Walkies

For quite some time now I've been meaning to do the "dry run". You know what I mean: When I go back to school I'll be taking the train, so for scheduling purposes I need to know how long it takes to ride the rails, and to do the necessary walking at both ends. After all, I don't want to show up late for my class, do I? Well, today it finally happened and the results are in...

If I do say so myself, it was all very scientific. For the record, the weather was partly cloudy, the winds were 10-25 km/h from the southwest, humidity was about 37%. I was appropriately attired in shorts and a light shirt, with a water bottle strapped to my hip. We left the driveway at 11:56am - for the heck of it, and in the interests of scientific redundancy I didn't do this trip alone. I took Em with me - after all, he needs to know what I'm going through for the better part of the next nine months, to assuage any feeling he may have that I'm  exaggerating in the description of my efforts.

Eight minutes after we left we were at the mall, which is between us and the LRT station. It's equidistant, as I found out, because about eight minutes after that we were on the platform, boarding a train to Crowfoot.

The train happened to arrive right away, and the ride was expeditious indeed. It took us, even with all the downtown stops, about 40 minutes to get from our home station to the university. It then took us another twelve minutes or so to walk from the University station to the Student Centre at Macewan Hall. 

Thus, in perfect conditions half an hour of walking at both ends and a 40 minute train ride will get me to my classes. Add or subtract for imperfect conditions and we have our guide.

That's not bad - it's certainly not as long as when I was at York. At York I had a ten minute walk, a half-hour bus ride, a 30 minute train ride, a further 40 minutes on the bus, then at the school end I had to walk another 20-25 minutes, depending on where my class was. So, all things being equal and comparing apples to apples, it was a little further to go at York, but now of course I'm older so I think it balances out. 

Speaking of being older, I'm definitely going to get my exercise in this junket. Those who care have indicated that I should be putting more kilometers on the ol' carcass, so this fact will make them happy. I figure on a minimum one hour walk each day, six days a week, in all sorts of laborious conditions, and this should be enough to assuage the naysayers. Anyway, it should certainly help me lose some weight. I will take to wearing a pedometer, to keep an eye on how many extra kilometers the carcass is enjoying.

Let's see - I'm 220lb right now - yes I know, slightly over-ideal. On the first day of class I will begin a regimen of weighing myself and tracking the actual effect of the enforced exercise, which I have long doubted. I will earnestly and honestly report the results of this tracking to you, so that you, too, can see the positive effects of getting off the couch. This will be done with all sorts of colourful graphs and charts - I'm told this enhances the information-receiving experience.

Looked at puppies yesterday. It would be nice, but who knows?

J