Getting back into it ~ or ~ New Shoes and a HRM...

After being crook for so long, and not being able to train, or even go for a decent walk while at the farm I decided to treat myself with a new pair of shoes.

It rains a lot  up there, and with the ground always so wet and the cows and horses always walking around on it... as they do... that when it does  dry out it's incredibly uneven, and full of hidden pot holes and various other trip hazards - which makes me even more prone to falling than I usually am, so I just don't do it.

Proper shoes, not the cheapy's from BigW that I normally buy.

Then I thought, well I think I need a HRM to go with the flash new shoes...

Then I took them on their first outing together.

I decided to go easy as it would be my first walk in several weeks, and I didn't want to go too hard and get sick again, so I chose a relatively flat route.

The plan was to walk to our local McDonald's store, have a cup of tea and a bottle of water then return home.  It'd be about a 6km round trip, normally not a problem, but I wasn't sure how I'd go, with the new shoes and with it being the first exercise I would have done in a while, so I made a back up plan.

BM was home on an RDO and was cleaning up the back yard.  So I suggested that on his way back from the tip, he call in to Macca's and meet me for a cuppa.  That way if I was buggered he could throw me in the back of the ute and bring me home, and if I was okay, then we would have had a nice 'coffee date', and I would walk back.

My 3km walk to McDonalds turned out to be almost 4km, the route was as flat as I had thought it would be, but I had forgotten about the bridge over the Hunter River, and never having walked this particular route before, I didn't know about the massive flight of stairs that I had to go down once I got across the bridge.

Now bridges don't normally bother me, but then I'm always in the car when I go over them...  

It's at this point that I feel I should tell you that among the things I don't do, heights is one of them.

When we were at the farm we had to take FIL & MIL to Coffs Harbour to the specialist, which meant a trip down the mountain via Waterfall Way and down through Bellingen.  They tell me it's a beautiful trip.  I wouldn't know.  I always have my eyes shut tight and my face turned toward the side of the mountain.  BM always lets me know when I can open my eyes again.

So there I was, happily trudging away, singing along to my 'power songs' which I think may have something to do with why none of the feral magpies swooped me.  When my kids were small fry, I would take them to church every week, and would be happily belting out the hymns when DD would take my face in her little hands and say pleadingly 'please Mummy, don't sing'... but I digress  when suddenly out of nowhere is this bloody bridge!  I never realised how high it really was until now.  I started getting dizzy, so I looked to my right but then felt too close to the traffic, which also freaked me out, so it was head down and press on!

I made it to the other side only to be confronted with this...

Which for some of you wouldn't present much of a problem, but we all know that steps and I don't really get along that well, but there was no other choice, and quite frankly I was glad I was going down them and not up!  I admit feeling a sense of accomplishment once I was over the bridge and down the stairs, and had a bit of a fist pump moment.

Then Friend Tania, another of Madam Lash's groupies, tells me that she had seen me walking (she was in her car and hopefully not driving) and had been tooting the horn, and hanging out the window waving madly and calling out to me, and I was just ignoring her.  It wasn't until her hubby told her that I had earphones in that she realised I hadn't heard a thing!  

I made it to Macca's without any drama's, my feet hurt a bit from the new shoes and I was absolutely knackered by the time I got there.  It took me 58mins and 326cal  to do not quite 4km, which is not my best time, but I didn't rush, didn't overdo it, and just enjoyed the walk.

BM met me there for a cuppa, and when it was time to go he threw me in the back of the ute...

Home again, home again, jiggety jig!