Let’s Go Walking! Join me for a virtual walking support group

Posted by Becky, Volunteer Mentor @becsbuddy, Feb 19, 2020

Many of you living with cancer or an autoimmune disease, like me, deal with daily fatigue. You know that exercise is so important to your health, but it’s so hard. There’s always an excuse: it’s too cold or hot, it’s going to rain or it’s raining, or it’s snowy and icy, or I just don’t want to. I, too, have all these excuses, but I have a new rescue dog who wants to go out and who doesn’t care about my excuses! And I’ve got traction devices for my boots.Now I just need a walking group who will keep me accountable. People who say, ‘let’s go for a walk.'

And I thought: What about my virtual friends on MayoClinicConnect?

Mayo Clinic has an easy 12-week walking program to get us started! Here’s the link:
- Get walking with this 12-week walking schedule https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/get-walking-with-this-12-week-walking-schedule/

So let’s form a virtual walking group. We can agree to walk every day and encourage each other through Connect. We can walk outdoors, in a mall, or in the red center, or in the hallways of our apartment building.

Who’s in? Who’s going to join me?

Come on, Let’s Go Walking!

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Just Want to Talk Support Group.

@jude07

We lived on a farm and used to take a hammer and pound them on the cement to get them to spark and make the noise. It didn’t take much to entertain us.

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@jude07 We did that too! The little guns that you put the rolls of caps in always seemed to break pretty quickly so we just used a rock on the sidewalk

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Oh, yes, rocks worked well! But my gun never broke ‘cos it was an Annie Oakley gun, remember?! 🤣

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@fiesty76

@wisco, Were those pop guns the ones that had the little red strips of paper with a tiny black dot in the center???? If so a little neighbor boy had one of those and though I begged to try it, the little stinker never let me even come close! Fun years and fond memories! Giggling, because our "walking maestro" may need to nudge us back on track but still the digression has been fun!

And yes, to our super instigator of this walker/cizer group, @becsbuddy, I Did walk today but it was humid and I needed to set up a little gathering of four at the front table which included washing the entire shaded concrete yard of earlier bird visitors...any excuse in a pinch, yes?

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@fiesty76 Are you setting up a nice table for your friends daughter? Is this the same daughter who was so unhelpful when your friend was dying? I’m just glad ‘whichever’ is coming and you’re doing a nice welcome!

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@becsbuddy

@fiesty76 Are you setting up a nice table for your friends daughter? Is this the same daughter who was so unhelpful when your friend was dying? I’m just glad ‘whichever’ is coming and you’re doing a nice welcome!

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@becsbuddy, Thank you for your response, Becky. No! This was not the best friend's daughter (also from Denver who remains in the house here with one daughter and 2 dogs) who continues to cause so much unpredictable and unnecessary grief. My invite was for one of the great guy's daughter's who travelled from Denver for a visit and him and their precious Yorkie.

It was great fun to "dress up the table" with colorful tableware and presentation and the visit with these two was a grand diversion I'd been looking forward to. An anecodote that was really hilarious is that I'd called my friend to leave a message about time to come because a cousin was also invited. Instead of calling the guy's cell #, I'd left a message on my best friend's cell # which is only one digit different. In the message, I said I'd be calling the house phone but if the disruptive daughter, T. answered, I'd be hanging up. My friend's cell had been given to the troublesome daughter who listened to my message. We Know this because she gave Fred an envelope containing some of the notes and letters I'd written my friend over the past two years to return to me. They were trying to figure out how "she knew" they were coming over...Turns out, I'd left a message on the Wrong cell and she'd heard it! We had a wonderful visit and solving the mystery was worth a laugh too for all of us!

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I am having so much fun walking and talking with everyone! I think we would have had so-o-o much fun together as kids😀
Did anybody play with Jacks? We used a golf ball instead of the rubber ball that came with the set, and all of us girls had fingernails that were well worn down on one side from playing on the smooth concrete porches.
I hope everybody has good weather for walking this week.

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Rosemary,
I agree with your thought about playing together. We did have jacks and, as a kid, I was quit good at picking them up after “one and only one” (as my older sisters told me) bounce of the ball. As the baby of us girls, I must have thought that there was an exception to how many bounces! Haha

I did get my walking in everyday this week and finally added some floor exercises to the day as well. I don’t want to toot my horn very much because I go in spurts with my floor exercises.

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@jude07

Rosemary,
I agree with your thought about playing together. We did have jacks and, as a kid, I was quit good at picking them up after “one and only one” (as my older sisters told me) bounce of the ball. As the baby of us girls, I must have thought that there was an exception to how many bounces! Haha

I did get my walking in everyday this week and finally added some floor exercises to the day as well. I don’t want to toot my horn very much because I go in spurts with my floor exercises.

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Go for it, @jude07! Toot your horn, with us cheering you on. Don't you love it when you get those spurts of inspiration and energy?

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@becsbuddy @rosemarya I've been seeing your posts and wishing I could walk. I have been sidelined for about the last 3 months because of a broken ankle, and I can tell you now that I am starting to walk again. Yippee! It's baby steps and I kind of walk like a little one who is trying to stay in balance. The sprain that happened along with the dislocation and fracture is still healing and painful, so I tend to walk flat on my foot and don't push off normally. I am supposed to be able to walk unassisted at my next followup appointment for my surgeon, so I am working on it. It's still tiring, and my foot still swells and gets painful, but it gets a little better each day. I did a lot of baking today, mostly seated on a stool by the counter and just having my foot in a down normal position makes it swell, and I did takes some steps to use the sink, but it feels good to do something normal for a change and I have some peach pies to show for my efforts. I also did some canning of peaches, and made blue berry muffins and Coconut macaroons and all gluten free.

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@rosemarya

I am having so much fun walking and talking with everyone! I think we would have had so-o-o much fun together as kids😀
Did anybody play with Jacks? We used a golf ball instead of the rubber ball that came with the set, and all of us girls had fingernails that were well worn down on one side from playing on the smooth concrete porches.
I hope everybody has good weather for walking this week.

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Me, too, @rosemarya and @jude07! This group of enterprising walker/talkers would have shared some incredibly fun times together as kids...and even as adults-in-person, too! We girls also played jacks together but never remember any of the neighborhood boys joining in on that. Another favorite was pick-up-sticks. Both were good for developing hand dexterity but of course that never entered our minds; we just liked to play. I couldn't find a set of jacks to buy so ordered a set and taught my grand to play when they came to visit. Later bought a bean bag toss that both grands and I enjoyed in the yard. Anyone else for either of those? How cute that older sisters had to "remind you", Jude that only one bounce was allowed! Smiles to all

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@rosemarya

Go for it, @jude07! Toot your horn, with us cheering you on. Don't you love it when you get those spurts of inspiration and energy?

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@jude07, i agree wholeheartedly with @rosemarya! Horn tooting and spurts of energy and inspiration always a welcomed read! Still waiting for one of you energetic wonders to send some of your extra spurts my way. vbg

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