Friday, October 6, 2023

pre-walk frustrations

Maybe it's Murphy's Law; maybe it's just consistently poor timing, but right before every walk I do, it's always crunch time at the office: some project needs to be done yesterday. I'm swamped with proofreading work right now as our team cranks out a series of textbooks, and the work is going to cut into my weekend (I'll be in the office on Saturday, and maybe on Sunday, too). I don't mind, though, because the extra comp hours will get used later on for things like extended Christmas vacation and/or long weekends.

Last night, I worked at the office until almost 10:30 p.m., then I left and did a 14K schlep out to the Jamshil Bridge (perfect night for walking); I finished in almost exactly three hours (4.67 kph pace—slow by normal human standards but fast for post-stroke Kevin). You squeeze in the walks where you can when it's crunch time, and since I'm a night owl* in my normal life, walking from 10:20 p.m. to 1:20 a.m. is no big deal.

That said, the sudden crush of work is a frustrating inconvenience, but there's nothing to be done about it: when you work in publishing, the deadline is king, and that takes top priority. If my boss were to announce that our team had a new project handed down by the CEO, and it needed to be done now, then I'd have no choice but to move my vacation around to accommodate the project, no matter what travel dates I printed on my walk tee shirts.

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*As I've mentioned many times elsewhere, when I go on these long, cross-country walks, a switch flips, and I suddenly become a morning person, easily able to wake up at 5 a.m. and be out the door and on the trail by 5:30 a.m. The mind is funny that way.



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