On Thursday I decided to go for a walk in the woods on my lunch break. I don’t take lunch until 3pm, even though I get off at 5:30pm. It is just a habit from when I worked 10a-7pm and I just never got out of the habit of going at that time. I can eat at my desk while I work, so it isn’t like I starve all day, until 3pm.
On Thursdays, in the summer, I tend to go to the weekly Farmer’s Market/Music in the Junction after work, so I miss a workout when I do that. I needed to figure out an alternative. Also, since my job is a seated job, I have been looking for something to get me out of my chair. My lunch hour tends to be spent doing work errands and/or sitting in front of the computer reading email/twitter/facebook. I needed to find something to break that habit.
We have a lot trails all over Des Moines and one of them, Greenbelt, goes right by my work. So I put on my New Balance shoes, and drove over to the 100th St. entrance. I ended up walking 1.5 miles. There are markers every quarter mile so it is pretty easy to keep track of how far I went, and also I brought my cell phone, and set my alarm for 20 mins, so that I would turn around at that point. I was only at about 15 mins in when I hit the 3/4 mile mark but thought I should turn around. Also as I walked I paid attention to where the path had entrances by other parking lots so I could vary where I start at in the future. I found one place very close to work, so I would have only about 2 minutes of drive time to get there and can spend more time walking.
I talked to Amanda on Friday about this, and she really liked the idea of me adding this walk to my work out schedule a couple times a week. So that is what I am going to try and do. Since I take a late lunch, and don’t really work by anyone, it should be okay if I am a little sweaty for that last hour and a half. However, if it is too hot or humid, I probably won’t be able to walk. Luckily though, it is really woodsy so it is a little cooler than it would be otherwise.
Anyway, I am really happy that I got off my bum and found something else to add to my routine. So what about you? Anything you can a change to your routine?
Oh and I changed the look to the blog. I wanted something a little more whimsical. When I get bored with this, I will probably change it up again. Change is the name of the game, after all!
