The Temporal Schism

So - good, bold idea yesterday, this whole 500 mile thing. What's become clear since then is that it's not the walking that'll be the issue with it. It's time management.

Yesterday, I posted the blog, but the day-job ran through what would normally be my lunch hour.

'What are you gonna do? Gonna go?' asked d, as 3 o'clock came and went.
'Absolutely,' I said, all grim determination and fullness of my new idea.
'Annnd how long does it take?'
'What, once-round my route?'
'Yep.'
'Aaaabout two hours.'
'So you've missed a lunchtime slot. And you can't go now cos it's the middle of the afternoon, so you're looking at 5 o'clock. Plus two hours. What are you gonna do? Go round to get your 10,000 steps, come in, have dinner, go out and do another one? You're gonna be walking around this town at 10 o'clock?'
'Yeah, if that's what's necessary,' I said, still fired up with my idea and my cause.
'Cos that's not obsessive at all.'
'It's what's...necessary,' I said, coming back to the word. I have a staggering capacity to re-frame the world in black and white, the necessary and the unnecessary, when the focus comes over me, as those familiar with the Disappearing Man will already understand. And yes, sometimes that leads me to excesses of selfishness that can affect those who love me. Cos yeah, sometimes, I'm a blinkered bastard.
'It's not necessary,' she said. 'It's you formalising some of your slavish tendencies. Must Walk Twice is not a holy mantra you know? What's next? Three times?'
Now - there are times when I should be jocular, annnnd then there are other times. 'Only reason to go to three would be to cut the middle one down to a single hour,' I said.
'Mm-hmm. Slavish.'
'I just...it seems to be working for me, baby. I don't want to stop it working.'
She came and kissed me. 'You're a numpty,' she said. 'I don't want to stop it working either. I just don't want you to become some obsessive walking zombie.'
I held her tight. 'Won't. Promise. Just wanna get my steps in.'
'So go once, and do a different route. Do what you feel you need to do, baby, just...come home and be.'
'I will baby. I always will...'
'Right,' she said. 'Best get on then - you've got two hours of money to earn before you turn into the Happy Wanderer.' She kissed me again, and left me to it.

Come 5 o'clock, I went a-happy wandering. My usual route is uphill to one roundabout, uphill to a second roundabout, then left through Dowlais and round in a biggish circle. I go that way, turning left because the alternatives are odd. You can turn right, and go in an entirely different circle, or you can go up again. If you go up the third up, you're almost committing to a number of follow-on ups, because my town is built out of hills on top of hills. Last night I walked the ups. All the way up through several high horizons, all the way to the Asda store that sits at the top of the town, looking down over all our lives like King Retail on his blasted heath of a throne.

Given that it's so dauntingly high, and takes so much schlepping to get to, I was surprised to find it was only 5,500 steps from home to Asda. That meant I'd have to go there and back twice to get my 20,000 steps in. Having got up there, I ruled that out. Came back in a very convoluted way, inolving going up several blind alleys that I didn't know were blind alleys. The long and the short of it is that I ended up doing 21,000 steps not as two chunks, but as one.

That's not something I'd recommend. Came home and had to bathe my feet. But crucially perhaps, doing it in one chunk, while technically doable, was neither time-wise nor especially diet-friendly, because when I got back, we ate dinner, falling back into the pattern that previously had me not moving down.

This morning, in my obligatory unofficial weigh-in, that was refelected by a bump in the figures on the Nazi Scales, the 21,000 steps almost negated by their place in the day, prior to eating dinner.

Today, timing continued to be my own personal bastard. For reasons you don't need to know about, I'd booked half of today off, plus all day Monday and Tuesday. Half day today because I had a big meeting to phone in for today at two. After last night's stepathon, I slept in massively, found myself getting to my desk just a little before midday. Not quite enough time to do my walk and get back for my meeting, so worked on some editing in the meantime.

Two o'clock came, and I sat ready for the call.

Two thirty came, and I started calling - my boss, everyone else in the office...Texted, sent emails and Skype-messages. Was I missing the meeting?

At three o'clock I got a text back from the boss. "Meeting 2pm MONDAY. At a funeral right now."

Soooo that was a screw-up, then. Way to look like a psycho stalkerboy with no sbility to read a calendar. Class.

Went out eventually to do my walk, but couldn't, tonight, do more than my single revolution, and what now feels like a relatively paltry 10,000 steps, because on the way round, I was struck by stomach cramps again. Made it home safely but am getting more than a little peeved with the digestive roller-coaster of this thing.

And of course, my screw up meant that again, I did my walking, came home, ate, and then was sedentary until the point of going to bed. Need to master the now-unfamiliar art of of morning walking again, to give myself a jump on the day and its exercise-needs if I'm to achieve my goals here.

Onward then...