I See Bike People

Maybe it's just me, but now that I've been walking purposefully for almost a month, I sense some solidarity with the people riding bikes. I've given the thumbs up a couple times and turned some heads. The same goes for runners, which is kind of like doing what I'm doing, only faster. I notice how many people are out walking, running and biking and there are a lot of us.

Some of the bicycle riders seem to be having fun and some look pretty darn serious. I've observed that runners almost always look serious. These are just some observations from someone who seems to have discovered a view of the world that he had been missing. Are you missing it? Like John Lennon sang, "I hope someday you'll join us..."

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I'm going to stick with this website for a while. Please send your friends to Big Man Walking and tell them to click on the title of the post. Send them to http://TheBigManWalking.blogspot.com.
By clicking on the title of the post you'll be taken to...you'll see. What a genius idea. People are having fun, learning and people are getting fed! I love the internet sometimes.

Walking While People Watching

I dropped my son off for calculus and found a parking space that was further away from the campus than I had hoped. No problem. I'll just walk a little more. He just has 50 minutes of class at the campus today, so there's no reason to go back home. I walked to the northern classrooms and back down to the student union several times and while I did that I watched the people. Mostly young. College students seem amazingly young. I remember Dana Carvey on the Tonight Show with that other host...what was his name? Oh, yeah...Johnny Carson. Johnny commented on how young he looked and he said something like, "You should have seen me when I FIRST started. I looked like a fetus with shoes." I wouldn't quite go that far, but maybe embryonic is close. (And if you don't KNOW who Dana Carvey is, you might be really young. Ever seen the movie Wayne's World? He plays Garth.)

I liked seeing all the different faces and hearing the occasional bits of cell phone conversation. I saw people in earnest conversation in the student union. Some people sitting alone. A group telling each other stories loudly outside the bookstore. Two different guys greeting to different girls with nothing more than a raised eyebrow and tilt of the head. A dozen people about my age.

I only noticed one other person out of hundreds who seemed to be walking for exercise and I remembered a conversation with the dad of one of my son's friends. He is in good, even great shape and I think that's why he thinks of walking as boring. His wife was training for a half-marathon or something and he ran with her just to keep her company. I guess that if you can RUN a half-marathon, walking might seem that way. We all have to start somewhere. Plus, when you actually start walking more, if you pay attention, you'll see and hear things while you walk that are actually interesting. I urge you to walk more, even if you are like the guy I wrote about in the previous post who started out unable to do 40 yards. If you can do nothing else, you can do an extra 100 steps a day. I know that's not true for so many of you. Can you do 30 extra steps an hour? That's in the neighborhood of a quarter mile a day. I'm sure you can do a quarter mile, half mile, mile or two or more from the start. Measure your walking and exercise in general against your past performance. With walking, using a pedometer is an easy way to measure, provided you get one that works. I like my step pedometer and that's what I recommend until I explore other pedometric (I'm pretty sure that's a word.) options. The thing is, whether it's 100 steps or 5000 steps or more, you must take that first step. Take that step today.

I am walking. You can walk. Please walk today. No matter what.

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My honey met someone in Florida who told her about a site where we can have a little fun, pass a little time, learn a little and truly be of service to people. It's called FreeRice.com and they gave away a lot of rice yesterday and they will again today. They are feeding people and you can (essentially) play a game to help feed those people. Awesome. What a genius. I think for the foreseeable future I will put that link under the title of each post.

Walking By The Pool

National Weather Service confirms that technically speaking, it's C-O-L-D here. I was walking the dog a little bit ago and saw two guys in the pool area. One was walking in the pool and it's not the first time. The other was in our complex's jacuzzi. I got to talking with guy in the pool who said he's 67 and a couple years ago he couldn't walk 40 yards. Now he walks in the pool for exercise on a regular basis and can walk a mile at a time. I hope you can walk more than 40 yards, but if you can't right now our "pool guy" is a hopeful sign for you. I told him that I've walked around 120 miles since January 1 and he told me to keep it up. That's how he started to tell me his story. Walking can open up conversations with people you haven't met before, if you let it. There's a little bit of a feeling that we're all in this (struggle?) together. Join us.

I am walking. You can walk. Please walk today. No matter what.

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Click on the title of this post to read about water or pool walking.