Walk the Walk

My daughter swims.  Oh, both my daughters swim; they learned to swim as they learned to walk.  It’s fun for me, a landlubber who sometimes thrashed her way out to the raft at Farmer Jim’s swimming hole to see the girls glide through the water so effortlessly.  It’s not that much fun though, to get up at 5am to drive my younger daughter to summer swim practice on the campus of UC Santa Cruz by 6am.

I am not a morning person.
Art:  Sodahead.com

Three times a week this summer that is exactly what I do.  And as my young athlete jumps out of the car and rushes to the pool I’m left standing in the foggy hills of Santa Cruz holding a cup of cold coffee and my car keys. 

Now what?

 I was tickled when another mother agreed to take a walk last week while our kids were swimming.  I thought she looked fit, and I exercise fairly often, so I thought we would have a nice brisk walk through the wide paved roads of the university campus, which wind their way across 2000 beautiful acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

My idea of a walk.
Photo:www.Glenlake.org

“Oh look, there’s a path,” she cried as we stepped out of the parking lot.  I was just formulating my observations about the steepness and narrowness of the route as she stepped onto it, already moving vigorously up what seemed to be an endless series of switchbacks and hills.  Soon I was gasping too hard to protest, and saved my strength to pull myself up the trail.  How could the laws of physics be suspended, I wondered, so that we walk up, up, up?  Where was the down?

Her idea of a walk.
Photo:Tsittours.com

I wasn’t until an hour later that we realized we were lost.  Luckily my walking partner was as good with her iPhone as she was at striding uphill.  I suggested (begged) that she call a cab with the iPhone, but she pulled up a map instead, and set out again, determined to be at the car by the end of swim practice. 

UCSC and environs.
Photo:Aquafornia.com

She did stop once, when a deer stepped out into our path. “How beautiful” she sighed, barely winded.  “Maybe it’s an evil deer” I wheezed spitefully.  “They can be very mean you know. “  She laughed, but slowed her approach a bit.

Teeming with dangerous animals.
Photo: UCSC

There's one now.
Photo: UCSC

By the time she was done with me I was staggering more than walking.  And at the afternoon swim practice that day?  I guess I should have gone to the gym down the street.  But thinking about my new walking partner and the hills waiting for me in Santa Cruz the next morning, I rested instead, choosing my challenges with care.

Enough to wake you right up.