The Extra Mile

Went walking on my own this morning, and whereas I'm now used to walking, say, three or four miles in a morning, today I decided to push it a little further and return to an old favourite route - down the Taff Trail to The Dynefor Arms and back. With an additional detour to McDonalds for my 'orphan breakfast' of porridge and water, and a desperate, heavy-sighing vote for the least offensive of the available mediocrities, that's a solid 13,000 steps, or 6.24 miles. According to the all-knowing sage that is my phone, that means I've burned 855 calories before breakfast (200 calories), putting me ahead of the day.

I'm not entirely sure why I've decided to go back to this route so soon - the Disappearing malarkey is a finnicky business, and it seems to take notice of upsurges in effort, but on the other hand, you can ony do them every do so often, because the body gets used to doing x-amount of work and normalises, so the short term boost in weightloss settles in, and then you have to invest more energy to impress it the next time. With the doctorial embargo on insano-exercise, it's not like I have shock tactics to resort to, but am going to try and do this every day for a week and see where it takes me.
If anything, I think it's proximity to my previous Disappearing Rubicon - the 18 stone barrier - that's made me decide to do this today, coupled with the sudden absence of Ma (holidaying). Felt fine, incidentally - no dying, no drama, no panting particularly. Little bit of singing (Buddy Holly, since you ask), and another Doctor Who audiobook finished. Productive morning all round, I'd say.

It's the extension of that feeling I had on the uphill a few entries ago: while I've yet to notice a particular difference in terms of my clothes, my body itself feels like it's moving with greater ease and reliability, so I'm meeting it halfway, using it to push on. Feels good so far.

And on into the day. By this time tomorrow, the balance of indistinguishable mediocrity in this country may well have changed. For the first time in my political life, I find it incredibly hard to give a toss.