photo friday: walking pixels

In the latter half of 2005, three fairly important things happened, and they're completely intertwined in my head...

• July 2005: Started my blog
• October 2005: Started my daily walk
• October 2005: Bought my digital camera

It's possible that each event could have existed on it's own (certainly in the case of the digital camera)... but each one was enhanced by the other two. Blogging about my attempts and adventures in walking meant that I was accountable to someone/something and couldn't just give up... the walking meant that I saw a whole new side of my suburb and then photograph and blog about it... and once I had a slew of photos from my walk, the blog gave me something constructive to do with them (and hello Montage Mondays!).

Which brings me around to the point of the story... today is the third anniversary of me striding off on my first ever walk (thank you Miss Oprah Winfrey)... and it just happens, this year, to coincide with Walk To Work Day.

I even registered as an Official Participant this time around (since I was working on the day for a change)... and according to the Walking Class Hero pledge on the website I did indeed "walk to work", but it's only what I do every day...

Barring unforeseen or extraordinary circumstances, I pledge to leave my car at home (I always do) on Friday 3 October 2008. I will catch public transport to within walking distance from my work (yep, do that every day too) and then walk the rest of the way (yep, down King William, around the corner, between the buildings and across the road). Otherwise I will walk for at least half an hour during lunch-time (I walked for an hour BEFORE work like always, does that count?) and encourage my fellow employees to do likewise (my fellow employees can do what they damn well like, I'm not the boss of them thankfully). I also pledge to actively encourage my friends and colleagues to take part in the event (yeah, I forgot to do that this year... but I've done it other years without actually taking part, so that has to count for something) and to support the objectives of National Walk to Work (sure, why not!).

I mean I probably could have ACTUALLY walked to work... skipped my morning walk, that kind of thing... but I hate to disrupt my routine... and given the fact that the weather turned to drizzly crap after my walk this morning, I don't know that that would have been a very good plan.

Today also wasn't really the right day to be thinking about health and whatnot though... one of the girls had a birthday today so there was cake and dip and M&M's for morning tea... and then I joined in with the reprobates at work who decided that ordering pizza for lunch was a plan (and it wasn't too bad really... it was fairly alright pizza and we all just hung around being slightly insane), and then I brought leftover pizza home for dinner... so I think the whole day pretty much counted against any benefits that might have been gained by walking...

Getting back to the third anniversary thing though... I've had a few walking "milestones"...

• October 2005: Switched to walking in the mornings
• November 2005: Extended out to the full North Adelaide walk
• February 2007: Changed from North Adelaide walk to Riverside Walk
• May 2008: Blew out my knee
• July 2008: Started walking again

The switch to the Riverside walk was probably the most productive move I made... well, that and walking first thing in the morning (even though it currently means that I'm getting up at around 5:45am so I can fit everything in and still get to work "on time")...

And I wouldn't swap all my experiences on all my walks for any amount of extra sleep... honest.

In the past three years I've crossed paths with a tiny wee Prime Minister and a cycling movie director, attractive rowing crews and annoying bootcamps, superfit grannies and pram-pushing DILFs. I've been soaking wet on multiple occasions but only overheated once (which was why I switched to mornings). I've seen rainbows and lightning, frost and fog, and more sunrises, daybreaks, dawns and "sailor's warnings" than you can poke a whole bushel of proverbial sticks at. I've walked on Christmas Day and my birthday, Easter and New Years Eve and every possible public holiday in between. And I've gotten up close and personal with all manner of feathered friends (and as a result, Black Swans are now one of my favourite birds).

And (un)surprisingly, I still love it.

Yeah, I could do without the very early mornings sometimes, but I don't have to ever drag myself out the door to start my walk (out of bed sometimes, especially in Winter, but once I'm up I'm fine). It's part of my routine now, it's just what I do every weekday morning... and at heart I'm a creature of habit... give me a routine and I can keep going until the end of time. Even when I busted my knee (which is probably about 95% back to normal now) I missed the walking and was actually eager to start again.

It clears my head, it gives me time to have deep thoughts or shallow thoughts or occasionally no thoughts at all and whenever I'm not working it makes sure that I get out of the house at least once a day. And more recently, it has inspired Ma to do her own walk before work.

I've been through two pairs of trackpants, three pairs of purposed bought sneakers (and a variety of crappy, ill-fated and ill-fitting shoes before that), found the perfect underwear (which should be fairly obvious, given yesterday's post), worn the stuffing out of one teeshirt plus more socks than I care to mention, had a variety of blisters, bumps and boo-boos, and pounded the pavement for over 1000 hours.

Bring it on, I say!

And just to round off all this talk of walking, the walking pixelman paste up was snapped during the SALA Graffiti Art Tour...

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