At my eight-week visit, I asked if I could stroll her through the neighborhood, but they didn't want me to get away from the house, especially with a baby in a stroller, and have another blood-pressure event, leaving me essentially helpless. So I hadn't so much as walked around the block since I had Amelia.
All that changed yesterday evening, when I pulled on my running shorts, laced up my shoes and clipped on my pedometer before I left work. And here is what I learned:
- Stretching alone can be painful if you haven't done it in five months.
- I'd already walked 2,200 steps yesterday by the time I started stretching. But we're supposed to walk, you know, TEN THOUSAND every day.
- My iPod doesn't work anymore unless it's plugged into its base. So it died while I was stretching.
- But my songs are loaded on my phone, so YEA!
- My phone has some sort of setting that when it's shaken, the songs shuffle. As I began to walk, it shuffled to a new song about every 10 seconds. THAT WASN'T ANNOYING AT ALL.
- I piddled with it until I figured out that you have to make the screen inactive before you move so that it doesn't count your body shakes as an invitation to shuffle songs.
- If I piddle with my phone while walking, I will trip.
- The two-mile route that I covered took me 5,000 steps.
- Leaving me 1,800 short for the day.
- I'm gonna have to up my game.
But the important thing is, I'm back in the saddle. Wish me luck.
