My Morning Walk

I haven't written in this old blog in a while so I figured it's about time to try again. Tonight I'm going to talk about my morning walks. I started a new job back in April at a little company in downtown Durham. Here's a picture of the building. This has nothing to do with my story of my walk but I like to post pictures.



Anyhow, when I started working there, it became obvious that this crowd was a bit more into physical activity than some groups I've been associated with. My boss runs marathons, one guy rides his bike to work on occasion. Lots of people run. So I decided that I needed to get some exercise. I hate to run. I never liked it even when I ran track in high school. But I like a good walk. But walking doesn't give you enough of a workout in a short enough time. So I figured maybe a good hill or two might do the trick. I've been doing this since sometime in June of this year.

So here's my morning routine. The damn alarm clock goes off at 6:15 AM. I still hate to get up in the morning but now I do it pretty quickly anyhow. There's nobody to talk to so it doesn't matter if I'm grumpy. I sit up and put on the underwear and socks lying on the floor from the night before. I stand up and put on some shorts or new exercise pants that my wife recently bought me, depending on the weather. Then I put on a t-shirt followed by a fleece shirt if it's cool. Finally, I put on some old tennis shoes and make my way down stairs. Oh yeah, somewhere in the first few minutes I manage to pee. Anyhow, once downstairs I usually feed the cats and, if it's cold, put on a jacket and cap and head out the door. This is usually around 6:22 AM.

Here's an aerial photo of my walk. My guess is that its about 1.4 miles long.



We live on a decent hill so I get to start out on a pretty steep downhill. That's good since I'm rarely awake enough to climb up a hill. I just stumble along for the first few hundred feet. This time of year the sun hasn't come up yet and it's still pretty dark. I like that except it can be a little scary at times. This morning as I was passing the woods on the way down the first hill, a loud snort followed by a lot of rustling in the woods startled me a bit. I quickly realized it was probably deer. The deer get up early. Yesterday, as I was leaving the house, five of the suckers were peacefully munching on the neighbor's shrubberies. I smiled, waved and went on my way. Anyhow, I venture down the hill till I get to North Lakeshore Drive and walk along it for a short piece and then head up the big hill. When I first started walking, this hill would have me seriously puffing by the time I got to the top. It's gotten a bit easier but I still warm up a bit going up the hill and still look longingly at the peak on the way up. Then it's a short downhill followed by long gentle incline and then another little drop and I'm about half-way through.

So now I hit the second heart-smart hill. It's not quite as long as the first but I know it's there. At the peak, I take a long slow downhill back down to the lake and a flat walk back to my street. My street is nice and steep so that gets my heart going once more before I get back to the house around 6:45 AM. In the meantime, the sun's come up and the coffee has brewed and I get to kick back with a poptart and some coffee and surf the net for the days news for a half hour before I'm off to the shower, shave and out the door to work.

I don't walk on weekends.

So that's it for now.

Sometime soon I plan to talk about razors. I recently got a promo razor in the mail that has 6 blades. That should be worth a story.