Today’s 20km brought me from New Iberia, Queen of the Bayou Teche, to Jeanerette, Sugar City. I’m loving the walk down Louisiana’s Old Spanish Trail (Hwy 182). Not only is it peaceful, pretty, with light traffic and a wide shoulder, many of the people I’m meeting here continue to be some of the most very hospitable ever! Go Louisiana!!!
Today’s walk was simply an afternoon walk, and though the weather was absolutely ideal for walking (sunny, 79 F, breeze), I had a pretty uncomfortable stomach ache upon setting out for the day. I’ve been pretty in tune with my body, and when I first wondered if I should be walking today or not, my body assured me that walking was definitely going to be better for me than not walking today, despite the fact that I was going to have to walk with discomfort.
I had faith that the walking would help, and though some pain had to be endured first, walking ultimately DID help.
As the mind-body connection is a VERY real thing, and with the way I live nowadays, headaches and stomach aches are very rare for me, I had to dissect what was going on and why I wasn’t feeling as well as I should. I narrowed it down to a couple of things: 1) some subpar white bread appetizer I’d had at a restaurant the night before, which didn’t “feel” right as I was eating it, but I’d mindlessly continued anyway, and 2) I’ve overloaded myself with stuff on my Chariot cart. I resolved to discard some empty containers I’m no longer using, mail a few items home, and figure out some other efficient ways to trim my load. I made it over 2,200 miles to El Paso with just the backpack, and especially since I have over twice the space now, I need to stop finding clever ways to “push” the load limit, and keep adding more “stuff.”
Funny how narrowing down the issues within can help to evaporate headaches, stomach aches, and other general aches, pains, and weaknesses…
I immediately began feeling better, and especially with the assistance of some energizing music through the rest of the miles, my body ended the 20k leap year day feeling quite a bit better and stronger than when it started.
