My Own Personal 4K Walkathon

I've spent a lot of time in pain these last few years, most notably from a year of leg pain following my knee surgery. Well, pain and weakness. Not a fun combination. I can see evidence of the great imbalance in weakness and strength when I go to the gym - where I can do a leg curl machine at 65 pounds, and the opposite motion on a leg extension machine at 5 pounds (and struggling). That's an eye-opener. Plus, I'm back in physical therapy as of last week for my plantar fasciitis - ignoring it for 6 months didn't make it any better, so I thought I'd let the PT torture me a bit. :) So on the Friday of this long weekend we decided to go to Alki Cafe here in West Seattle for breakfast. After breakfast, we thought we'd walk along the path at Alki Beach for a while. We just kept walking and talking and at some point realized that I had walked the longest I had walked since before my surgery (which was late 2007)! There are certain trees and stairways down to the water that we tend to use as landmarks. I was very pleased at that. On Saturday we were driving aimlessly through West Seattle, having fun, and found ourselves up at the beach. I have this fantasy of walking one day from the Alki Cafe to Duwamish Head, the northernmost point of West Seattle. It seems so far. So when we hit Duwamish Head in the car, I asked if he would hit the trip odometer to zero so we could see the distance from Duwamish Head to the place where I ended my walk the previous day. I was absolutely shocked when I asked him to pull over and realized it was only 0.3 miles to that point! Did I really almost make it to my goal? And then I thought how far did I actually walk? So we reset to zero again and continued back to the Alki Cafe and found out that I had walked (round trip) nearly 2-1/2 miles! Both of us were in shock! But a good kind of shock. And the best part? I was not in pain!! Usually I walk that far and then I really regret it - I'll be halfway back to my starting point and get shooting pains somewhere. But not that day. And not even the next day! No Aleve chasers required like when I usually overdo things. Back in May there was the first annual West Seattle 5K Walk/Run that I really wanted to do (walking) . But I chickened out. I don't think I even mentioned it here, because if I did I'd have to be accountable, and it was easier to back out when nobody knew I was thinking of it. Yes, my foot was really bothering me then, but I really didn't have faith that I could do it and didn't feel like failing. Maybe next year, I thought. So to find out that I came very close to completing a 5K walk on my own, and in a much shorter amount of time than I'd imagined, that was huge! I just did the math, and essentially I did a 4K walk. Too bad I don't get the commemorative t-shirt for that - LOL! So it looks like, before summer is over, I'll make my 5K goal of walking to Duwamish Head. This link from the 5K walk/run is a map of that walk, if you're interested. It really makes me optimistic that the tide is turning in terms of my health and wellness, which would be very exciting. And if a woman in her mid 40s with multiple health problems and nearly 300 pounds can do this, I think almost anyone can work up to this.