Gone Walkabout

I've had it with being cooped up and driven around. Today I decided to go for a walk to get some errands done. Seemed like a good idea after all I haven't really exercised now for three months. (I hesitated to say exercise because for me cycling is catharsis not exercise.)

Like every other American community mine is built for the car not foot traffic or bicycles. The shops where I needed to do my errands were quite a distance, about 2½ miles, away. I didn't drive because I still haven't been cleared to drive.

On the outbound journey there were a number of points where I stopped and seriously considered calling home to get picked up. A number of sensations occurred that made me think about stopping. The walking made my head hurt. Not continuously but there were intermittent episodes and the pain occurred mostly in the area where my helmet contacted the pavement when I crashed. I also found that if I looked at things along the side of the road I tended not to be able to maintain my direction. If I looked ahead I went where I was looking. If I looked off to the side I would slowly drift off course one way or another. Not a good thing when there's no sidewalk and drifting the wrong way would take me into traffic.

The other thing is that I was slow. I didn't recognize that at first. A woman walking a dog made that clear to me though. After my first mile she and the dog appeared and passed by me. She greeted me on the way by and kept moving. By my reconning she wasn't walking very quickly. However within 20 or 30 yards I realized she had already gone twice the distance beyond the point we met as I had! Compared to my pace she was sprinting.

Still I'm pretty pleased with myself for having completed the walk. Just a week or two ago I probably couldn't have done it. And even though I seriously considered giving up several times along the way I stuck to it and made the whole trip. I've been mostly sitting on my butt "recovering" for the last twelve weeks. Being able to do something like this really seems like recovery to me.