Aging well

It Took Me an Hour to Walk Around the Block and I’m Perfectly Happy

Because health is about more than steps and speed

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

I laced up my shoes, slathered on my sunscreen, grabbed my visor and sunglasses. Then I hit the “Outdoor Walk” button on my Apple Watch and strode forth.

My intention was to polish off a productive day with a good, fast trek, the last item on my To Do list. And so off I went, arms pumping, heels striking with bone-building vigor, breathing in the fresh air of a spring afternoon.

At the rate I was going, I figured I could rack up a mile and a quarter in the 20 minutes I had before feeding the dog and cat (they don’t agree on much but they both take dinner time seriously).

I was off to a great start. Maybe I’d make a mile and a half, which is roughly the circumference of our entire neighborhood.

Two doors down, a neighbor’s new Weimeraner came bounding up to the fence, desperate to say hello. Naturally I stopped for some through-the-fence puppy love. As my hands were beslimed in delerious dog kisses, the pup’s owner emerged from his house.

I haven’t had a chance to talk to this neighbor much. I knew he’d been caretaking his wife, who was stricken with progressive vascular dementia…