Walking Again

My friend Barry (of Barry’s Blog) recently wrote a post titled What’s the Score about how we, from cradle to grave, judge ourselves (and are judged by others) by scores like school grades, job evaluations and medical measures of health.   In fact, when his post popped up in my email, I was reviewing my scores on the Fitbit that is my constant companion.   I this case, the score in question is the number of miles I walk per week.   The app on my phone tells me that exactly one year ago, I was walking over 3 miles a day.  Of course, twenty years ago, I was RUNNING 20 miles a week, and ten years before that, I was running 30 miles a week, swimming 5 and biking 100 (yes, miles a week).  Last December, my Fitbit tells me I walked slightly over a half mile a day.   By any standard, those scores tell me I am well into the physical decline known as aging.

Spring Walking Music

Winter is fighting hard to stay around this April.  During two consecutive days last week we had temperatures in the 70s only to awake to the following day to three inches of snow.   The saying is that April showers bring May flowers but we’ve had as many snow showers as rain showers as well as that undecided precipitation known as wintry mix.   As a California transplant I have learned to walk in the cold but I draw the line at snow and wintry mix, mainly because I don’t want to risk a fall at my age.  I have managed to keep up my 6000 steps per day by store walking (thank you, Home Depot, Target, Walmart and Costco) but I miss my music.   No, I don’t  know why I don’t just put in my earbuds inside but I don’t … maybe I’m afraid the sight of an old guy singing along with Bohemian Rhapsody would frighten the clientele.

Park Adventures

Even when I had Younger Eyes, I was never particularly adventuresome.   I might ride a particularly frightening roller coaster when pressed by my friends or try white water rafting in the Colorado river.   But there was no skydiving or bungie jumping, even though there was a part of me that wondered what it would be like.   In my forties, I ran 13 marathons and participated in a dozen triathlons … I guess hanging on for the last few miles of 26.2 … or swimming in high surf half a mile off the shore at seven in the morning with hundreds of other exercise-nuts qualifies as an adventure.   But now that I’m in my seventies, my adventures are more passive … and they usually take place at Yorba Regional Park where I spend an inordinate amount of my time.  While spotting a particularly fat ground squirrel or seeing a newly hatched baby bluebird might not bring the burst of adrenaline true adventurers crave, they are exactly the what this old curmudgeon craves.   Septuagenarians need endorphins, not adrenaline.

Older Knees

Many years ago (shortly after that nasty asteroid put an end to the dinosaurs, I believe), I was running on the Santa Ana River trail, approaching the halfway point of my long Saturday run, about an hour out from my starting point, Yorba Regional Park.  I was minding my own business and in that relaxed place often  described as a runner’s high.   From the bike path, which travels along side the dirt trail I was running on, a passing bicyclist shouted, That will ruin your knees!  I have no idea what motivates people like that.  Perhaps he had ruined his own knees running and wanted to spread the word.   Perhaps he was just a horse’s ass.  I’d like to think I ignored him but I was in my arrogant forties, so it is likely I shouted a response, somewhere between, Mind your own business and Go (have a certain sex act with) yourself.  Of course, even then, I knew there was some truth in what he had shouted … I’d already had arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn meniscus and was running with orthotic inserts in my shoes to correct  a leg length discrepancy that was giving me … hello … sore knees.  But I loved running.

Walking Music

As micro-SD cards have grown in capacity and come down in price, I have gradually moved almost my entire digital music collection to my smartphone.  That includes music purchased in the mp3 format, mostly from Amazon music, about 75% of my CD collection that I ripped to mp3 files on my computer, and even some mp3s recorded from vinyl.  That means that there are something north of 6000 music files traveling with me every day.  I have very eclectic musical tastes ranging from what we used to call hard rock to jazz to the most delicate of chamber pieces and sting quartets.  I also like my music loud.  My wife, Muri, does not, not like her music loud or share my broad tastes.  As a result, I listen to music my way mostly when I am alone in the car or on headphones.   My Bose Quiet Comfort headphones are my favorite when I’m working or napping in my recliner.  Yes, I like my music loud when I nap  But in the park, particularly when I’m walking I prefer earbuds.  Therefore, walking is when I explore old … mostly forgotten … favorites in my collection.  One way to do this is to put my music player app, PowerAmp, into its Shuffle All mode, giving a random assortment of 6,000 plus songs.  Yes, that sometimes means listening to Diana Krall singing Jingle Bells in June or putting up with with that one clunker on the Electric Light Orchestra’s Greatest Hits.  But I also get to hear forgotten favorites like Sting’s When We Dance.

One Thing … or Another

My birthday is now three weeks behind me.   Yet, I find myself continuing to think about … and yes, here on Top Sites Tuesday #256, write about … being seventy.  Some might say I’m obsessed with being seventy but the truth is, I’m just astonished to be here so quickly.  And, as an observer of life, I’m intrigued by how it feels.   The most common reaction of friends and family to my septuagenarian rants is something to make me feel better like, You’re only as old as you feel.  Having never been seventy, I haven’t a clue how seventy should feel, so that doesn’t help much.  I can tell you for sure, it feels no different than sixty-nine and quite a bit different than sixty-four, my age when I started Older Eyes – Bud’s Blog.  How?  Let me bring in an outside expert to explain it to you.

How Far and How Fast

Thirty years ago, my wife, Muri, made the mistake of referring to me as a jogger.  At the time, I was running about 25 miles a week, swimming 4 or 5, and and biking 50.  I’m not a jogger, I told her, I’m an athlete.  Arrogance comes easy for forty-something men.   Not so much for sixty-something men, especially when the something is nine and my exercise consists mostly of walking, although I still occasionally drag out my old Panasonic bike for a few miles around the park.   One habit that hasn’t changed from my running days, though, is that I still like variety on my walks so I don’t know the distance along my routes.  So, this week, I tried a couple Android apps to keep track of my distance.  There are two ways to go: the smartphone version of the old-fashioned pedometers that count steps and multiply by an average step length to get distance; and the modern version, which determines distance from GPS.

Walkers and Hoppers

Memorial Day weekend signals the unofficial beginning of summer here in Socal, which is when My Park becomes The Park. With school out, bevies of mothers bring their children to the park for play groups, Mommy and Me Boot Camps and stroller-jogging.  I love the kids, except when they chase my ducks, but the Moms?  Let’s just sat that a substantial percentage of North Orange County moms think the birth of their baby gave them special rights on the park trails … one of which is never having to move over for anything, especially old guys on bikes. And that’s not the worst of it. Weekends bring Weekend Walkers. Weekend Walkers travel in packs of two to five … and they don’t so much walk as stroll. I don’t object to

Monday Smiles – 1/10/2011

When I was in my forties, the arrival of the New Year meant getting serious about training for the Long Beach Marathon, getting my Saturday run along the Santa Ana River trail up over twenty miles.   Back then, I was insulted if someone called me a jogger instead of a runner, and although I sometimes ended up walking during the final miles of a marathon, as regular exercise, I thought walking was for old people.  It turns out I was right.  For the last two weeks I’ve been trying to keep the Great Unspoken Resolution that so many of us make but don’t tell … you, know – eat better, exercise, lose weight.  I’ve started The 10-Minute Total Body Breakthrough