walk

its quite nice

My walking goal for April was to take six walks out of every seven days when I wasn’t sick. I had nine migraine days, but I only missed walking on one of them. I found that walking when I had a migraine wasn’t a problem because I did the walks in the evening after the sun was low enough to be safe for me. In fact taking a walk when I have a minor migraine is a good thing to do. It helps with the pain a bit, and makes the time pass.

My total number of walks for the month is thirty one, better than the goal I was aiming for and more than one a day

So I’m going to consider this goal done. That doesn’t mean it won’t appear on my list again. Likely I will have to cut back on the walking significantly when the warm weather hits.

It’s been a great deal of fun and has made me feel good too.

Yesterday I fed apples to the deer.

I would be missing so much if I didn’t take these walks. At the end of the day they make me feel so comfortably tired.

When I can convince my dh to come along I take him so he gets the walk too. Then we go at a slower pace but that is okay. I take more brisk ones than accompanied ones.

I see a lot of deer lately. Most evenings they are on one side of the road or another.

It has been raining many an evening which means I get to walk the entire distance without seeing another pedestrian. That is blisssome.

There is hardly any snow left in the woods. And there is just one hill where you could still go sledding but that is where they ploughed beside the stables all winter and threw the snow over the hill.

I am getting much pleasure from my walks. I can still walk in the early rainy evening when I have a migraine because there is no sun. It makes all the difference.

I had a nice walk this evening. It was so very beautiful out. It wasn’t an exercise brisk walk so much as a stroll because I took my dh along and he prefers a less strenuous pace. But he is also patient enough to sit and wait and watch the horses in the paddocks while I swing at the playground, so an early evening ramble was enjoyable for both of us.

Lately I feel really good after exercise -comfortably tired. That’s such a nice feeling when I ache so good.

I have taken twenty-one walks since I started this goal on March 23rd. I am definitely meeting this goal.

If I keep talking walks until the end of April I will consider this done.

What makes me absolutely happy is that I can handle hills and do some short sprints as well as I could before winter began. Because of the exercise program I followed in the house I did not lose fitness ground over the winter.

Do you know how good that feels? that feels fantastic!

It’s very depressing. Already when I walk in the daytime I think I am courting a migraine. A couple of days now when I have completed my walk on a day full of thin spring sunshine I have ended up swallowing Advil and lying down in a darkened room. I’ve barely begun my walking habit!

However I can still try to walk in the early evening and that seems to be successful. If I leave the house by seven-thirty I can get back by dusk. This is my new program and I think it will answer very well.

It just amazes me how I can walk halfway across the park on a Tuesday morning at nine or a Friday night at eight and not see anyone else. Where are all the other people? Am I the only person who walks?

The last three walks have featured: deer, hail and an Islamic prayer group. At least I think it might have been a prayer group. Anyway it was a group of men laughing together sitting on rugs on the grass, with those head things that they wear, and a hookah. More likely it was the Islamic Koran Study Group Picnic as I think they may also have had food. You don’t see much other than Canadian Irish in Saint John so this was interesting. I miss cosmopolitain and ethnic.

Also, I am very happy to report that the North Road around Lily Lake is clear of ice. There were two brief spots where I had to scrunch through snow but nothing treacherous to the footing.

I am also pleased that the lakes are thawing visibly. They now have little strips of open water at the shore line and clear puddling in the middle. This is good. There is always the hazard in the early spring of cutting halfway across what you think is merely an open field following the long ago tracks in the snow of someone who went before, only to discover that you are on one of the many lakes, and the ice is rotten underneath you… This can no longer happen since the ice is clearly ice, not flat snow that could be on top of frozen ground or frozen water.

The buds are starting to appear on the first few trees and shrubs, and I saw one ditch willow that had pussy willows on it. The paved upper path is now completely free of both ice and flooding; you can walk the full distance between Fisher Lake and Lily Lake without having to go through snow.

However I also tried the road just to the north of Lily Lake and that was only good for the first hundred yards. It got so bad for ice that I had to clamber along on the rocks to get through a steep patch where it was just so slick there was no way to get up it on the road itself.

The cardinals and the goldfinches are starting to get their summer plumage. They are getting more colourful. And the deer have completely disappeared which means they are in covert with the new fauns.

Ca me fait les grandes plaisirs!

Today I saw crocuses! There were actually two yards where purple and white crocuses had come up where the sun warmed the side of a building! I saw the first flowers of the season. It’s official. Spring!!

And this week I’ve also seen the first thrushes. We call them robins around here but they are not since they are larger than robins and their breasts are brown. But they arrive the earliest of all the north migrating birds, showing up when the first of the grass is exposed under the snow.

I now know of several wet, semi-thawed exposed patches of brown grass. Can the mud be far behind??

It’s five degrees above freezing today!

The snow that we got two days ago was only about an inch and a half so it has melted again. Number one son went out with me on his bike. I think I got a decent little walk there because some of the time I did a bit of jogging to make it easier for him.

I would like to go out and walk six days a week during the month of April. Now to see how feasible that looks after a few more days, before I decide to officially make it a sub-goal or not.