This is a photo taken in November of my two walking buddies, Willow and Blaze. While I love going for walks, if the dogs didn’t pester me, I wouldn’t be as likely to head out every day for one, even though I should. Since Blaze is getting old, she’s not the one who pesters me too much these days, but Willow is downright demanding about being taken for a walk, and I’m thankful for that.
In fact, I need Willow to pester me more often because I learned something today that I should have known for years.
We’ve heard over and over that we should aim for a minimum of 10,000 steps every day, but until today, I didn’t know what that equated to in miles. I go out and walk each day — lately, a short one after lunch with both dogs (short because Blaze tires) and then a longer one with Willow in late afternoon — and I’ve surmised that I’m probably not getting the full 10,000 steps in, but I thought I might be close.
That is until today when I bothered to Google the mileage equivalent of 10,000 steps.
It’s 5 miles!!
Five full miles.
Now, I realize I don’t need to walk 5 miles at once, but even in two walks, I’m not covering even a third of that. No wonder I can’t shed any of my fat! Ugh. Aargh. And other pirate noises of disgust.
At least the days are warmer now, so I can walk outside regularly. There are many things I despise about winter, but one of the main reasons is that it’s too cold, too windy, too icy, too snowy, too dangerous to go for walks outside where I prefer to walk. I have a treadmill, and I do use it occasionally, but only occasionally because it’s NOT OUTSIDE in the fresh air. Sure, I could set it up outside, but that wouldn’t solve the not-being-able-to-walk-outside-in-the-winter problem, now would it? No, it needs to remain inside out of the elements, and I need to force myself to use it more regularly when the weather is bad.
Now that I FINALLY understand that 10,000 steps equals 5 MILES (oh my), I will work harder at walking longer distances each day. Maybe I’ll eventually work up to 5 miles. Willow and I can focus on longer walks than we’ve been taking so far in the late afternoons. Blaze definitely isn’t up to lengthy walks, but I take her out for a walk every day because it’s the only kind of exercise she gets — she’s a weird dog who has never liked to play fetch or any other “normal” dog game.
For many years, Biscuit was my walking buddy. He was a large yellow lab, and no matter what technique I tried with him, I couldn’t get him to stop pulling really hard on our walks. The best technique was simply to walk him a long ways until he tired enough to stop pulling and then enjoy a more leisurely walk with him on the way home. He and I walked very long distances, and I’m confident that I covered 5 miles a day with him on occasion. Eventually, though, as all dogs do, he got old and his hips weakened to the point that he couldn’t go for walks at all. I miss those long walks with him.
A few months after his passing, I was out for a walk with Blaze — Willow wasn’t even born yet. It was a lovely late-March afternoon in 2020. When I came home, I penned this poem. It still needs work, but I’m going to share it with you in its rough form.
Three kites dipped and fluttered -- the cool spring breeze lifted them high, along with my spirits, sunk so low from the cold rainy days and a virus that's shut down the world. A walk isn't a walk without a dog. Blaze loves to trot at my side, her joy-filled face looks from me to the road and the ditches -- her pull slackens as she begins to tire so we head home. The sky is a vibrant blue dotted everywhere with fluffy white polka dots of various sizes -- it bears no resemblance to the dismal blanket of leaden gray that lingered for days and days. Gravel slips and crunches beneath my shoes, a metal clasp thunks against a box on a pole, and Blaze's tags tinkle a gentle reply. The wind plays a bass chord through bare treetops as a gold pickup rushes by. The field behind my house is shrinking as it rapidly fills with new houses, robbing my view of nature from my deck much as the four empty Bud Light bottles ruin the natural glow of the roadside verge. A row of ten shade trees were hewn down to allow for more electrical lines and poles -- human "needs" supplant those of the flora yet leave their stumps as ugly mementos of better days for the displaced fauna. For thirteen years, Biscuit was my companion -- a large yellow Lab who loved our walks and who could go for miles in his prime. I miss him and his tugging, his sniffing, his searching. Four months of lonely walks without him. The sunlight, the breeze, the openness of being outside on a walk with Blaze lifts my spirit, and it soars with those three kites. I kept them in my sight as they danced together on the wind before one crashed to the ground.
What I like about writing a poem is that it often takes me back to the moment in time that it memorializes. I vividly remember this walk even though I’ve taken countless walks since then. You might think it’s because of the kites, but if I hadn’t written this poem after that walk, I wouldn’t even remember that I’d seen the kites. They were, however, the impetus for the poem.
I decided at the start of the year that I was going to write a haiku a day and, thus, have 366 (due to the leap year) short poems at the end of 2024. I wanted to do this because I’m often in the mood to write a poem and will even have an idea for one, but I tend to lack the time to devote to writing a lengthy poem and then the time to polish it because I’d rather work on my fiction or other things like this post. My hope is that once I have 366 haikus, I will take a few of the more meaningful ones and turn them into longer poems, but we’ll see.
Here’s one I wrote after a hike in the Black Hills with my daughter at the end of February:
Late February temperate clime forest hike my spirit refreshed
I think you can see from both of these how much I enjoy and need a daily walk and how much my spirit suffers from being kept indoors day after day during the cold, snowy, icy wintertime.
Yes, I know I should move, but that’s a topic for another day.
After realizing that I need to be walking roughly 5 miles every day in order to get the 10,000 steps I need each day so that I can even begin to lose weight — the past two winters and me getting older have been really bad to me — I downloaded a pedometer app to my phone and gave it a try after lunch.
I don’t think it’s completely accurate, but it gives me a ballpark count to my steps at the very least. The short walk with both dogs wasn’t even 2,000 steps. After taking Blaze home, Willow and I went right back out for an additional 1500, more or less.
I’m a goal setter, and when I have a way to monitor those goals, all the better, so I plan to use the app each time I’m out with the dogs, and I plan to add in another solo walk either outside or on the treadmill. Now that I finally understand (why, oh why, did it take me so darn long to understand?) the mileage equivalent, I will make it happen.
However, aside from being one of the best exercise regimens, I just like to go for walks, whether they be in nature or on the sidewalks of new cities to explore. Walking is the best way to see and experience things.
So, I need to shed the pounds in order to be able to walk greater distances for fun even. Some of my best trips have involved long walks — through Manhattan and across the Brooklyn Bridge, through San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge, all over the town of Sevilla in Spain, up and down the streets of Rome, all around Boston and Cambridge, etc. My bucket list includes walking part of the Camino pilgrimage route in northern Spain and a longer section of the Appalachian Trail than I’ve managed so far. I need to get those daily 10,000 steps in — and beyond!
If you’re a walker, what motivates you?
Until next time. If you’re a paying subscriber, you will see more of my current work in progress, but if you’re a free subscriber, you’re now going to see the paywall. If you’d care to venture beyond it to read what I’m working on next, please upgrade to paid now. That will also grant you access to the full archive of posts where you can read everything that’s been kept behind the paywall to you so far.
Tammy Marshall
Continuation of “Last in Class” — a mystery/suspense novel.
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