Walking: The Superior "Sport"

The fife-and-drum-corps that is my nose roused me from a heavy sleep this morning, just in time to make the sunrise at Holmes Lake.   Sluggish, one foot still planted in my dreams,  I pointed the Altima eastward, hitting every red light along the way.   If I were a runner, the amber disruptions would've agitated me.

But I'm not, so they didn't.  Not really.

Along the way, Finn kept sticking his snout in my ear, snuffling a little.  We may have different ways of expressing our excitement for the lake, but ours is a shared enthusiasm.

We left the parking lot and made our way up the dam, anxious to take a look around.   One of the great things about walking is that you can stop walking at any time and just stand there.  In fact, just standing there is a big part of walking.

So Finn and I just stood there, silent, while the sun started peeking over the horizon.  For the next few minutes, I watched our shadows stretch across the dam and over the grasses until I eventually found myself in the living room of that lovely house on the hill.   And then I turned my attention towards the lake, where a dive-bombing, fish-hunting hawk plunged into the waters in search of breakfast.

We stood, immobile but hardly unmoved.

A pride of runners disrupted our reverie, their lycra-clad bodies whizzing by, not a nod or grunt tossed our way.  And, in some small part of my mind, I felt bad for them, certain that they'd missed the show in their noisy pursuit of the perfect heart-rate-to-body-fat ratio.

Standing still is never the goal in a runner's life, which makes no sense at all to a walker.

I've tried to understand the running culture.  Heck, one summer, I ran around Woods Park each morning for ten days, seeking to find out what the draw was.  I came away with shin splints and a growing fear of plantar fasciitis, not a sunrise or bird encounter emblazoned in my mind.

I have friends who run on purpose.  We remain close despite that fact, because that's what friends do, overlook each other's shortcomings in favor of companionship.  I figure running, for them, is a compulsion, like picking at a scab or double checking that the coffee maker is off.

The thing that runners don't seem to understand is that there are other--quieter and calmer--ways to get your heart rate up.   Coming off the dam this morning, I watched a blue heron glide above the water, casually pursued by a handful of red-winged blackbirds, until it settled on a large rock in the middle of the shallow channel.  Had I checked my FitBit, I'd have seen my heart rate spike at 150.

Slow and steady wins the race, so the saying goes.  But, to a walker, the saying is all wrong, because there is no race.  Just one foot in front of the other, until you decide to stop and look around a bit.