The Hated Walk
Four weeks and 4 days until I have open heart surgery...
I'm sorry I haven't written. After working all day on Saturday, I couldn't bring myself to even turn on the computer on Sunday. And last night after I got home from work, RobbieMax, Will, and I went bike shopping. For me. And I got a new bike!
And this brings me to my subject at hand - walking.
I prefer to live the sedentary life.
I haven't always felt this way. I danced throughout my childhood and on danceline in college. (I was never a "ball" sport girl. I was ALWAYS that girl in Phy. Ed. that got hit in the face with the ball. My face is a ball magnet.)
But as I get older and my job gets more demanding and I get more fatigued, there's nothing I want to do more when I get home from work than to put on my PJs and read or watch TV.
But that is not my life anymore. According to my cardiologist, I have to walk. Five days a week. And I have to get my heart rate up to 120 BPM and sustain that for about 20-25 minutes. It's not hard to get it up there, but it is hard to sustain it. And I feel quite conspicuous and dorky having to stop and check my heart rate, looking at my watch while my fingers are on my neck pulse when other people are walking or driving by. They probably think I'm very strange or a young heart patient. Let's face it - I am both.
I've been walking 3-5 days a week, two and a half miles a day, since the end of March, and I've built up some endurance, which will help my recovery.
But I HATE to walk. I never look forward to the walk, I only look forward to being done with the walk. I feel that way even when I'm walking. Sad, but true.
So to change things up a bit, we've been bike riding (well, once). I have this old men's mountain bike that I bought 10 years ago when I was both much younger and much more limber. It's a study in hilarity watching me trying to get on and off that bike. My leg doesn't go that high anymore, and the middle bar is quite high. It also has a steel frame, which makes the bike very heavy and cumbersome. The one time we went riding a few weeks ago, I had so much trouble getting on and off (the dang bike bucked me off, I swear) and pedaling up hills. So, we decided that maybe I would ride more if I got a new bike. A girl's bike. With a middle bar that wasn't so high.
This brings us to yesterday. We shopped for over three hours, and went to 3 different places. And of course, we ended up buying the most expensive (would I have anything less?), yet the most comfortable and cute bike, and the one at the first bike shop we went to.
My new bike is a Raleigh Venture - it's a comfort bike. This means that I'm sitting upright instead of leaning far over to the handlebars like on my old bike. What a change for my back! My new bike has the most comfortable seat on which I've ever ridden. It only has 7 gears, which is even more than I need. My bike is pearly white, and the middle bar is so low, that I do not need to be an acrobat to get on. I LOVE IT! It's so cute - it's like a VW Bug instead of an old muscle car.
So of course, even though we got home after 9 we still had to take a bike ride. In the dark. But that was okay, because my bike has reflectors on the back of the seat and in the front of my handlebars.
And I made it up all the hills without having to walk the bike up! Of course, I put the gears into the lowest gears (on the "spazz" gears with my legs flying at 100 MPH). But I conquered those hills, even if I looked funny doing it!
Yes, biking is a nice and fun alternative to walking. I'm actually looking forward to getting out on that bike today, spazzy gears and all.
I'm sorry I haven't written. After working all day on Saturday, I couldn't bring myself to even turn on the computer on Sunday. And last night after I got home from work, RobbieMax, Will, and I went bike shopping. For me. And I got a new bike!
And this brings me to my subject at hand - walking.
I prefer to live the sedentary life.
I haven't always felt this way. I danced throughout my childhood and on danceline in college. (I was never a "ball" sport girl. I was ALWAYS that girl in Phy. Ed. that got hit in the face with the ball. My face is a ball magnet.)
But as I get older and my job gets more demanding and I get more fatigued, there's nothing I want to do more when I get home from work than to put on my PJs and read or watch TV.
But that is not my life anymore. According to my cardiologist, I have to walk. Five days a week. And I have to get my heart rate up to 120 BPM and sustain that for about 20-25 minutes. It's not hard to get it up there, but it is hard to sustain it. And I feel quite conspicuous and dorky having to stop and check my heart rate, looking at my watch while my fingers are on my neck pulse when other people are walking or driving by. They probably think I'm very strange or a young heart patient. Let's face it - I am both.
I've been walking 3-5 days a week, two and a half miles a day, since the end of March, and I've built up some endurance, which will help my recovery.
But I HATE to walk. I never look forward to the walk, I only look forward to being done with the walk. I feel that way even when I'm walking. Sad, but true.
So to change things up a bit, we've been bike riding (well, once). I have this old men's mountain bike that I bought 10 years ago when I was both much younger and much more limber. It's a study in hilarity watching me trying to get on and off that bike. My leg doesn't go that high anymore, and the middle bar is quite high. It also has a steel frame, which makes the bike very heavy and cumbersome. The one time we went riding a few weeks ago, I had so much trouble getting on and off (the dang bike bucked me off, I swear) and pedaling up hills. So, we decided that maybe I would ride more if I got a new bike. A girl's bike. With a middle bar that wasn't so high.
This brings us to yesterday. We shopped for over three hours, and went to 3 different places. And of course, we ended up buying the most expensive (would I have anything less?), yet the most comfortable and cute bike, and the one at the first bike shop we went to.
My new bike is a Raleigh Venture - it's a comfort bike. This means that I'm sitting upright instead of leaning far over to the handlebars like on my old bike. What a change for my back! My new bike has the most comfortable seat on which I've ever ridden. It only has 7 gears, which is even more than I need. My bike is pearly white, and the middle bar is so low, that I do not need to be an acrobat to get on. I LOVE IT! It's so cute - it's like a VW Bug instead of an old muscle car.
So of course, even though we got home after 9 we still had to take a bike ride. In the dark. But that was okay, because my bike has reflectors on the back of the seat and in the front of my handlebars.
And I made it up all the hills without having to walk the bike up! Of course, I put the gears into the lowest gears (on the "spazz" gears with my legs flying at 100 MPH). But I conquered those hills, even if I looked funny doing it!
Yes, biking is a nice and fun alternative to walking. I'm actually looking forward to getting out on that bike today, spazzy gears and all.
posted by Julia Hart at
8:39 AM
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