It’s 30 Day Eve, and I am pooped. I know that tomorrow I will take a 30 minute walk and complete the 30 Days of Walking, but then what? Will I keep walking every day? I will, but now I don’t have to do it. I want to.

The end is nigh, and I will cut this post short, almost to nothingness, so I may save my thoughts for the conclusion of 30 Days of Walking. Lame, I know, but come back tomorrow when I can reminisce about the whole thing, and hopefully have a little more energy.

Three weeks in and still haven’t missed a day. Some of the walks happened at night, but I didn’t miss my 24 hour window, so I feel pretty good. The best walk, as usual, I had company.

The night started with a simple meal of chickpeas-sweat potatoes-tomatoes-spinach-and probably something else-curry. I asked if there was a shorter name, rather than listing all the ingredients, and the answer is no. After dinner we sat on the deck. drank some beer, then prepared for our walk. The first leg of the walk was only 15 minutes long, which is only half of my daily requirement, before we stopped at a convenience store. After having a thoroughly healthy dinner it was deemed necessary that we all buy various slushy or frozen soda mixtures, for the win!

We continued on in a giant looping circle, which took us about 45 minutes to get back to the house. I became disgusted with my drink en route and chucked it in someone’s trash can. Thank you, whoever you are, for freeing my hand of that sugar mush liquid gross. It means a lot to me.

Once we arrived home we chilled in the basement and play a ridiculous video game involving killing zombies. After a few hours of this we decided it was time for something else, and ended up at our local diner, having a superfluous meal. I had a breakfast wrap and cheese fries. Nom! Sure, we trashed any health benefit of the simple dinner and mild exercise, but we had a great time doing it.

I made it through two weeks and things are going great. Some friends came in from Colorado and we spent the weekend at Seaside Park, NJ, but I still made time for my walks. Seaside is very pedestrian friendly and on Saturday I alternated between the boardwalk, beach and street level, while barefoot. I did rip my feet up a bit, but I didn’t get any blisters. Still, I decided to wear shoes on Sunday.

I had company on Sunday’s walk, as we headed to the bay to watch the sun set. Another treat in walking at the shore is the beauty of the natural and human environment. Gorgeous people, amazing skies and idiosyncratic architecture make it a very interesting place to walk, especially compared to my cookie-cutter suburban environment back home. In Seaside Park, every house has a story. I am fortunate enough to have a personal tour guide as well, the friend whose house I was staying at for the weekend. He pointed out houses of people he knew, and people he knew of. We marveled over the modern three-story glass houses and smiled at the one story house with pylons in front made to look like it was on the boardwalk.

Another treat of that walk was watching the geese catching dinner. The adults were sitting on a sand bar on the edge of the bay poking in the sand, while the younger geese palled around, a group of them swimming from one end of the gathered geese to the other to join the other little birds.

Finally, we reached the bay and walked down the pier, making our way through waving kids, crab nets, and at the end a happy couple enjoying a romantic moment. I enjoy my walk every day, but this was special. This was the real Jersey Shore.

I am happy to say that I have not missed my daily goal of walking for at least thirty minutes each day.  WOOT!

I’m already addicted, seriously, I look forward to my daily walk and the time i gives me to reflect, meditate and breathe.  It’s nice to have something finite that you can measure and say, “I did it; its done.”  I wish I had an exact measure of the distance, but to squeeze my walk in on Saturday I had to walk around my friend’s neighborhood, and I didn’t quite keep track of the street names to look them up later.  Also, today I had to combine walking time with lawn-mowing time.  I know lawn-mowing isn’t quite constant movement, but it ended up talking 45 minutes, (and the mower isn’t self-propelled) so I think it still counts. Let’s low-ball it and say I only walked 1.6 miles a day, based on my original known route. Including today, thats.s 12.8 miles and 240 minutes that would have been spent doing probably anything but walking. Oh, I did go swimming this weekend also, but I find that my life has become far too sedentary.

I have to go shower up, it’s only 85 today, but I’m still sticky as hell from being outside. At least I don’t smell like Bleach Sweat Metal.

Thirty Days of Walking
An Experiment in Well-Being
by AJ Mars

As I finally near the end of the 30 Days of Boredom, after more than six months, I am left with the task of creating a new experiment.  Day 29 was about sleep, and I did not sleep last night.  It was not so bad though, for I had slept much of the preceding day.

So, not having slept through the night, but very much awake this morning, aided by some Red Bull, I embarked on a 30 minute walk.  I have never been in great shape, nor have I been an avid exerciser, though I do find the machine of the human body fascinating, and the disputes over its best care and maintenance nauseating.

Today I am a 28-year-old male, weighing 238 lbs and standing 5’ 7”.  I could lie and say I don’t care about my looks, but merely want to be in better health, but despite claiming less of an interest in my appearance than most of the world, I actually find my shape frustrating and insulting.  I don’t think it is a stretch to say that others don’t take me as seriously as I would like because I am fat; I appear a bit too jolly for my tastes.

However, this is not a weight-loss blog, nor a diet blog, not even a personal empowerment blog.  This is an experiment in discipline, mind, and creativity.  30 Days of Walking is an experiment to hone my body and mind, to improve the clarity of my concentration through the lens of physical exertion.  For the next 30 Days I must walk for 30 minutes every morning.  I may do other exercises, but I must do my 30 minutes of walking.  I do not have to write about this every day, but  I must make at least one report per week.  Let’s make the mandatory check-in day Tuesday, for consistency.

On this first day I feel quite good.  My start time for the day was 5:30 am.  I had a nice shower before heading on my walk, in a pair of shorts, tee-shirt, beat up boots and a hoodie on top.  I would have worn some jogging pants I bought years ago, but my closet collapsed and I haven’t  quite fixed it yet, so some of my clothes are a bit buried at the moment.  I probably could have skipped the hoodie, but it’s been a bit rainy and I still have the death throes of a cold on me.  Despite a few shin splints the walk went pretty well, I did a loop from the bottom of my driveway around a long curvy road and back through to my house from a development on the edge of the property.  I had a little time left over, so I had to make another lap through a section of the development.

Overall it was excellent, though I think I may switch the walk and the shower tomorrow.  It’s just now turning 7am and despite being a bit sweaty I am relatively clean, shaved, and had my breakfast.  Now for the rest of the day. . .