Before my son came along I was in a good pattern of walking every day. My goal was three, one-mile walks as often as I could make that happen, with a minimum of one, one-mile walk on crazier days. It was a pretty good system for me, but early in my pregnancy I experienced some issues that were best resolved with rest. Then inertia took over- an object at rest tends to stay at rest.
My son is now a big hoss in the 99th percentile; just 2-and-a-half and already his 3T clothes are getting tight, making me sad- time is a thief! We go hiking together to burn off some of that high octane toddler energy and contribute to my step count. The rest of the time, my exercise comes from wrestling him into clean clothes or his car seat.
I started joining the Miles for Wellness Challenges at work to force myself to be more active. And yes, years ago when I was a young, fresh, state employee, I remember thinking to myself, “I can’t ever imagine myself doing that.” Well, here I am! And not only that, but here I am on a winning team! NCDIT Mustangs were the winning team in the Super Hare Division for Miles for Wellness Challenge 31, “Bee all that you can bee.”
I have no problem saying that I was the weakest link on the team. I felt like it was an achievement on the days that I surpassed my personal daily step goal of 6,000 steps; then, after the numbers were crunched, a couple teammates had a mind-blowing million steps- each! It was humbling, yet inspiring at the same time. I’m going to keep up the challenges until I get my walking habit reestablished.
