Walk in her shoes – Days 6 and 7

Yesterday I thought I was feeling better so, while I had my chance, I went for a long morning walk along the walking track. This time I decided to do the whole track. I knew I wouldn’t have much time to walk later in the day so I had to make the most of the early morning.

My cold has moved from head to chest. So less sniffing, more coughing. Super!

We had a date in town in the afternoon to see Frank Woodley’s kids show Noodlenut at the Spiegeltent. We were all looking forward to it. Kramstable had loved it when we watched his TV show, and of course Lano and Woodley had been essential viewing for us many years ago.

It was a fun show, and we enjoyed it. It was very hot, which made Kramstable a bit irritable, and my learning from the day was to always take a bottle of water everywhere we go.

When we got home it was late afternoon, but it was pretty much my last chance to go for a walk yesterday. The late afternoon sun is not my friend, and it was a very uncomfortable walk.

I made it in the end. Day 6: 21,312 steps.

This morning I got up determined to get through the last day. Only 20,000 more steps and the challenge will be over. If this had been a school day it would have been fairly easy, but it’s not, and I was still feeling rather ordinary when I woke up. However, it is, I reminded myself, a challenge. It’s not meant to be easy.

I didn’t feel like doing the walking track this morning, so I headed over the bridge. I think I might have walked too far, and tired myself out. I hoped I’d make it home! Today was one of those mornings where, if I’d had to go to work, I’d have been unable to make up my mind up about whether to go, so I’d have gone, and by 10am would have been wiped out.

It wasn’t a work day, so I could go home, have coffee and rest on the couch.

After that I had the final 10,000 steps to go, and I did another short walk before lunch. (Note to self: It helps to make sure you have your Fitbit on when you go out.)

I spent the rest of the afternoon watching DVDs and wondering if I should just call it a day. I didn’t want to. It looked like it was about to rain, so I took a deep breath and went out one last time. I was on my way home, with less than 1500 steps to go, when a tweet from CARE Australia reminded me that I’d already completed a week of 20,000 steps a day, because if you remember, I walked 20,000 steps on Monday, the day before the official start of the challenge.

The tweet to another walker who had started a day early by mistake and hadn’t met their goal today was: “. . . starting a day early means you could finish a day early (timing doesn’t have to be exact)!”

AAARGH! This hadn’t occurred to me! I’d finished the challenge already! The only thing that had been missing last Monday was leggings.

Well don’t I feel like a goose! Instead of whinging about sick I was, I could have been relaxing and celebrating having finished yesterday.

Never mind. What’s done is done, and I’ve finished the challenge for real. I’ll write a reflection post, with my final step count later in the week.