Cold Blooded Lizard

For the last couple of weeks, I have been participating in the annual “Pedometer Challenge,” part of an overall wellness program offered by SVSU. There are probably prizes for the team that logs the most steps over the duration (about 8 weeks total, I think), but neither I nor any of my teammates care much about the prizes. Instead, the “Step Sisters” participate because it provides a little incentive to walk a little further and reminds us to pay attention to wellness in general. The goal is for each of us to log 10,000 steps (or about 5 miles per day). My progress to date is shown below:

Date         Steps        Miles
9/22         8109          4.1
9/23       20426         10.2
9/24       25030         12.5
9/25      13648           6.8
9/26      15657           7.8
9/27       7283            3.6
9/28     10356           5.2
9/29       8723           4.4
9/30       8723           4.4
10/1       8724           4.4
10/2       2509          1.25
10/3       8491          4.25



My average is about 11,500 steps per day, but as you can see, I only exceeded 10,000 steps on 5 of the 12 days so far. Hmmm…. How did I get to 25030 on 9/24, but only 2509 on 10/2. What was going on? Let’s take a look and see.

9/22: normal work day.  Didn't get to 10000 but that's ok.  I am just warming up.

Crazy Sculpture along Embarcadero

 9/23: Flew to San Francisco. Arrived at noon and spent the rest of the day walking along Embarcadero, Pier 39 and Chinatown. Weather was beautiful with temperatures in the upper 70’s. 20,000 steps--now we're talking.

9/24: Hiked all around San Francisco, including crossing the Golden Gate on foot, both directions. More lovely sunshine, with highs in the low 80’s.  Yes! Over 25,000.  Who's good?

The best wine was the Oberon Cab, bottled by Michael Mondavi

9/25: 8 hour wine tour in Sonoma. Today’s steps SHOULD have counted double after 24 different wines at four wineries, but I faithfully recorded the actual steps. Most of the walking occurred after a nice post-winery nap, when we walked around Golden Gate Park and along the beach. Evening was cool, but daytime temperatures were in the upper 80’s.  Nearly 14,000 steps, big drop from yesterday,but still good.





9/26: Another balmy day in San Francisco. Visited the Museum of Modern Art and Japantown. If you are ever there, go to Yoshi’s for dinner. It was great!  Over 15,000 steps-- pretty good.

9/27: Spent the day flying home, but still managed to log a reasonable number of steps.


9/28: Normal work day. After dinner, I noticed that I was coming up short for the day, so we took the doggie for a good long walk. She is nearly 14, so a ‘good long walk’ is only 1.5 miles, but it was enough to break 10,000 for the day

9/29-10/1: Normal work days. So normal that I completely forgot to reset the pedometer! OOPS! I guess I was a little stressed and a lot distracted. At least I remembered to put the pedometer on in the mornings! The three day total was 26,170, which is 8723.333 per day, so 8723, 8723, 8724 it is!  Slip sliding a bit, here...

10/2: This has got to be an all time low activity day. It was a rainy and cold day- temperatures never got out of the low 50’s. Spent a very lazy Saturday watching movies at the Hell’s Half Mile Film Festival, drinking hot coffee, reading and napping, reading some more, and napping some more by the fire. But my goodness—2500 steps!?!?? Tempting to fudge this day. What will the Step Sisters say? (Actually, what they will want to know is the title of the book , which was “Empire Falls” by Richard Russo.)

10/3: Sunnier, but still very cool. Finished the book, took another nap. It was looking like another very low activity day. I guess I needed the rest, but by late afternoon I was beginning to feel decidedly sluggish. As in slug-like.  As in slimy.  I decided that I really needed to get moving, so I ran an errand, filled the bird feeders, cleaned the cat boxes, (washed my hands), made dinner. After dinner, we took our poor beleaguered doggie for another long walk. Actually, despite her advanced age, Pip loves those evening walks. Maybe she should be the team mascot. Anyway, the late day ‘flurry’ of activity made today’s total at least sort of respectable.

Looking at this data, I draw the following conclusion. Apparently, I am a cold-blooded lizard, active on warm sunny days and pretty much dormant on cold ones. This does not bode well for winter.

In case anyone is curious how the grand plans to fulfill  Numbers 2-4  are going, I am sorry to report that I have made no real progress. Maybe the one exception is that the writing group met for the first time which was great. We each wrote about an early childhood memory; in my case, I fictionalized it somewhat since I couldn't remember the details.  It was fun to meet and now I am eager for our next meeting. As far as the piano playing goes, I  thought about finding those adult beginner piano books that I know are hiding somewhere in the house, but did not start my search yet. And, you can see how the triathlon training is going. Harumph.  I don't know how it will fit in, but one of the Step Sisters has convinced me to take a Yoga class beginning in a couple of weeks. I don't know what to expect, but at the very least, it will be interesting.

Today I am grateful for good health. My family has been blessed with strong bodies, good immune systems and generally healthy days.