Monday, August 12, 2013

Something Strange Has Happened.....

After Saturday's Urban Hike, I swore it was too miserably hot and would never do it again. Not until Fall.
 
So when Madame texted me on Sunday asking if we wanted to try another route....I surprised myself when I agreed.  I almost couldn't believe what I was saying.
 
 
I didn't even begrudgingly agree.  I just sort of decided to go with it, but I stipulated that I wanted a nice, easy route with no wasteland/side-of-the-highway-deathwish-segments of the journey.  
 
Off we went.
 
We walked from my house towards downtown. The goal was to walk to the interstate overpass (about 2 miles from my house) and turn around and come back.
 
But when we reached the overpass....we both just kind of wanted to keep walking.  I can't really describe the feeling...it was like Forrest Gump or something. We just figured we'd made it that far and weren't really tired so why not keep going.
 
So we kept on going.
 
We got all the way to the Jax Brewery in the French Quarter and realized we'd gone over 3.5 miles. At that point we figured it was a good idea to turn around. We took the scenic route along the river levee...
 

 

Much better view than The Wasteland.
And just kept going.
 
We made it back to my house at just under 7.5 miles total.
 
 
And I am not going to lie, by then my leg muscles had reached a new level of sore.  It was weird.  I was almost afraid to stop because I knew the minute I did that it would really, really suck (and it did...I was walking like an idiot the rest of the day).
 
So this morning I did a weigh-in and was, again, pleasantly surprised that the new plan of exercise, lots of water, extra fiber, and not treating Saturdays like an All-You-Can-Eat buffet was really working.
 
 
I tried like 10 times to capture this without the flash screwing things up, but that's 152.8
 
But here's the strangest thing about all of this.  When I woke up this morning, my first thought of the day was that it would be fun to go on another walk tonight.  Me!  Wanting to work out?  Really??? 
 
Maybe in some strange way this is my version of the "runner's high" that everyone talks about.  I've somehow never felt more motivated to do this.
 
I've been keenly aware of the fact that last year when I started this blog, I gave up so abruptly. I've been reading and re-reading those past posts trying to avoid the same mistakes.   I actually happened to notice that when I reached 152.8 last year, it set off about a 2 and a half week yo-yo between 152 and 153.....  I am hell bent on avoiding that this time.
 
This time, it's full steam ahead.  I will only try to be better everyday instead of trying to find ways to cut corners.
 
I'm coming for you, NYC.