In the early days of a new year, walking feels more purposeful. You feet are weighed down by the excesses of the festive period just past – there are only so many roast potatoes a body can hold, after all – and the mere act of being outside gives you a feeling of discovery, even if the patch you are walking is as familiar as your own face.
On those walks, it’s easy to feel like clarity is entering your body along with the frigid air, and Bad Thoughts are emptying out. It’s a powerful image, so we cling to it, but the truth of the matter is, it’s merely very cold and so your face is probably numb and also, three cheers for exercise-endorphins. Yeah!
In New York – which I have found to be less accidentally green than London, much to my dismay – my new year walks are mostly on concrete and granite. Hard walks on unyielding surfaces, which matches my mood. In January, I always feel like death warmed over (the only other month that matches this wretched feeling is February, ugh) and the walks that take me to the train station for my work commute and back again are sometimes the only exercise I get. So I make it count; my time to set new resolutions, if that’s how you roll, is now. Like any procrastinator (regional champion, 1986 to date), I balk at the formalising of my intentions at the best of times, and doubly so in a new year. But one of my loosely formed objectives (I prefer to frame it this way) is to walk a lot more, and in new spaces, wherever possible.
Time to dig deep, and refind the urge that led me to the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme almost 20 years ago. My lungs may thank me for it.
