Thursday, July 2, 2020

walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain

In an effort to give my pacemaker a break and keep this heart going for at least a little while longer, I’ve been trying to do a lot more walking and am then keeping a count of my steps on my iPhone.  8000 to 10,000 steps a day (4 to 5 miles) is a cool goal, but, man, is it hard to get cooperative outdoor weather:  it’s too hot, too cold, too rainy, too windy, etc., and an excuse is all I need to not walk on any given day!  Today, for instance, it was 91 degrees, muggy and windy.  I especially hate the wind, because it seems like no matter what direction I’m walking, I’m going into the wind.

So for some of those weather-forecast-unfriendly days, two or three days a week, I’ve become an early morning mall-walker at the Mall of America, that mega-mall a few miles from me.  It’s perfect for a just-barely-motivated walker like me because it is circular around a big center space of carnival rides and has four levels of interesting but un-tempting chain-store fronts. Except for Starbucks, the stores aren’t open until later in the morning, so a skinny latte is my reward at the end of the trek.

And there are other aging mall-walkers every day there too, probably recovering from heart attacks or knee-replacement surgery, so I’m never walking alone.

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