Lessons learned, fitness edition

Yesterday's hour-long walk on Jay's old neighborhood path was a real eye-opener for me.  It utterly wiped me out, and I'm still so wiped out today that I'm actually skipping exercise completely today to let my body recover.

But here's what that walk taught me:

• I'm insanely out of shape. Well, this is not exactly news. But the last time I did this walk, I did it with only a little bit of whining about the hilly part near the end. <sarcasm>This time was just a little different </sarcasm>.
• I'm insanely stubborn. (This isn't news, either, unfortunately.) There was a point during the walk where I could easily have either turned around or taken a shorter path, which would have made for a perfectly acceptable walk. But I had to know whether I could do the full walk, so on I went.
• I need to stop neglecting my "active recovery" days. These are days when I would be doing stretching or joint mobility or chair compensation. I've been skipping these activities, and boy, am I paying the price. Even today, my back and hips are complaining at me.
• My exercise program, as currently constituted, is helping. I couldn't have done this walk without all the bike riding I've been doing. So I need to keep up with that, and step up all the other parts of the exercise routine.