Weight (still no scale)
The scale issue was a topic of discussion yesterday. I pointed out that I clearly need a new one, imagining one that measures percentage of body fat, muscle mass and the like. Paul suggested that perhaps an ordinary simple one that doesn't need a battery and thus can't suddenly crap out on me would be better. I mentioned that I wanted one more accurate than a dial scale can really be. He pointed out that few scales are less accurate than my current one.
I decide the discussion could wait for another time.
So anyway, we'd casually decided a couple days ago to explore using Santa Monica's Tide bus to explore a bit of Venice and maybe have a nice walk. After agreeing that it wasn't too late to set off, we headed up to Third Street to catch the bus. At .25 each, definitely a bargain. It dropped us at the border between Santa Monica and Venice and we walked a few more blocks to Rose. After having a late (and by late I mean mid afternoon -- which is my favorite time for it) breakfast at The Firehouse, we walked down to the boardwalk with the plan of walking back along it to Santa Monica and then home.
This would have been a couple mile walk (especially paired with the walk to the bus stop) and seemed like a nice little journey.
The walk down the boardwalk was easy. The passing rollerbladers reminded me that I want to rent a pair and try it out. I want to, but also feel kind of scared at the thought too. Oh well, nothing ventured and all that. Maybe next month. Paul could rent a bike and we could zip a long.
Before I even realized it we were at the Santa Monica Pier -- walking under it in fact. I thought about all the times before surgery when I weighed 360 that it had been hard for me to do even the most basic walks. That everything felt hard and like I was pushing myself. This seemed so easy. Talking with Paul about it, I realized I get caught up in the extra-skin issues a lot right now, but the reality is that I look pretty good, relatively anyway, and feel pretty great.
At this point, we should have turned, walked up the pier and headed home. For those of you unfamiliar with Santa Monica geography, there's a cliff that separates the beach and Pacific Coast highway from the city of Santa Monica itself. To get up from the beach (assuming you, like us, don't take the walk from the pier) we needed to take one of the bridge / step combinations to get up to Palisades Park and the home. The first set was closed at the bridge so we continued down the boardwalk, planning to take the Montana Steps. After having been reminded about them over on the Closet Therapy blog, I was sort of excited that we were going to be taking them and kind of looking forward to an extra long walk.
Paul was less excited, and I agreed with him that something that makes walks harder is not knowing when we'll be getting home. But he agreed it was better to go forward (toward Montana) than back (toward the pier). Except, when we got to the steps, it was clear that they were closed too. Very very closed. Great. I was suddenly wracking my brain, trying to remember how to get home from the beach to our apartment. As much as I've living in Southern California most of my life, grew up going to the beach in Santa Monica and have been doing these walks along the boardwalk for the past year or so, I still didn't know how to get us up the cliff and across PCH.
What I did know was that there was a crossing at Entrada up ahead. So we made the PCH crossing there and took some stairs up off PCH, landing us in the very upscale north of San Vincente neighborhood. I used to babysit for a couple of families over here when I was in highschool, but they drove me to and from those gigs. I had no sense of how best to walk from there to somewhere we knew.
Still, a few false trys (up a set of stairs that looked public but ended in someone back garden) and we were at the far north edge of Palisades Park. From there it was still a bit of a hike to Montana, but at least we were almost home. A quick stop at the market for some cottage cheese and we ended up back home just before the sun set.
The walk? Definitely the better part of 5 - 6 miles. Both last night and today I felt great. It's strange to remember how even a mile or two two years ago would leave me hurting for days.
What a difference 190 pounds makes. It's nice to walk with Paul and not feel like he's having to go slow because of me.
Good for you! Hey - rent those rollerblades, woman! Rollerblading is incredibly fun and such incredibly good exercise. You feel like a fool for about a day, but it's worth it. It's fun, it's an adrenaline rush, it's low impact - it's one of the few exercises that I don't dread, and it has really toned and strengthened my legs. You really should try it!
Posted by: sue | October 23, 2006 at 08:45 AM