Project: Exercise Walks
Status: as mentioned below
Several days ago, I timed an exercise-walk for the first time this year, 2025. I wasn’t sure what to expect. My late January through early Mar serious illness zapped a good bit of my strength. I have recovered some of my loss, but how much? During 2023 and 2024, I clocked in at a fairly consistent 2.5 mph, give or take a few minutes one way or the other on any given day. I ought to point out that my route now measures some 2.65 miles, much of the increase being along the “incline from hell”.
(I once tried to find out how many “steps” my route is, but ran out of fingers before the halfway point.)
To my great surprise, I clocked in at 2.94 mph! Admittedly, I could tell from the start that, barring the unexpected, it would be one of my better post-illness walks. Still, I had expected to, at best, match my average 2023/4 speed.
Speaking of the incline-from-hell, I include a Google Earth image taken partway up it. Until late last year, I walked to the far end of the maintenance building parking space, then made a U-turn and began my descent. I then extended the walk to the lone tree seen left of the street at mid-distance. The first time I did so, I felt a sharp, thankfully brief pain in my chest at the tree, as I was turning around. I knew then and there that I had to visit the tree during every walk. It would either make my heart stronger or finish me, one of those options being preferred but either being acceptable. Nowadays I walk past the tree a ways before turning back, with no hint of chest pain, though my legs often rebel.
<link>
image of the incline-from-hell <link>