Northbound

Eighty-six miles down, fourteen miles to go.

Well, life ain’t all depressing.

However, just when you thought things couldn’t get much more depressing, it turns out that, in wintertime, there’s a lot of static electricity in my gym, and whenever I touch the metal handrails on my treadmill, I get a nasty shock.  So you either touch the handrails the whole entire time, or never touch them at all, neither of which is an effective solution.  So — not only are you on the treadmill, for three miles, for more than an hour, with (today) the cable out, and nothing on television, and nothing to read but the Sportsman-of-the-Year Brett Favre hagiography in Sports Illustrated – not only do you have to deal with all that, but you’re subjected to random electric shocks the entire time.  Why in God’s name would anyone put up with this nonsense?

Oh, yeah, to lose weight and be healthy.

Sigh.

(And did you hear that Peter King broke his nose?  Yeah, turns out Brett Favre came to a sudden stop.)

Eighty-four miles down, sixteen miles to go.

Three miles today, on a quiet Sunday afternoon, getting out in the freezing rain, having to clear three inches of slush off my car, driving through horrible muck on the roads, and then having to plod through a parking lot covered in dirt-flavored Slurpee all the way up to my ankles, and then three miles — did I mention I went three miles today — on the motherless treadmill, watching the Jets hork it up against the Patriots.  Anyone would complain.  A stone angel would complain about this sort of thing.  You would, too.

Eighty-one miles down, nineteen miles to go.

The picture is very appropriate today, because it’s three miles to where the road closes, and I did three miles today — the most I’ve done in any one day since the day I did six miles in Washington, going from monument to monument.  I did three miles of sheerest, purest, psychic treadmill agony.  On my day off.  Quite an accomplishment, even if I don’t manage to complete the journey before leaving next Saturday (a practical impossibility, at this point, although I will have a little time after the holidays to get caught up, and maybe — just maybe — hit the century mark before January 1. 

It will take more days like today, though, and I’m dreading the prospect quite a bit.

Seventy-eight miles down, twenty-two miles to go.

Man, is this one appropriate picture, because I sure-God felt I was tilting at windmills the whole time I was walking.

It’s hard to pick the “worst” day out of so many terrible, awful, no-good days on the treadmill, but this one was pretty bad.  I was tired.  It was wet and cold out.  I hadn’t had much for lunch, and didn’t pick up a snack or anything to boost my blood sugar.  A half-mile in and I was already dialing the speed back to 2.0 miles, which is just barely walking.

And did I mention that I forgot my iPod?  Because I did.

And did I mention that I had nothing to read, not a thing?  Because I didn’t.  (No readable magazines on the rack — which featured Glamour, In Touch, Dog Fancy, Modern Bicyclist, and a copy of Esquire that was simply too stinky with perfume samples to even pick up.)

Anyway.  I did my mile, and didn’t quit, and that is our story so far.

Seventy-five miles down, twenty-five miles to go.

This is a really old mile marker, from England. It’s not from a road, but from a canal — the Leeds to Liverpool canal, which looks like a very nice place, not that I would really know, not ever having been any closer to England than making fun of British tourists in Barbados.  (You can just make out the “74″ on the left side.)

I had a day off today, and I thought I would really get caught up — walk two miles, eat lunch, go back, walk two or three more, and then walk again in the evening.  But it is snowing like all hell outside, and it’s starting to stick to the driveway, and I may just say it’s spinach and to heck with it.

The only weird thing about this trip is that I found out when all the old people hit the gym — late afternoon.  Other than one twentysomething blonde chick, it was me, and three guys pushing seventy — at least one of them from the other side — in the gym.  Didn’t make me feel young, just made me feel tired.  Am I going to have to keep doing this treadmill nonsense for the next fifty years?

(I know the answer, I just don’t like it, much.)

Seventy-four miles down, twenty-six miles (the amount in a marathon, mind you) to go.

I know the picture is blurry.  You know the picture is blurry.  But there is very little that either of us can do about it.

Well, maybe we can make it blurrier:

Seventy-two miles down, twenty-eight miles to go.

I usually, generally, try like heck not to use photos that show real people, because this blog is about me me me me me.  But I had to use this picture, not only because it was the most illustrative of the concept, but because the guy in the picture just finished running across the entire state of Nebraska.  Sa-lute.

(Although this guy is much more heroic than me — he did his bit for charity, let’s not forget — I should point out that the 70 miles I have done would take me well across New Jersey, from Camden to Atlantic City, say.  Well.)

I will admit to cheating just a little today, but I won’t go into the gory details (let’s just say I didn’t have much of a choice and leave it at that).  However, I’ve definitely walked at least seventy miles, so I don’t doubt that the cheating will affect the final outcome in any way.  All you can do is try to do better tomorrow.

Seventy miles down, thirty miles to go.

Just one mile again today.  But fast this time.  I read some sort of weight-loss thing online that said that 3.5 mph was the speed you wanted to be at for “brisk” walking, so I put the hammer down, got it up to 3 mph just to start off with.  Big mistake.  I could keep up the pace for awhile – maybe I walked a quarter mile that fast — but not only could I not keep it up for long, I ended up having the soles of my Nike Shox skid uncomfortably (not to say dangerously) on the treadmill.  Not good.  So I slowed it down, finished my mile, and decamped to the local sports bar to watch Cowboys-Packers (a triumph for the good guys).

Sixty-eight miles down, thirty-two miles to go.

Apparently, this is a mile marker on the old Mason-Dixon line, from back in 1766, and it’s a mile marker 67, even though it doesn’t look it.  You should look so good when you’re 343 years old.  (Actually, it’s not the famous Mason and Dixon line — the one between Pennsylvania and Maryland — but a different line, between Pennsylvania and Delaware.)

Just did one mile today – I was tired, cranky, and basically non-compliant with pretty much everything.  (How is this different than any other day, you ask?  Hmph.)  The only thing that was motivating me was walking the .667 miles I needed to be officially two-thirds done with this nightmare.

Sixty-seven miles down, thirty-three miles to go.