City Walking

12

Saturday 07 February, 2015 by Uncle Spike

I guess you could say I am right where I want to be, physiologically speaking, after some eight months spent concentrating on getting the old bod back in shape. I’ve never been a chubby sort of chap, I’ll admit, but that’s largely to do with being a bit of an hyperactive nutter, or so I have been told numerous times since my teenage years.

But as good old middle age arrived, so did the spread – my comfort tyre, permanently attached to my hips. I might live a generally active life on the farm and eat quite healthily, but the arrival of pear-shaped Spike prompted me to take a look in the mirror a few times last year – and I seriously didn’t like what I stared back at me.

.

.

The ab challenge last June, and the adoption of a morning regime of 550-750 exercises for a few months, combined with a vast reduction in anything flour based, has enabled the bathroom scales to smile a bit more, with some eight kilos (18 lbs) less to tot up on the display.

But the cracked rib put a stop to all that in late December. It’s healing nicely now, helped mostly by keeping weights such as sacks of coal and chicken feed down to 25kg (55 lb) a time. And so walking has been my latest fad as it’s good exercise, and both free from ribcage pain and financial expense. 

These past couple of weeks we have been away in Istanbul and Ankara, and I have become a bit of a Forrest Gump once more. Each morning has meant a full one hour brisk-paced walk, striding around the hilly parks of Ankara at 7am, or traversing the scenic walkways along the Bosphorus of Istanbul at a pace faster than much of the traffic.

More on those areas visited later… but walk I did, from one to eight hours a day, racking up I don’t know how many miles! It might have been city-based, but I’ve quite enjoyed the freedom away from the farm.

.

.