Move along

I have bought myself a tiny gadget and it has improved my life so much. I bought a fitbit One - a wireless fitness tracker. Sort of a glorified pedometer but much more accurate and, with the help of a few iPhone apps, so much more useful.



So cute! It records my steps, distance travelled, calories burnt, and best of all flights of stairs ascended or equivalent. So I today I climbed the White Cliffs of Dover - 35 flights. Not too shabby considering most of my exercise was on the flat.

It has given me the push to fight back against MS aggressively. I had been reducing the distance I walked Millie gradually, thinking she's running around off leash so she's getting a good workout. She might have been but I was not. So I hitched up my big girl pants, grabbed my walking pole, tied on my trail shoes for stability and started doing a 3k loop. I got to the point where I could forget my pole and disaster did not strike. Then I moved up to twice around the loop on occasion - no chore because I was circling a basin surrounded by bush and crossing inlets on wooden bridges and walkways. I felt much better. I still hurt but I decided to just push on.

I started on Clonazepam for my funny jerks and it seems to have helped with the wobbles and shakes so I look a little less Bride of Frankenstein's monster.

Then Millie and I decided to try a new route, due to her grass allergy and the increasing wet wet weather. We worked out a 5k loop that circles a volcano and even dips up and down it's slope - how's that for fun!

This got the step count up.

Since April 1st I have been officially allowed to run but apart from a try on April3rd I haven't been brave enough. Well I sucked up and decided that the treadmill at the gym was going to get a workout. I do go to a gym populated by people recovering from strokes, in wheelchairs, with brain injuries and a few senior citizens for good measure so there are no gym bunnies to laugh at my lurching.

I've started the Couch potato to 5k program because that was my grand ambition - a 5k. I'm on week 2 and am amazed to discover I can run for 1:30 at the all out pace of .....8kph with a final one minute dash at 9.5kph.

It sounds good and I get my 10000 steps but I do have difficulty even walking afterward but this is war and I am not going down without a fight. As long as you can run, run, when you can't run, walk, when you can't walk crawl and when you can't crawl, well then find someone to carry you (Love my captain) so that is what I shall do.