It\u2019s early Wednesday afternoon. I just sat down after crossing the 8000-step mark on my way to today\u2019s 10,000. There\u2019s a reason I stopped to write this. A few minutes ago, I passed the 19-million mark! That adds up to 8114 miles and 32.64% of the earth\u2019s circumference. One step at a time. (Notice I didn\u2019t round up to 33%. I don\u2019t round up, not when I\u2019m counting words, and not when I\u2019m counting steps!)<\/p>\n
I did inside steps today and yesterday both. When I\u2019m outside on my \u201crunning track\u201d front driveway, I can march off a mile in 31 minutes flat. Today, inside, the same distance took 45 minutes. What\u2019s the difference? Outside, my route includes long straightaways as well as some gentle curves and big circles. My inside route includes lots of tight corners and small circles which will become even smaller once the Christmas decorations go up. Yesterday and today, however, with alternating flurries of snow and sleet, inside steps are the order of the day.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the result of hard-won experience. Several years ago, I was outside marching away when I noticed that the front driveway was frosting up. Deciding to finish walking inside, I came in through the front door and started toward our bedroom. Unfortunately, the soles of my Skechers were still icy. Once I set floor on the slick entryway tile, I went airborne and did a close reenactment of a Wonder Woman flight. I was pretty much horizontal at eye level when my face sideswiped the door jamb. Then I tumbled to the floor. I hit hard enough that the silver chain on my necklace broke and disappeared, never to reappear, not even when we removed the carpet and installed hardwood a year or two later. And guess what? That year someone gave me a Wonder Woman tee-shirt for Christmas!<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not one to take selfies, but I took one the next morning. I\u2019m not posting it for good reason. There\u2019s not a doubt in my mind that it would instantly go viral. It would also frighten small children, but trust me, the resulting bruises were spectacular. So no, when it\u2019s slushy outdoors, I walk inside, tight corners or not.<\/p>\n
As I walk along in my comfortable shoes with their arch-support insoles, I often think about the people who suffered their way through the Bataan Death March. I doubt most of those poor folks had shoes at all as they trudged through the jungle. A couple I knew in Bisbee were part of that, and I know that being without shoes was probably among the least of their hardships.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know exactly how long I\u2019ve been doing my steps\u2014six years now or maybe seven. The doctor who first put me onto this path has long since retired. And I don\u2019t know how long I\u2019ll be able to keep it up. When I\u2019m out where I know the territory, I can walk at a pretty good clip, but when I\u2019m in unfamiliar places, I\u2019m a bit tottery\u2014not a \u201clittle old lady\u201d but a \u201ctottery\u201d one.<\/p>\n
And now that I\u2019ve written this down, I\u2019ll get up and finish. By the time the day is over, I\u2019ll have a small down payment on the next benchmark\u2014twenty million steps here I come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s early Wednesday afternoon. I just sat down after crossing the 8000-step mark on my way to today\u2019s 10,000. There\u2019s a reason I stopped to write this. A few minutes ago, I passed the 19-million mark! That adds up to 8114 miles and 32.64% of the earth\u2019s circumference. One step at a time. (Notice I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-H2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2669,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668\/revisions\/2669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}