Walking To Get Somewhere

One of the practices Anne and I have both embraced is living a paleo or primal lifestyle. I often hear people refer to it as the paleo diet. Diet is not the complete package. It’s a lifestyle, a way of living that embraces simplistic practices of health and well being. The wikipedia article I linked to above gives a general idea of what the paleo lifestyle is all about.

One of the most enjoyable I experienced on this trip was all the time I got to spend with Anne walking. Walking is a fantastic form of exercise. I know I have spent countless miles walking and running for the sake of walking and running. On this trip, I never set out to walk for exercise. Every walk Anne and I took was to get to a place we wanted to go. What a concept! Another thing about this form of transportation is whatever we needed at our destination, we needed to carry. Every day I had to evaluate what was going in my bag. I suddenly was concerned about not wanting to lug too much weight. That bag gets awfully heavy in the heat of a long day. 

At first when we set out walking we did our typical exercise thing. We set out at a hard pace to get our lungs pumping, and our hearts going. It’s what we are used to doing. It didn’t take us long to figure out in the heat and the hilly terrain to throttle it back and save our energy. We were going to need to walk back from wherever we were going, walk to dinner later, and walk home after that.

Once we slowed down, something magical happened. We started enjoying our time together. We talked. We held hands, we noticed interesting things about the area, we stopped to look, we took pictures. We lost all thoughts of setting a rapid pace and started living in the moment. We were sucking the marrow out of this adventure.

By the end of our week, we could feel a strength in our legs. It appealed to my paleo sensibilities. Since being home, I have lost that daily walking practice. It’s understandable, it’s been cold, icy, and slippery up here in Vermont.

My house, Mountain Shadow Manor, is about two miles out of town. I have walked to town during the warmer months and have always found the walk enjoyable. After my experience in Mexico, it is a practice I intend to continue.

Peace