Walking to Victory Drive

I started walking several months ago for health reasons.  January fourth…it was a Monday.  Apparently, my cholesterol was getting high despite the increase in statins my doctor had prescribed.  It had been good for many years with help from statins, but over the last 6 months or so, it reached into the concerning range.  Plus, my A1C (blood sugar average) had climbed to all-time highs.  My doctor diagnosed me with fatty liver disease (which can lead to non-alcohol induced cirrhosis) and prescribed a new medication.

So, to the Google!  The first recommendation was to lose 10% of body weight.  Sure, no sweat.  Losing weight has only been a life-long ambition…may as well get it done now that I’m at least halfway in…the big 5-0 was right around the corner.

How to lose 10% you ask?  I always go back to the tried and true, hard to do method.  DIET!  Yep, that old, dirty four-letter word.  There are so many different diets out there.  The most popular one now is the keto diet.  But I’m getting ahead of myself…diet is for another blog.  This one is about walking.

Losing weight is never just about the intake of calories.  It goes hand-in-hand with caloric output…converting the calories you take in into energy and then burning more than you take in, so the body has to use your store of fat for energy conversion.  Plus, according to my doctor and Google, exercise is the best way to reduce triglycerides and increase HDL (the good cholesterol) which along with 10% weight loss with help reverse the fatty liver problem.

So, what kind of exercise?  Well, one of the best for fat guys is walking, right?  It’s a low-impact exercise so it’s good on the joints.  If you’re walking fast, it can be cardio…great for the heart.  Plus, I’ve got a handy hike/bike trail running down the length of White Oak Bayou all the way to Buffalo Bayou downtown.  It’s called the Bayou Greenway and it includes the old Inwood golf course.  It is certainly green and well maintained by the city. Its mowed and edged once a week or so.  Monday, they had a small bulldozer out scraping the mud off the path under Alabonson where the weekend storm rose the water and deposited a load of muck.

So, I started out with a half-mile walk to the west to the end of the neighborhood where the paved path ends (until they build more…eventually it’s supposed to go all the way to Hwy 1960).  Then I turned around to cover that same half-mile now going east.  I’ve covered this ground many times prior to January fourth…in my youth.  I used to do it on foot, bike, go-cart, then on four-wheeler.  Then later, the wife and I did some walking back there before the path was paved (we walked our dog back there a few times until he was attacked and dragged through a neighbor’s fence by two pit bulls).  So, this wasn’t exactly a new adventure.  That is until I walked east of North Houston Rosslyn…the OTHER side of the tracks.  Actually, the tracks are another half-mile down the bayou, but it’s still outside of Woodland Trails.  I don’t think I walked all the way to the railroad bridge that first day, but I could see the bridge from my turn-around point.  Then the return trip was another half mile.  The total distance covered that day was 3.13 miles according to my Fitbit app.

I started doing this almost daily.  My goal was at least 4 times per week.  Sometimes five or six per week.  Some days, I walked a little further depending how my back and legs felt.  Most days I rested every half mile or so…give those disused muscles a little three-minute break before continuing on.  But as the weeks passed, I found less need for those breaks.  And I walked further…to the railroad bridge, to the mile-marker a mile down the path, to the Alabonson bridge, to the Victory bridge.  One day I walked to the Antoine crossing which was the furthest I’d ever ridden my bike.  Anyone who knows Antoine, knows not to go there without some protection or a hasty means of escape…particularly at night…so I don’t normally walk that far.  However, there is an old golf cart path which winds through Inwood Forest between Alabonson and White Oak Bayou.  I’ve started walking this path for a little more distance, so I wind up getting close to five miles overall.

Here’s some stats:

• Distance since Jan-4:       417 miles
• Steps since Jan-4:            860,186 steps
• Lbs. lost since Jan-4:       23 lbs.
• Most weekly distance:   43.32 miles
• Most weekly steps:         89,448 steps

And because I’m a nerd, here’s the table and graphs:

Yeah, week seven was a big goose egg due to the inclement weather (intentional understatement) and a nasty spill on clear ice that damaged the right knee.  Owie!

Now that the meat of the blog is digested…here’s the juice…

Besides the health benefits, I think walking is also good for my noggin (or soul if you prefer).  The doc says exercise is a good stress relief.  I’ve heard this for many years but was never really stressed enough over a long period to try it out.  But even if you are the least stressed dude on the planet (which I believe is currently Matthew McConaughey), you can always reduce some stress anyway.  I definitely get a Zen vibe out there on the trail among the bikers, joggers (or yoggers…it might be a soft J), and walkers. So…I got that goin’ for me. 

