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Walking Hots

Walking Hots

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Yesterday’s record-breaking heat brought the words “walking hot” to mind. And that made me think about walking hots.

I remember when my high school friend Susan had a summer job walking hots at Keeneland, Lexington’s jewel of a racetrack. It was the first I’d heard of this practice, and I immediately liked the term. It was pithy, and it required insider knowledge to understand.

“Hots” were thoroughbreds who’d just had their morning work-outs, and hot walkers were the ones who lead them around the ring or shed area until they cooled down. Hot walkers hold the animals while they are sponged down, then walk them some more. Thoroughbreds get sick if they decelerate too quickly. Unlike humans, they’re not allowed to go from 60 to 0 without proper attention.

Hot walkers are usually novices or interns, those on the lowest end of the thoroughbred-care team. It’s their job to slow down high-strung animals who are bred to run — and it must be both boring and terrifying.

Much easier to walk hot than to walk hots.

Meadow Trail

Meadow Trail

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Walking from a parking lot to the library this weekend I cut through an empty lot bursting with bloom. There were buttercups and daisies and plentiful purple self-heal. There was a shaggy, shrubby intensity to the overgrowth, a bursting-at-the-seams quality that is the soul of June and the soul of any meadow worth its salt.

A narrow path crossed the flowery expanse, just wide enough for foot fall, with tenacious roots that clawed their way across the dusty dirt. It was mid-afternoon of the hottest day yet this season, and the meadow lacked even a stick of shade.

I was in the epicenter of summer, a buzzing, blazing bounty of growth and color and aroma. I had places to go and errands to run — was expecting nothing more than a shortcut, a quick trot from A to B. I found instead a destination, a place of beauty and peace.

Comey Walk

Comey Walk

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There is the quiet walk: no earphones, mind open to bird song and insect chirp.

There is the musical walk: with Brahms or Bach or Simon and Garfunkel.

And then there is the Comey walk. That’s what I’ve been taking the last few days. It’s a subset of the all-news walk, and it consists of the following: what will he say, what did he say, and now, what will happen because of what he said.

This is not the most restful soundtrack for an early-morning stroll. But it’s an itch that must be scratched. As soon as I returned home this morning I picked up the newspaper. Now I’m reading about what Comey said. At least I’m consistent.

Power of the Path

Power of the Path

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Diana Nyad has traded her swimmer’s goggles for a pair of tennis shoes. The long-distance swimmer and her best friend and colleague Bonnie Stoll aim to get Americans off their posteriors and on their feet. To aid in this endeavor, they have created a movement called EverWalk.

Pointing out that “sitting is the new smoking” (a phrase coined by Dr. James Levine, who invented the treadmill desk), Nyad and Stoll implore Americans to sign a pledge to walk three times a day. Even if it’s just a few steps down the block, they say, it’s a beginning. More avid walkers can sign up for long-distance walks. There will be one from Boston to Cape Elizabeth, Maine, this September.

One of the things I like best about walking is the quiet alone time it gives me — but I’m certainly open to the social aspect of walking and the power of the group hike. I like to imagine a wall of walkers striding across the land. They are strong and they are true. And they are not sitting.

Walk through the Gloaming

Walk through the Gloaming

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These are long days that know how to finish. Light lingers till 9, and tempts the walker to stroll at a time she would normally be getting ready for bed!

Last night was like that. Dinner out with Ellen, then, on the way back to the parking garage, a thought: Why not a quick walk on the W&OD Trail, a 45-mile ribbon of asphalt from the D.C. suburbs to the foot of the Blue Ridge. It’s easy to reach from Reston Town Center, and, as it turned out, only a few steps from my car. 
It was 8:40 when I started, but the light that seemed abundant when I began drained quickly as I walked  first west then east. The W&OD closes at dusk, but that meant nothing to long-distance bikers with their powerful headlamps, or to the rest of us, either, who sauntered at a twilight pace.  It was good to walk through the gloaming.
Mountain Walk

Mountain Walk

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Less than two hours west is a different world, one bound by green and dripping boughs. Chalets on the hillside, mountain paths, water trickling over rocks. I won’t glorify these trickles by calling them waterfalls. But the water sings as it flows over stones and through leaves, so these trickles have an aural presence.

Some of the lanes here are paved and some not. Foot paths cross them, heading up the mountain. I may tackle one of them today. But yesterday was a get-acquainted stroll. The end of a long week.

I marveled as I strolled at how much difference a walk can make. And a mountain walk makes even more.

Waltzing Along

Waltzing Along

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A ho-hum evening after days of cloud and rain. A walk that’s uninspired, plodding. The houses hold no surprises, and the clouds are uniform, without color or texture.

The music in my ears is plodding, too. Tunes heard too often. A switch to news makes little difference.

And then my ears hit the jackpot, a change of tempo. It’s a waltz. Not an obvious one or a schmaltzy one,  but I’d recognize 3/4 time anywhere. I find myself counting 1,2, 3; 2,2,3; 3,2,3.  Almost hypnotic, that beat. And liberating, too.

It’s like a transfusion. I pick up the pace, I loosen the shoulders. My arms swing more freely by my side. And soon I’m on the downhill slope, toward home and dinner.

Internal Dialogue

Internal Dialogue

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As national events heat up and the news changes by the minute, I’m tuning my headset to news stations as I hoof it.  It’s not the calm strolls I usually crave, but it makes for some brisk walks and some fascinating internal dialogue.

“How could he?” “Will they really?” “Oh yeah?” “We’ll see about that.”

These conversations take place only in my head, but they are stimulating in their own way.

Walking and talking: It’s the way it is now.

Walking Early

Walking Early

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An early walk this morning as the day began. Quiet and dim when I started, flashlight bobbing, illuminating the pavement, but often off, too, so I could savor the darkness before the dawn.

Only one car about at such an hour, for newspaper delivery; otherwise, mechanical stillness to match the natural kind.

I heard crickets, inhaled the scent of newly cut wood and freshly mown grass. And then, finally, a chirp, the first bird.

By the time I got home, the sky was light, the lone bird was a chorus and night had turned to day.

Walking the Apple

Walking the Apple

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In a few hours I’ll board a train that will take me up the Northeast Corridor to a journalism school reunion. Well, it won’t take me directly there. I’ll land at Penn Station, hop on a subway to 96th Street, check into the hotel, then walk, walk, walk wherever my feet will take me.

Maybe to Central Park, which should be lovely this time of year.  The Reservoir Path is nice, or I could dip south to the Sheep Meadow. There will be the castle and the Great Lawn and the arbor and the Ramble.

Later there will be lectures and panels, receptions and dinners. There will be classmates I haven’t seen in years.

But before that, there will be the walk.