Karen writes: Forgotten how to just walk

Its a dangerous mentality when the need to 'train' takes away from just being able to go for a walk for the sake of going for a walk, or you have an automatic reaction that says 'it's only 15 minutes, it's not worth getting dressed in running gear for that'.  And it is so easy to get into that habit so you only want to do  'real' training or nothing.

Last night I went for a walk.  I 'should' have gone to spin (last opportunity until who knows when), or I 'should' have gone for a run (marathon in just over 5 weeks for goodness sake), but I took the dog for a walk.  I had to make myself slow down a bit, get the idea of  'getting it over with' out of my head. The dog loved it, she chased birds up the beach, ignored me when she felt she could get away with it, ate suspicious items out of the tide and we wandered round the coast road till it was getting quite dark, then I remembered I wasn't running and it would take me a bit longer to get home so we turned around.

I walked out onto the wharf at Magazine bay and stood at the end of it, just soaking up the fresh air, making myself breathe deeply, emptying my head.  Wow, what a strange and unfamiliar thing to do, walking sure is different from running, what was that feeling... could it be... relaxation?  You also meet different people. A man came up to me and said "you aren't running today".  Ah, who are you was my thought...I worried that it was someone I knew, they seemed to know me, had I forgotten them somehow, perhaps it was early dementia?  "Aren't you worried about your knees and ankles with all that running?"  Ok, not someone I knew, no-one I really know would dare take that line with me.  "I see your neighbour has sold...I remember your house being built".  Ok, getting a little freaky now, but it turned out if I put an imaginary hat on his head to be a guy who lives a bit further up the road and who I ran past regularly on that stretch of road.  But still, I walked home in a thoughtful frame of mind after that, wondering what and who else I have been sleep-running past in recent times.  The dog, dear little thing she is, took advantage of me not concentrating and I eventually noticed she had chased a bird into the sea and was swimming flat out away from the beach.  Great, a wet, cold, salty dog but even that couldn't take away my new found relaxedness.

So my walk was very nice, and it was good to slow down and do something 'just because' rather than 'because I had to'.  Certainly the dog enjoyed it.  But I'm looking forward to a nice real run tonight, Kate is catching me up according to the GPS thingy...no competition between us of course!

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