Walk On

CrossFit for Hope on the National Mall
(photo by Mark Zaragoza)

Intellectually, and because a lot of people have told me so, I know that many of the things I have done over the last year have been to some extent remarkable and inspiring to some people. I still have a hard time thinking of myself as a remarkable and inspiring person. If you take away circumstance, what I do is not special. Lots of people can run and jump and lift weights and swing kettle bells. They do it everyday. When I do it, most of the time it feels ordinary and like a hot, sweaty, slow, struggling mess. I am impressed with myself, most of the time, when I'm able to do things I didn't think I could, but it's still hard for me to understand how someone who can do a 40 inch box jump could turn around and watch me do an 12 inch jump and be impressed. It's weird to me. It probably always will be.

Yesterday I went kayaking on the Potomac for an hour and a half, and while it was difficult and a great upper body workout, I wasn't that surprised that I was able to do it. I got more excited that I didn't exceed a weight limit on the kayak, that I was able to pick up a life jacket off the pile and have it fit me, and that my new swimsuit was an 18 and not a 32. I have gotten used to being able to do athletic things and they don't scare me and I don't find myself deterred by a physical challenge as much as I have in the past. I look forward to long walks and I don't get panicked figuring out how I'll be able to get where I need to go. Of all the things I can do now, as much as I love snatching, walking is my favorite. Walking is the thing that impresses me the most. Walking is such a simple task that most people take for granted, but as something that was once very difficult for me, conquering it and making it once again a simple task I don't have to think about is probably my greatest accomplishment of the last year.

Way back, two years ago, before CrossFit, before the YMCA, treadmills, Cardio Jam, and Aqua Zumba, I started walking. Almost every doctor, when trying to encourage activity in someone that is morbidly obese, will advocate walking as the place to start. Be it a mile, a block, an hour, a minute. Just start walking. Get moving. That is what I did. The VA Hospital in Salem is a large campus on about 200 acres and the loop around the facility is 1.2 miles. I started walking it with my Mom after work. It was brutal. We would only walk it once and I had to stop at least 4 times along the way. My feet would ache, my back would start to seize up and I had designated benches laid out as checkpoints so I could sit, catch my breath, ease the strain on my back and knees, and then start again. As tough as that was I felt accomplished at the end of the loop.

Most people, I think, take walking for granted because it's something they've always been able to do for as long as they can remember. They don't have to think about putting one foot in front of the other to get somewhere. It's as natural as breathing. Most people don't remember taking their first steps, even if there's some home movie of them doing it, because they were babies when they learned. Only if you've had to relearn to walk will you remember what taking those first steps feels like. I remember the first time I got to walk in the pool at the beginning of June 2004 and that day at the end of July of the same year when I stumbled through the house, without a cane or walker, looking like a mix of Frankenstein and a baby deer, hands outstretched touching the walls for stability. I remember tripping and falling down and being terrified that I'd hurt myself. I remember what it was like to have to plan every step and will each muscle to move. To have to worry about how I placed my foot and having to work on balance drills with a physical therapist 3 times a week so I wouldn't fall over when I shifting weight from one leg to the other. I had to learn to trust my bones and muscles to do their jobs.

It took the better part of a year for walking to be "normal" again, but as an adult having to go through the process of thinking about walking, it became "normal" for me to do so. To start gauging the height of every stair and preparing myself to move. Even though I didn't have to, I was still thinking about walking because it was still difficult. It was painful and tedious, not only because of the accident, but because I was so overweight that something that should be simple, like walking, was pretty much the most painful activity that I had to do.

One of the things I've grown to love the most about DC are the long walks I take to get to and from District CrossFit. I can take the Metro to get there, but back in September when I first started at DCF NW and now in the last month since I've restarted my focus on CrossFit, I made the decision to spend the extra time I had after work and before class to walk through the city. The route is 1.3 miles and I never have to stop and sit down. I've even started walking back from CrossFit to the Metro near my office, so I'm walking twice as much every time I go to the gym than I used to back when I started walking at the VA. And I don't have to think about it, and it doesn't hurt, and I enjoy it. I think that's pretty cool.

Last night when I was walking back from the boathouse I thought about walking again, not about how to walk, but about how cool it is to walk and enjoy the scenery and the summer breeze and admire the illuminated Washington Monument, and not have to think about each and every step that gets you from A to B. It's a pretty great feeling.