"One Step Further"

"One Step Further"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

It has been Day 4 since my wife and I started walking. Not jogging. Not Sprinting. Walking. we started off just walking. We start by waking at 3:30am. Dress up in what I would like to call our Walking Bank robber outfits. Rubber Shoes and Black Hoodies.We would walk to a chosen spot and start our walk for the day.A good 60 minutes non-stop.No holds barred walk. 

Day 1  - For our initial walk we went to the BBB Market where wanted to buy vegetables for a possible salad breakfast. It wasn't in the cards though since the market was still closed at 4:00am. We then walked to the other Market place in Gen. T. De leon.The One in Tanada. The market there was closed as well. This coincided with our one hour mark. We were burning our calves and I had to stop for awhile. I almost ended up with a really bad case of the cramps but I was determined to keep at it.I was hopeful that tomorrow would be better.

Day 2 -  We decided to walk a continuous circuit at the Our Lady of Fatima Church which had an incline going up. A very steep incline! We walked slow going up and did very brisk walking in the part that went down. Straight from the back of the church past the dormitories that I played Magic before while I was in med school and to the 7-11 that was in the end of that corner. It took us 10 minutes to finish a single circuit. 10 minutes! One day at a time I told myself. One day at a time!

Day 3 - I was feeling a lot better because I was finally getting a sense of the pace that I wanted. The cold air was helping me but I found that it was still hard to break into a sweat except for the last 10 minutes of our 1 hour walk. I found that my dad was the same way. The most significant part improvement was that we cut our circuit time by half! 5 minutes to finish the loop! Yoohooo. There was a time that I wanted to jog or sprint but I stopped myself since I wanted to just keep the pace for awhile. Maybe I could on Day 4 but we will see. No cramps for today so today was a great day!

Day 4 - I woke up an hour later from my normal time but we went to Fatima Church again. An hour makes a lot of difference. There were a lot more people. A lot more vehicles ranging from Tricycles to a full Bus that was passing down our walking lanes. It was a lot hotter and a lot more polluted. My wife also began feeling cramps in her legs for the first time. It was a little set back along the road. We decided to walk back to our house but my wife felt that we would have been wasting our time if we did not continue the walk. So we did a circuit in the area around our house. The incline in that place was much gentler but it was far longer which helped ease the cramps a little. We finished the hour

We have goals by the end of the year but that is still too far off in the distance. What I see is the steps every day. I realize that by day 4 we are one step further away from what we were (our unhealthier selves) and closer to what we want to be(people who are more fit and actually get into clothes like normal people). Just another step further.