So far, so good...
Yesterday, Eldest and I went for our first "exercise walk," in my attempt to determine just how far I can push myself right now. With outdoor conditions being what they are right now, we went to a large mall. When we first moved out here, I remember picking up a mall walker's guide - a map of the mall printed on a card that folded to business card size. Several colour coded routes were on the map with the distances of each route. That was years ago, so my first order of business was to go to the customer service desk and see if I could pick up another one. The mall was closing (the building itself is open 24 hours, but on a Sunday, a lot of the shops were closing at 4, 5 and 6 o'clock) so there was no one at the desk, but the cards had been part of a display, along with directories and such.
No luck. Maybe mall walking died out or something, beccause I can't find anything about it, even in the mall's website. The closest I've been able to find is a reference on another site to a 6 km walking route in that mall. That would be the longest of the routes I saw. Based on that, I would guess that the walk we did last night was about 3 km. Rather short, but good for a start.
Although I timed our getting there for when the mall was closing, it was surprisingly busy. The first part of our walk, we found ourselves stepping aside and looking at displays, just to get the crowds go by. After the first quarter of the distance, though, things quieted down and we could walk normally again.
I did remember to take pain killers before we left, which was a good thing. What I quickly found was that my calves didn't appreciated the walk very much - because of the damage to my feet in particular, my calves have become over developed to compensate for the instability. As a result, they tend to tense and knot up fairly quickly. My feet and knees did get painful, but not excessively so.
I did make one mistake, though. I should have eaten something before we left. I was feeling a bit hungry when we got there, but wasn't going to grab something to eat just before walking. At the end of the walk, I found myself dizzy, light headed and shakey. As we left for home, I realized I wasn't safe to drive and we pulled over were I could quickly get myself some protein. I should have remembered this - it's a common reaction I have when I don't eat often enough, and I've found the best way to take care of it is by eating protein (carbs don't seem to help at all). After getting something to eat, I felt a lot better.
Now the important part. How my legs feel today!
The answer to that would be, great! No residual aches and pains. No patella polka. No dislocating metatarsals. Everything seems to be working just fine! If fact, I feel I could go for another walk tonight.
I'm not going to, though. I won't try 2 days in a row until next week. Instead, I'll head out again tomorrow night and do another 3km - making sure to protein up *before* I leave home.
At the moment, I'm quite encouraged by this.
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