Walking Fatigue

I love to hike. With Slugger, I have learned to walk. I still really have no desire to run. Though I think it'd be cool to run a marathon some day. Yes, I know.

Slugger and I have walked and walked our neighborhood. We have flat routes, short routes, hilly routes, horse routes, etc. We get in the car and go walk in the park or along the Trinity River. We go hike at state parks or the Nature Center. We both love being outside in the beautiful creation that God blessed us with. Slugger sniffs everywhere, tries to eat whatever he can, chases birds and squirrels and noises in the bushes. Now that it's warming up in Texas, we come home and cool off with the hose or sprinkler, when we've gone so far or so long that we're just that hot.

But lately, we're just not feeling it. Oh, Slugger still loves to go for walks, and I still love being outside. But it's like we've lost our walking mojo. There's my body's rebellion - feet, knees, back, shoulder - you know, I'm old and falling apart. Plus, in the past couple months, we've dealt with idiots yelling at us, ticks, armadillos, more ticks, dogs attacking through fences, more ticks. I think about going for a walk, and I wonder what'll happen this time...

Just yesterday we were having a nice walk when a dog decides to leave his yard and follow us. Not a problem except he kept following us! Slugger wasn't too sure what to do about this and occasionally let out a growl. I attempted to just keep walking thinking that the dog would give up. Nope. This was apparently more fun than he'd had in a long time. He was a pretty, big, white, fluffy thing, with burrs in his tail and a need for a bath. I won't go into how nice the house was that he fled from. We got to the bottom of the hill/street and I decided to attempt to take him home again so we turned around instead of making our loop. When we got to his house, he really didn't seem to care and kept following us! Slugger wanted water, but the other dog kept nosing in. This was quite frustrating for me cuz I always want Slugs to know he can have water. I went back to the house and knocked on the door but no one answered. I finally gave up and kept walking up the hill. He stopped to sniff something, and we got far enough away we weren't interesting anymore. He finally loped back home as we continued around the corner. The rest of our walk was less interesting. We ended up going about 3 miles. Not bad as this is our hilliest route.

Anyway, add in the heat and needing to either get up early or stay up late, walking has become more of a chore than a treat. For me. I think Slugs would go anytime! Though he really doesn't like the heat. Over 85 and he wimps out at about a mile. I'm working on his weight and conditioning him, but he definitely slows down, wants more water, etc.

What's the moral of the story? Beats me! We'll keep walking. But I'm really looking forward to getting to CA in June for a change of scenery!! And temperature :)