Another walk around the local suburb, much the same as on Friday, but extended a little. About 1hr 10min, I think. It must be working, because I only stopped 4 times on the last uphill stretch back home, last time it was 5.

Today's walking

No special walking expedition today, but I did some walking around town, with a backpack and too much stuff in it. Railway station to National Library (uphill, 10 minutes) National Library to The Terrace (flattish, 10 minutes) Lambton Square to a coffee shop on Willis St (flat, about 15 minutes) Back to the railway station (probably 20 minutes of walking) In the old days, I would have used the bus for some of those trips, so I'm doing better than I used to.

Photos from yesterday

It's always hard to choose which picture to post from a walk. This time I've decided to boast about what a good effort it was by showing the steepest part - the stairs. You look at the bottom of the stairs as they ascend and then disappear under the trees, and you think maybe it wouldn't be too hard, so you start to climb. You climb, and stop, and climb some more, then you look back and think you're doing pretty well. Then you look upwards again, and realise you're less than halfway, and there are a lot more stairs to climb yet. You climb another level and look up again, and you can just make out a little corner of a white car in the distance - you hope that means the end of the climb. You get to the car and are relieved to find that it is indeed parked on a street, and there are no more stairs. All that remains is to complete the loop by finding a different way back down. I should have counted the steps. Maybe I'll go that way again sometime soon.

I feel good!

A good, serious walk today (see street map). Starting from nearly the bottom (western end) of Norwich St, I went uphill to Mairangi Rd and turned right, left into Euston Rd (uphill again), right into Edgeware and all the way to the end. Back almost to the corner and then up, up, up the pedestrian access steps to Cecil Rd - it doesn't look far on the map, but it's up all the way and it feels as though the vertical distance matches the horizontal. Then left along Cecil Rd to another pedestrian accessway - equally steep, going back down to Mairangi Rd and coming out just before Rutland Way. Back along to Norwich Rd and down, back to my starting point. A distance of about 2km according to my pedometer, and it took about an hour and a half including stops. Step count for the day: 4397 = 2.4km. Still no brownie points, but of course the gadget doesn't know how much uphill was involved.

Mea culpa

I didn't go rock'n'rolling last night after all, I was too tired. So this evening I made sure to compensate by making a serious effort. I spent about an hour walking up and down the streets in my suburb - went further than I expected in the time, too. It must be doing me some good, I no longer get lower back pain when I go walking.

Lies, damn lies and statistics

Today I went to the dietitian found that since last month my weight is.... [drum roll...] down by a whole 100g, the weight of two chocolate bars. I don't put a lot of value on weight measurements, though, they don't fairly reflect progress if you start replacing fat tissue with muscle due to exercise. So I've decided to use another yardstick, I will record my hip measurement each time I go for a weigh-in. Today the distance around me is 146cm, or 57.5 inches. Or to put it another way, only 4.5 inches less than my height. On second thoughts, let's not put it that way.... My exercise for today will be retro rock'n'roll dancing at Ricky's gig at Bodega.

No walk today

I have come to a realisation that if I want to go my genealogy meeting tonight AND finish the re-write of my CV before I go to bed, I do not have time to go for a walk, or process photos, or do anything else except maybe eat. The CV must come first! Partly because I need a job, but mostly because I promised my recruitment agent she would have it first thing in the morning.