Run, run, as slow as you can...

I have gotten quite out of shape over the years. While I was never into sports or other physical activities beyond walking, I did get a fair amount of walking done while I was in school. And then during the times while living in Surrey that I didn't own a car I had to walk to and from the bus when I went to work each day. For a while after the office and I moved to Abbotsford, I even walked or biked to work, which was a good 40 minute walk each way.

After I finally got another car, that stopped but I still made a point of walking to the stores or mall, which are a 20-30 minute walk away, and had the occasional walk at the park or around the neighborhood. Eventually, though, that all seemed to fade away and the extent of my real physical activity became just occasionally moving around boxes and containers at work and any chores I did around the house. But my fingers certainly still got a good workout from all those video games!

But that has to change. I'm certain that most of my health concerns would fade if I took better care of myself. Part of that involves eating better, which is always a struggle for a single person who doesn't often enjoy taking too much time cooking. Another part would be making sure I get any medical assistance that would help improve my quality of life.

But I think the main thing is to finally start getting more active and getting back into shape. Fortunately, it's much easier when it's such nice weather out like we've had here lately, and I find myself looking for any excuse to be outside (for example, I'm even sitting out on my patio as I write this). I started out by taking a good 20 minute walk around the neighborhood each night this week. But even when walking at a faster pace and for that amount of time, it didn't feel like my heart was getting that good a workout. That's when I remembered a nice outdoor track I've seen that I heard was open to the public.

So I swung by this evening to check it out and see what I could do. Well if I didn't know it before, I know now that I'm definitely out of shape. Each lap appears to be 500m, and I decided I'd had enough and switched down to a walking pace before completely finishing two laps (the RunKeeper app I have indicated my "almost-2-laps" was 0.83km and took 5½ minutes). But it certainly gave my heart a good workout! I might have been able to keep jogging a little longer, but I didn't want to overdo it on my first try. Plus I probably would have been completely out of breath before being anywhere near finished the third lap anyway.

So my challenge to myself is to go back to the track every evening between now and my vacation in just under two weeks. And hopefully while on vacation I'll have a chance to do some jogging too, or at least I'm sure there will be a fair number of walks. And playing with my two young nephews is bound to give me quite the workout too.

But since the weather is supposed to continue being really nice for the next couple weeks it shouldn't be too hard to make sure I do it every evening. I'll hopefully see a decent improvement in just that short time. And who knows, maybe if I keep this up, by the end of the summer I'll be able to do 10 laps rather than almost two.