Just a Little Walk

Sept 4, 2006

Predictably, I gained weight in the US – too much eating, not enough walking. I was already overweight, but now I’m in panic mode. Better get in shape now: I’ll be better off in the long term.

Gyms bore me and cost money, but who needs a gym? We live on a mountain. So, especially now while the weather is good, I’ll walk. I can walk down to the railway station to catch my train in the morning – this takes around 40 minutes and the first, very steep, part is hard on my arthritic knees. But it’s still easier than coming home and doing the steep part going up, with the last of the evening sun hitting hard on that piece of path. I have done it a couple of times – I arrive home drenched in sweat, but knowing I’ve had a workout (going up takes about the same time as going down, and everything goes faster with an iPod).

My first Sunday home I set out for a walk, which turned into a hike – I took the wrong path and ended up at a mountain “cabin” 500 meters above the level of our house, when I’d been trying to get to the cable car station that’s a good deal closer. That’s the end of the bus line, so my plan had been to walk up and take the bus back down, to spare my knees the downhill.

But I went wrong somewhere, and had to come back down the same slippery, uneven path I had climbed; I was in pain when I reached home after two and a half hours. I had set out around 8:30 and was surprised on the way up to run into people already on their way back down. But, when I was coming down, I met lots more people just coming up – whole family parties with children, grandparents, and little dogs; energetic older people with those walking sticks that look like ski poles (I need to get me some of those). Just as well I’d gone out early; the path was a traffic jam later in the day.

Still, it was a nice, if strenuous, way to spend the morning. I found a chapel commemorating all the people who have died on the Resegone (the mountain we live on), giving the dates and locations of their deaths. Hiking is good for you - when not fatal.