Walking Meridian on Meridian

No, it’s not the name of some adult pay-per-view special… at least, I haven’t had any credit cards clear yet, so I’m not putting up the webcam.

Today I walked out along Meridian to lunch and back for about 2.5 miles each direction. Everything’s in the HRM/GPS so let’s see how I did.

My destination today was the Blue Rock BBQ. It really deserves its own article… maybe after I finish this one. It’s a little short of 2.5 miles each way so I took a quick fifth of a mile past my destination (that I repeated on the way back) to make it be 2.5. I did the outbound leg in a little less than 45 minutes with an average speed of 3.4 mph. Coming back was similar, in fact my software claims I had the same moving average.

My outbound leg’s average heart rate was 125 with a max of 141. I know my heart was going a bit faster on the way back and I had a max of 149 with an average of 138. I’m still below the zone for Aerobic cardio according the Karvonen method which has aerobic at a cutoff of 153bpm for me. Most of the inbound lap was in the Zone 2 (fitness) level, though, so I’m definitely not wasting time.

I’ve developed a fair amount of soreness in my left instep, both shins, and there’s a slight tension in my hamstrings that I’ve had since Saturday when I was pulling weeds at my sister’s house. The hamstring tension is the one I feel constantly unless I maintain really really tight form while walking. I’m going to have to rest to back this off, I think. I was finding it painful to step higher or lower because of curbs or uneven sidewalk joins.

Weather seemed cooler today than yesterday; again the forecasters said it would rain and it did not. The sun wasn’t really warming me on the outbound leg but inbound it probably contributed to me sweating like crazy.

Meridian is a lot longer stretch between stoplights than Blossom Hill. I could walk almost completely uninterrupted by traffic for a mile or more. This is probably better for my cardio as I won’t have the forced breaks as often because of stoplights.

I got hit with a pen. I felt something bump into my leg and when I looked down I noticed a Bic pen bounce off. A car had just past, so I’m hoping it was kicked up by a tire and not some jerk hucking a pen at passers-by.

Saw a red Mk4 R32 for sale for a whopping $19.5k. It did have racing seats, *huge* rims, and some carbon fiber bits inside, but I don’t think I want to relearn how to drive a manual for that car. Now this car….

I must have passed 6 bus stops in each direction for a total of 12. I saw all of one person waiting for a bus, and I only saw one bus the entire time I was walking which was about 1:30 hours. I suppose I could have missed them while I was eating lunch, but I feel like buses should come more frequently for them to be useful.