My health-related New Year’s Resolution this year is to walk 500 miles, a la The Proclaimers. To do that, I need to walk 1.37 miles per day or about 20-30 minutes.
And that sure seems easy until the weekend drift hits.
Do you know what weekend drift is? When you’re on your game Monday through Wednesday, everything on your to-do list is on track. You’re rocking, rolling even, and sleep is nothing but an afterthought. You can make up for it Saturday.
By Thursday, you start to relax and mentally prepare for the weekend. You make a cocktail, relax a bit on a patio somewhere if it’s warm enough, and you miss a day. Then on the weekend, you might fill your hours with errands that keep you away from a walk outside or the treadmill.
All I’m saying is: Even the 500-mile quest isn’t cake. You at least have to think about it and do it. It won’t happen by osmosis. As for my first week, it went quite well although I definitely experienced the weekend drift.
Totals for the first nine days of the new year:
- Jan. 1: 2.772 miles in 64:00
- Jan. 2: 1.747 miles in 40:00
- Jan. 3: 1.745 miles in 37:12
- Jan. 4: 2.100 miles in 45:00
- Jan. 5: 1.669 miles in 40.05
- Jan. 7: 1.944 miles in 42:15
- Jan. 9: 3.1 miles in 52:45
The last of these treks was part walk, part run – and it felt really good. It was a reminder of my days training for the Oklahoma City half, which at 235 lbs. isn’t an immediate goal, not running it isn’t. For what it’s worth, I followed Sunday with a 2-mile walk Monday with zero sign of leg, knee or back stress.
That’s a total of 15.077 miles in nine days, which puts me on pace for just over 610 miles for the year.
Yeah. So far, so good.
