The more you move

This weekend, my friends Mary Ann and Brian took my sister Rosemary and me to Watkins Glen, to hike the Gorge trail. This isn't a steep hike, but does involve 800 steps over about 1.5 miles, each way.

The next day, I wasn't very sore, until after I did the 5.5 hr drive home. Getting out of the car, I felt stiff and sore, especially my calves.

This reminded me of how, in high school gym class, we'd have these incredible bouts of calisthenics, which would leave me sore for days. The teacher always said to stretch and walk to get out the soreness, but I never believed her because it hurt so much to start. So I never did, and sometimes it'd take a week to lose the soreness.

Then as an adult, I started hiking, and I found that if I was sore and stiff, the best cure was more hiking, or at least walking. Not only did the soreness lessen after a few minutes, but I usually was fine the next day, or shortly thereafter.

Keeping still because of the soreness = longer duration of soreness. Hmm.

The more you move, the more you can move.

I'm astounded at how true that is, about any sort of action at all -- from my Toastmasters efforts, to exercise, to creative efforts.