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Showing posts from April 14, 2024

'There's no wander I'm always ready to ramble'

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South Wales Evening Post column, Friday, April 19, 2024 GIVEN an audience of at least one man and a dog, I can raise my game and my ability to bore people to Olympic levels. All I require is that someone draws breath and allows me sufficient pause to start rambling on the benefits of walking. The subject of walking is one I approach with almost missionary zeal. As the survivor of two heart attacks, my tweaked internal plumbing requires that I follow the British Heart Foundation guidelines of getting at least 10,000 steps a day. Hitting that daily target now borders on an obsession. Most days, I will chalk up more than 12,000 steps and on big marathon days I will complete more than 25,000. All of this is recorded on a Fitbit tracker on my wrist and an app on my mobile phone. See, I told you I was obsessive; I need two methods to record my daily walks. As for planning my day, I follow the advice of the American naturalist and writer Henry David Thoreau, who once declared: “An early morni