Most mornings I get up - not too early, I admit, but it’s got better since the sun has started coming up earlier - and run round the village, or occasionally along the Donkey Line, probably a little over three kilometres. My Fitbit tells me I have done well over 5,000 steps, which is half of my goal for the day. Not bad for before breakfast. I return home, shower and have a leisurely breakfast. By the time the breakfast stuff has been tidied away, quite a large chunk of the morning has gone. That’s just how it is. I suppose that’s why determined runners who are still in work get up and run at six in the morning! Such dedication! But I don’t often have deadlines to meet or buses to catch.
On a Wednesday, instead of running I get on my bike, as I have said many times before, and cycle to Uppermill. There I buy fruit and veg, fish and bread, olives and sun-dried tomatoes from the delicatessen, and anything else I fancy and can manage to fit in my panniers. Then I cycle home again. I’ve probably covered six or eight kilometres, maybe more! Usually an even larger chunk of the morning has slipped away. So it goes.
And my crazy Fitbit, that knows I have been on my bike but has a bit of a problem with measuring my progress, tells me I have done 2,000 steps, about 1.5 kilometres! Is that all?! It’s all a bit of nonsense, of course, but if I haven’t cycled hard and fast enough it doesn’t even recognise that I have done some daily exercise! Crazy technology! And as a rule I go for a walk at some point ... just to show the crazy technology who is boss!
So yesterday, in the early afternoon, planning to beat the forecast rain ... which didn’t actually arrive ... we went in search of bluebells again. Down the path behind factory ... rather muddy from recent rain but not too bad ... and up and down steps and paths through the trees we went. And the bluebells were fine.
Not quite peak bluebell season we decided, but coming on nicely.
There were some nice skyscapes to admire as well.
And after that my Fitbit told me I had done 8,000+ steps, including the 2,000 “cycling” steps from the morning. Pottering about the house doing this and that, I reached by 10,000 steps target some time in the evening!
I usually document our “adventures” with photos of social media. When I was going into Manchester on Tuesday, on the bus I met an old friend and former neighbour. In our catch-up chat she told me how she enjoys my photos because, as she went on to say, her walking days are over. She’s lucky if she can manage to walk the few hundred yards from her house to the village centre! Wow! How sad to be surrounded by all our good walking places and to feel unable to take advantage. It’s probably the walking that keeps us sane.
Coincidentally my friend Colin sent us an article from Private Eye about the benefits of walking. Thank you, Colin!
Here’s a sample:-
“The great outdoors
One way to reduce fear and anxiety in a pandemic is to emphasise what can be done as well as what can't: "Stay at home or walk outside" would have been a much better message. The chances of catching the virus outside are minimal compared to inside. Most of those infected were sitting or lying still. in still air where the virus hangs around in tiny droplets. So walking in fresh air is a sure way to avoid infection. It also profoundly improves health.
Walking cure
There is no drug yet invented which matches the physical and mental health benefits of walking outdoors. It reduces anxiety, lifts mood, helps you sleep better and improves cardiorespiratory, metabolic and musculo-skeletal health. Those who can't walk (or wheel), or who suffer post-exertional malaise when they overdo it, have a good excuse. For the vast majority. the amount of physical activity done over a lifetime increases both length and quality of life, and reduces the risk of all manner of disease. The best way to avoid Covid is not to catch the virus. But if you do, the fitter you are, the far more likely you are to recover.
In 2005, researchers studied 1,705 Australian men over 70 and measured how fast each man walked. Five years later, 266 men had died, but no one who could walk faster than 1.36 metres per second at the outset (or 5km/h) had died. As the researchers observed: "Faster speeds are protective against mortality because fast walkers can maintain a safe distance from the Grim Reaper." And coronavirus.
The fitter you are at any age, the less you fall.
The more you need help getting out of a chair or off the toilet, the easier you are to infect. The bottom line: if you can walk, walk - quick enough to make you pleasantly breathless but not so fast you can't enjoy the surroundings.”
So I guess we’ll keep on doing what we do. And I’ll let the Fitbit cajole me into getting up and walking.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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