Walking

I've been doing a lot of walking lately. Well, actually I've been concentrating on doing more walking. I park further away from the entrance at work. I walk up and down the stairs for meetings. I park far from the store doors when I go on errands. All for the love of walking.

Actually I want to see big numbers on my pedometer. It's the scoreboard of my game. It's not really a pedometer I guess, it's more like a step-o-meter. I got one of these step counters from our Health Group here at work. (I guess they're trying to cut back on the heart attacks.) It doesn't tell me how many miles I've gone, just the number of steps I've taken. I guess these little things are simpler to manufacture. There is no calibration setting on the device, just a reset button. Calibration is needed for a pedometer since the length of each person's stride varies. With the step-o-matic all I have to do is measure my stride and multiply the steps at the end of the day to determine the miles walked. Step counters are simplest and work just fine.

Anyway, I've been averaging two miles a day. I'm now shooting for four. Here's the trouble with these things. They make a subtle clicking noise when I walk. I can't sneak up on anyone. I can't walk to the printer without folks knowing about it. And the color of the thing is white. I wear dark pants and black belt. It's noticeable.

There's all kinds of web sites on tracking your walking. Blank books, PDFs of walking logs, and even a Google map to track your distances.

The simple step counter just makes me cognsant of my progress. It's a great little motivator. I sometimes take my journal and sketch on the way.

...dave
Drawing is just a line taking a walk.