Stepping Out

When I was in rehab after my hip replacement surgeries, I was encouraged to take long strides to help stretch out my hips. Sound advice but not always easy to implement. For a start, the maximum length of my stride is limited by my short legs. Moreover, I have observed that the body is not inclined to take long strides or move very fast when going only short distances. In our cramped and cluttered house, it’s impossible to take more than a few steps in any direction, especially with a walker (and there are some places a walker won’t go at all), so my attempted long strides were confined to an outdoor walk—after I gave up on using a cane, which I had decided did more harm than good since I never could get the hang of it and kept tripping over it.

In the Before Times, I had set a benchmark time of 13 minutes to go from my house around the northern loop of my 2.1-mile circuit and back to the end of my street (a distance of 0.72 mile). As my hips became more and more useless, it began to take 14, 15, 16—as much as 20—minutes to walk that distance. Pretty discouraging.

But I’m making progress. Now, 15 months after my second surgery, I routinely hit that benchmark in 12 minutes or less. Better still, instead of flagging toward the end of my walk as I used to do, I now find I generally put on more speed on the second mile. There’s no way I’ll ever achieve on the street the 4 mph that I make on the treadmill (15 mpm), but I’m satisfied with 16 mpm, and I am definitely making great strides.