Send to KindleNormally, I take my long walks in the city when I exercise. On the occasional walks at the house, I usually just walk up and down our lane two times. It’s a 1/4 of a mile straight up hill (quite steep), so on the two round trips, 1/2 a mile of climbing breathlessly, and 1/2 a mile of putting on the breaks downhill.
I like it, and it’s a decent workout, but it’s also only roughly 20 minutes. It accomplishes the cardio part pretty well, but not the unwinding part. I can’t even listen to 1/2 an album in that time.
On Friday, friends of ours came over for a longer walk. Lois was still recovering from Tuesday night so I went alone with the other couple. We explored the old Croton Aqueduct walk. We walked at a relatively leisurely pace, so it wasn’t much of a workout, but it was wonderful nonetheless.
Lois has been bugging me for years (close to two decades actually) to walk the aqueduct with her, but I never did. Today, now that I knew where it was, I decided to take a longer walk. Technically, I was only on the official aqueduct trail for about 10 minutes in total. I took a fork toward Rockwood Park which hugs the Hudson River.
Total walk time door-to-door was just over an hour at a very brisk pace. Roughly 25% of it is steeply uphill, so I still got that kind of a workout (I like that part a lot). After one particularly long climb, you straighten out to sweeping Hudson River views which are breathtaking.
When I was on the last stretch home (back on the official aqueduct trail), just five minutes from my house, I heard a rustling in the bushes. I looked down and saw what could have been a small duck or goose, but it was hidden in the bushes enough to not be sure. Then, all of a sudden, a larger rustling, and a reasonably large wild turkey came out in what felt like a relatively aggressive manner.
I didn’t change my pace, nor stare at it, because I figured that what I first saw was likely a baby turkey, that this mother was intending to defend to the death. Better to just not appear to be a threat. She never came all that close to me, but I do freely admit that my heart raced a bit more than I would have thought if someone told me that a turkey would wander out on the path that I was walking on. 🙂
Anyway, I have now discovered what everyone else in Westchester has known forever, and I have tons of new paths to walk on when I want a longer workout that will also allow me to clear my mind in addition to just working my muscles. Amen to that!
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