“Ralking.” It feels just like it sounds. At least it does to me.
Mike’s family lives on a farm in north west Ohio. The farm land is laid out in a grid pattern. From one stop sign to the other stop sign is one mile, which means if I walk from their driveway to the stop sign, turn around and head to the other stop sign and finally return to their driveway, I will walk two miles. Pretty nifty. No sidewalks but little traffic make it a good “track” for exercise.
Last week I started walking and running those two miles and coined the term, “ralking,” in part because it sounds just like I feel while I’m doing what my dad would’ve called “my roadwork”.
Cornfields along my "ralk." Photo by Sarah Evers
Part of me loves the thrill of being outside in the early morning. I get to watch the sun rise over the cornfields, burning off the morning dew and fog, shining through the open barn doors, and glistening off of tractors and spare farm equipment parked in the pastures. Lowing cattle accompany the sounds of the irregular pounding of my feet upon the pavement and my raspy, ragged breathing. Sometimes Roxy the dog will jog alongside me. Then she gets tired and waits in the grass by the cornfields for me to come back.
I’m not a runner by nature. It’s hard and it’s such a silly head game with me. Yes, I’m discovering endurance, and as Jillian Michaels always says on the Biggest Loser, my body can do more than I think it can.
Some of my outrageous fears include having one of my lungs explode. Why would that ever happen? I don’t know. Has it ever happened to me or someone I know? No. Another one of my fears is that I’ll run so far I’ll never be able to run that far again, so why bother even trying? Does that make sense? Of course not. It’s part of my irrational thinking.
But several times a week I deal with my fears and irrational thoughts head-on. As I tie my anti-gravity, negative heel sneakers, I think about how what I’ll accomplish at 7am is more than what most people do all day. The appeal to my competition “strength” helps. I take a deep breath as I step out the side door, wondering if the fresh cow aroma will make it difficult for me to breathe deeply. It rarely does so early in the morning, and for that I am truly grateful. After greeting Roxy and the eight or so barn cats who are waiting for their morning feed, I hit the road. I run along the empty mile with tall rows of corn and the slowly rising sun on my right and low rows of soy beans on my left. Sometimes I count the telephone poles and I often wonder about the people buried in the tiny, ancient graveyard along the side of County Road 16.
Irrational fears aside, my morning “ralks” are the best part of my day.