight training and cardio up to three times a week.  In order to accomplish this, we had to pack our gym bags with our work out clothes when we left for work and go straight to the gym after work.  You see, no matter how fabulous we felt from our time in the gym, we would not go back out if we came home first and we never quite got to the gym on the weekends.

When I started doing daily exercises for my knees and back, I would lie in bed in the morning and think about getting up and doing my exercises while watching the weather report, sometimes for 30 minutes, or more.  When I realized that most of my exercises are done lying on my back, I started doing them IN bed during the weather.  I now do them faithfully 6 days a week (because Sunday is a day of rest).

It’s the same thing with walking, which I actually enjoy.  I will park in locations that force me to walk a little further to get to my destination, or walk to the gas station across the street from my workplace to get my coffee.  When I worked in downtown Pittsburgh I had to walk to get anywhere at lunchtime which was perfect for an accidental walker like me.

 

In Cranberry, where I work now, you have to get in your car to get anywhere at lunchtime.  I had to get more creative, and plan my accidental walking.  I put together a crazy little route circling the little shopping center that is parallel to my workplace.  It is about three fourths of a mile, but closer to a mile if you walk around the driving turnaround area and down and back up the “sidewalk to nowhere” that someone inexplicably built in front of the Firestone auto service station.  

Now, I look forward to it and every day is a great day for a walk, except when it is snowing, below freezing, or in the midst of a torrential downpour with thunder and lightning.  But only at lunchtime.