A Slow Blur of a Birthday Walk

         So I turned 54 a few days ago and like last year I got greetings for two days because my friends in the Philippines and similar hemispheres are about 14 hours ahead of U.S. time. Since I was off from work those two days, I managed to individually thank all those who greeted me. Click the “Like” button and say thank you. But enough about that. For some reason I woke up very early on June 2nd and since I didn’t have anything better to do, I thought I’d go out for a long walk, perhaps in the two hour range. It didn’t turn out quite that way even though I turned around after going out for an hour. I did some meanderings into some neighborhoods instead of heading directly back home and that added another hour to the whole jaunt.
This was not one of those arm swinging, hip swiveling, face paced walks which I had been doing on Saturdays with AREC. It was more leisurely. In fact the first couple of miles were in the 17 minutes and 20 seconds per mile range. The pace picked up ever so slightly in the miles that followed but it was never forced. I hardly broke a sweat, certainly not on my brow, and just a little bit on my back. Maybe because it was a cool morning and I started early. I can’t really describe the sights and sounds of this experience because it was mostly a blur to me. My mind doesn’t quite work very well that early.
I used to do these long jaunts years ago during special occasions like New Year’s day, my birthday, 4th of July, etc., but I did it running and not more than two hours. I don’t know what came over me that I extended it to 3 hours this time. Maybe to prove that I can do it or to see what distance I can cover on an easily paced walk. I ended up with 11.35 miles at an overall pace of 15:52. If I went another half hour, I would have done a half marathon!
The aftermath of that long walk? From the shins up, everything felt ok. Below that, my ankles hurt, but not so badly. So maybe if I can keep my ankle tendons as they are come October, I just might be able to finish the Long Beach half marathon. The only question now is: walk more briskly so I can get to the finish line faster but with more pain on the ankles, or walk like I did on my birthday and get to the finish line longer but with less pain?

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