Finally, a walk on the not-so-wild side

It didn’t happen until the 71st day of the "new" year, but yesterday I finally walked outside for the first time in 2011.

When I say “walked,” I mean something else entirely from the daily jaunts I’ve been taking with the dogs. Those are brief, plodding affairs that require frequent stops for sniffing and peeing and . . . yeah, that too.

No, this was a brisk two-mile walk, the kind I've been taking on the indoor track at the YMCA in recent months, when snow or ice or frigid temperatures - or some combination thereof - made it impractical to do so outside.

Yesterday marked a turning point. There’s still plenty of snow here in central Maine, but the sidewalks are (generally) free of ice. Although I had to complement my warm coat with a cap and gloves, the temperature hovered around 40 degrees and the breeze was pleasant, despite cloudy skies. Best of all, I was free of that claustrophobic hamster-in-a-wheel feeling that I get while circling the small track at the Y over and over and over again.

Walking through the neighborhood, with its diversionary sights and sounds and the varifying inclines offered by the occasional hill, felt refreshing, but mildly foreign, as if I was visiting a strange planet. We may have more winter storms in store, but as the year progresses, the outdoors will become home once again, and the very idea of exercising on an indoor track will come to feel alien, even bizarre.