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Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Water Fowl

I went on a walk yesterday afternoon at Shelly Lake and the waterfowl were amazing. The standard ducks and Canadian geese were joined by others. I'm always struck, when I stop to look, in the fall by the diversity of waterfowl at the lake. That's one thing to be said for not being able to do the run I had built up to prior to my LND. Back then I would do a warm up walk to the first trail, start jogging, build up to moving a little faster by the time I got to the lake, circle the lake, and slow down by the time I got back onto the street back to my house. As a result, everything I saw at the lake was a quick look in passing. Walking with my camera, I see a lot more. My last P.T. session was in the pool at the rehab center Monday. The plan was for me to try to continue working in the pool at my YMCA on my own or in one of their classes for older adults with P.T. needs. I am going to try to do that this morning. After working every weekend for months as well as during the week, I'm glad to have at least a brief lull in work. This will be my first time at the Y since my LND in March, 2005. It is psycologicaly hard since I've always gone back to the Y after getting in good shape. Sounds crazy but in the past I've had times of getting out of shape and I always did the first bit on my own. In my 30s I went back after I was doing well enough to join step and other aerobics classes. In my 40s, after I'd been running for a while, I went back to work on upper body strength in the gym. I was doing chin ups and working with the equipment because of the goal I had of going on an adult tailored outward bound rockclimbing trip for beginners. The last time I went there was February 2005, a few days before my SNB. It will be a little odd to go there for a pool class described as being for active older adults with physical therapy needs, and/or arthritis. The funny part is that I am probably not going to have the endurance to do the entire class at first. Oh well, I have to start somewhere and this should be a good place for me to start. The other funny thing is these active older adults classes are for people who are 50 and up, although some people who are younger with special needs join them. That's me, special needs and since I will turn 50 in 2007, I'm not exactly a young active adult. That's for damn sure. However, I used to think those would be the kind of classes that I'd do in my my 70s and 80s, not when I hadn't even turned 50. Well, plans change and I am so lucky to not only be reasonably healthy given how things could have gone for me, but I am lucky to have a job that lets me work from home and gives me the flexibility to go to a morning class like this, or to go for a walk. Even if I still commuted to Durham, they have started having lunch break classes at the office. They have a yoga group, a walking group, a discount for the Y near the office. I guess if I'm going to do this here thing I better get ready.

1 comment:

Sarah said...

Well, you may not be young, you may not be old, but here's to hoping that when you hit the big 5-0 next year you are actually just hitting perfect middle-age!

Beautiful pics Carver!