From Marathon to Waterloo

Today I–along with my dog–took my husband’s car down to the local garage for an oil change; we then walked back home.  It was a walk of maybe three blocks, uphill.  I was winded by the time I got home.  So was my poor dog.

This taught me an important lesson.  I am out of shape (and so is my dog).  But that’s not the lesson–I knew that.  The lesson was–I need to get into shape.  Not because I want to look pretty or fit into my old clothes (though that would be nice), but because if I’m going to spend a month walking around London, Paris, and Barcelona, I don’t want it to be painful.  So I need to start…training.

People typically use the word ‘training’ in reference to marathons, but let’s be realistic, that’s not something I’m ever going to do.  I have no desire and, more than that, I do not have the ability and I never shall.  But I do have the desire to be moderately physically fit and able to enjoy a day of somewhat serious sightseeing and not have to sit down every five hundred feet to rest.  I want to bound up the steps of the Eiffel Tower, to run to catch a double decker bus.  I want to stroll along the Thames, the Seine, and along the Mediterranean on Rambla del Mar without wheezing, huffing or puffing.  And right now, I can’t walk up my own hill in my own backyard without exerting myself.  Something must be done.

I shall start walking to work tomorrow–and before any of you who do not know me in real life start to gasp, please know I live as close to work as I do to afore mentioned local garage.  It is a less than fifteen minute walk each way.  I drive there and back every day just the same–this could account for my out-of-shape-ness.  So tomorrow begins my spring of walking to work.  It should be super easy, especially tomorrow; because my husband’s car is at the garage, I won’t have a car of my own to drive even if I wanted to.  But the day after tomorrow–that might be a bit of a challenge.  And the day after that?  I think they are calling for rain.