Their long walk vs. my long walk

I love walking, especially when I know it is burning calories and I can have that last piece of mince pie or that margarita without the fear of both landing on my hips.  While living in Virginia, I used to walk three miles every day and it took about an hour on our country road.  It was a workout but what a feeling of accomplishment when I crawled up the driveway afterward...  Now, in Arizona there is no country road but sidewalks and streets, a little traffic but very walkable.  I have been walking about a half hour instead of the old hour walk but still felt good about it.

Then, I decided the Nike+iPod sensor would help me because a voice tells me how many calories I burn, how far I walk, when I meet the half way mark, how fast I am walking etc.  That tiny little sensor 'finds' my iPhone where my iTunes music sits and the instructions were followed to the letter...  Placing the little sensor in my sock, I walked around the house to get it synched and up popped this wonderful display asking if my workout request would be distance, time, calories or anything.  Wow.  I was impressed.

This morning, sensor inside my sock, earphone to my head I started off on my normal route even though it was barely 50 degrees.  I was ready to roll as a Samba got my gait started and I was off.  Suddenly, after walking nearly half my route a woman's very nice voice cut into the music telling me I had walked half a mile.  That surprised me... I was so sure I'd walked farther...  Then, reaching the end mark of my usual route, the woman's voice cut in again to tell me I'd reached the one mile mark.  What???!!  I stood still a moment, disbelief flooding my senses.  Well, I said to myself ----(I had been deluding myself since June when I arrived and began my walking routine)  I'd just walk the entire route again and that should be two miles.

When I finished my usual route for the second time, the little voice (I no longer thought it was a nice) cut into my Spanish guitar music to tell me I had reached the 1-1/2 mile mark.  What???!!  That wasn't possible.  I was dragging a bit but pushed on... and walked up and down every street in the housing development waiting for this woman to give me the word to STOP.  Never happened...the music went on but I didn't.

Limping back inside the house, I realized I'd been walking over an hour which in the Virginia days would have been three miles...  I flopped into a chair and studied this little piece of....plastic and flipped through the iPhone Nike+iPod APP for more information..... when, suddenly an unbidden vision of immigrants walking all day long for twelve days floated through my mind.  Oh. My. God.  How did they do it?  They had babies to carry, toddlers to pull along, trunks to lug across the miles in carts, blisters to ignore, miles to endure.  Some women were pregnant, some losing their babies along the way, birthing them near Gibraltar only to lose them on the ship voyage.  NOW, I feel small --- never to complain about the distance again.

Although I will drive the route today just to measure how far I walked because that sensor could be wrong....  but I AGAIN applaud the tenacity, courage, strength and strong will of our ancestors.  Their history gives me such pride.... and even if the sensor is right... I will walk and walk and walk some more.  I know I could never catch up to those people's long march to Gibraltar so long ago.