There’s something cathartic about walking.  Its exhausting but also effortless…almost automatic.  One foot steps in front of the other and without even trying, it happens again…and again and again.  Sometimes I think I can’t even stop it.  Like if I’m not careful, I’ll end up downtown merging with Buffalo Bayou.  But I always turn around at mile marker 13.25, right at Victory Drive, and walk 1.75 back to Woodland Trails.  And by the time I’m done, when my legs are tired and my back is aching, and I’m drenched in sweat longing for the AC back home, I wonder how I ever thought it was effortless.  But whatever might have been nagging me in the back of my mind (or the front) when I started walking, doesn’t seem so bad by the end.

Its nice to get outside once a day…get some sunshine and a tan (except my feet are as white as my socks), breathe some fresh air, see the wildlife and the wildflowers in the warm months.  The land critters are mostly bugs and squirrels, but there’s an occasional cat or stray dog.  I carry a cane which I call my Dog Deterrent/Walking Stick (or DDWS) and the strays seem to respect it so far.  There have been a few water snakes swimming downstream or crossing the path, but they were much more afraid of me than I of them.  There are turtles sunbathing on the shore or on rocks or swimming around in the water.  They dive when they see me coming (generally I hear them dive before I see them).  There are bayou fish.  I’ve seen several guys fishing along the banks.  One showed me a picture of a 10-inch bass he’d caught earlier.  Once in a while I’ll hear a splash from some kind of fish breaching the surface for a little bite of something.  Among the avian contingent, a lot of ducks hang out at the bayou.  Larks build their little mud nests up under the bridges. Tall blue herons stalk the shallow water looking for a snack.  And there are quite a few white cranes.  Or they might be snowy egrets.  But as Nicholson said in The Witches of Eastwick, “I wouldn’t know a snowy egret if I was pissing on one.”  I’ve never gotten that close.

The smells along the trail are nice sometimes.  Every once in a while, there’s the sweet smell of laundry getting laundered…Spring Fresh! Weekends and evenings are when folks tend to cook outdoors…meat…on charcoal.  I would argue there is nothing more enticing than the smell of charred meat wafting over a backyard fence on a spring breeze.  Other times it’s the smell of dog shit wafting over the fence…but life’s not always picnics and porkchops.

The sounds are mostly silence…that’s relaxing in itself considering the digital society we live in.  Every once in a while, I’ll hear a dog bark at me from behind a backyard fence.  “Hey, puppy!” I say as I go by.  I keep thinking they’ll get used to me.  I guess they’re just doing their jobs.  There are some kind of birds…loud birds on the other side of the bayou and east of the railroad tracks, maybe in someone’s backyard.  They have a call which sounds like a kitten in distress.  It freaked me out when I first heard it, but now I hear it each day…its just another part of the walk.

I don’t use any headphones or earbuds or listen to any music at all…it’s just the Big Steve Channel playing in my head.  It gives me an hour and a half each day (most days) to just think about stuff.  Some of these thoughts are noteworthy.  This led to the idea of creating this blog (for better or worse).  Sometimes I’ll think about the latest controversial Farcebook post from one of my friends.  Sometimes it’s about social media in general, or society in general.  Sometimes it’s something that triggered a pet peeve.  Sometimes it’s (gasp) politics. There are any number of things that get me ruminating while on these little excursions.

So, over the last 417 miles, I’ve racked up several topics for my one-sided discussions here (although, I play devil’s advocate in my head often so it’s not exactly one-sided).  As I mentioned in the intro, you’re all welcome to comment and offer an alternate point of view.  But that won’t burn very many calories, will it?  Get out and walk your own brain!

Update July 5th – I knew it would happen. The heat and humidity have beaten me…somewhat. I walked June 21st and 22nd and returned to the house absolutely drenched and exhausted. I didn’t walk the usual length, but it felt like I’d walked much more. So the sad day has come when I must now walk indoors. I bought a treadmill…or hamster wheel as I call it. Its nice and air conditioned but plenty boring. I’m not getting the same distance and I’m not enjoying it nearly as much. Can’t wait for October…but that happens every summer regardless of my physical exertion outside (or lack thereof). But I gotta keep walkin’!

-Big Steve