Get Up and Get Out

 Tuesday Morning, January 17, 2023, I got up and got out. 

I watched a YouTube video a few months back where the speaker spoke about breaking habits and pushing past the guilt, among other things, by just doing one simple thing when you wake up in the morning. Get Out and Walk. Not a marathon, not a sprint or a jog, just go for a walk. Then come back in the house and tackle one thing.

I have cats so I can't get up and go out immediately. I have to tend to my furbabies first, get them fed, let them out and then go out. I told myself before I went to sleep Monday night to just get out when you wake up. I'd done it before and I loved it, then I got distracted, stopped and fell back into old patterns. 

Tuesday morning I really wasn't in the mood to go for a walk. Even though walking is one of my favorite pastimes. I told my self to walk to the bridge (where the creek is) and come back. My body was achy from sitting all day Monday. Because for the second day in a row I got up and spent the entire day on Twitter, sans watching the HBOMax show Last of Us, which I paused after that plane crashed, ran to the Livingroom and began praying, because man it felt like end times and I didn't want to be in that kind of scenario alone. So, I was praying for companionship, for the world and repenting.

But, I did go out and walk Tuesday Morning. And since I wasn't planning on doing a long walk, I didn't bring water, but I did bring my mask, because there tends to be lots of walkers in the park, and I brought my Sony Walkman with me. I cued up and played Romans chapter 6. I love listening to the Bible - the only audio book I don't mind listening to. I prefer to read other books myself.

So, I got to the bridge, but just before the bridge there were three women and a toddler in a stroller, walking down a steep concrete embankment. 

And I'm like, what are they doing? Like they better not drown that baby in the creek. So I get to the bridge, looked back at them and then continue walking into that part of the park that is completed with a paved path. I ended up walking all the way down to Longenbaugh, right before the work out equipment and was shocked they removed the covering over it. It gets hot and you need that covering to use the equipment for most months in Texas.

I decided to venture onto the dirt path (they haven't finished paving the park, they just finished digging out the lakes and rerouting the creek a few months ago). It had rained earlier, but the dirt was hard packed and not sticking to my sneakers. So, listening to the Bible, the rest of the book of Romans, I continued around the lake. Stopping to watch the aquatic birds, Egrets, ducks, etc.

I get to a fork where I have to decide do I take the big loop and walk along the backside of the houses (nothing really exciting to see since the park isn't completed yet with vegetation, etc), or do I take the shorter loop. I decide to take the shorter loop with the lake to my left and the creek to my right. That way I see more birds.

And it is then that I discover why the women went down that embankment. They are exercising by walking up and down it. Two other walkers/joggers in the park decided to join them, with the toddler sitting at the bottom. And I thought, wow these women are smart. And gee, sorry I thought those bad things about them.

I look around to see if I can walk like them, because the big muscles in my legs are so constricted from sitting. And I decide against the ramp the trucks built for themselves, not steep enough. But the concrete bridge I'm walking over has inclines, some a bit gentle and then in places really steep. 

My Walkman is now on the book of Ruth and I decide to start walking down the gentle part of the embankment and build up to the really steep area. So, while listening to Ruth, I start walking down and climbing back up. What a workout and I am pumped. It is so flat where I live and since I live in a one story house, I am not getting the needed exercise for my big leg muscles.

I walk up and down that bridge concrete embankment for the entire duration of the Book of Ruth into the Song of Songs. Whew chile, those Bible books are something ELSE. I haven't read them in quite some time, and they are good reads. By the time my Walkman got to the Book of Titus, I was done walking up and down the bridge embankment and started back down the path to get to the bridge over the creek and back home. I had stopped my climbing shortly after two of the women who joined the three had stopped. And by the time I headed down the path the original three and stopped their climbing and loaded their toddler back into the stroller.

Once I got to the bridge over the creek, I decided to stretch my legs and arms so I wouldn't be achy later (and guess what over 12 hours later I am not achy). I finish stretching and turn around, there are two people on that bridge I was on before walking up and down the embankment. They must've seen me doing it and decided hey that's a good workout. When I got home I took a nice hot shower and washed my hair, and then braided it. I couldn't find my Garmin pedometer/watch, so not sure how many steps I took, but I think I may have walked 3 - 4 miles or maybe more.

I felt so pumped for the rest of the day. Oh and the one thing I did was one load of laundry. If it doesn't rain on Wednesday morning, the weather app says it will around 9 am, I will do that walk again!