A messy walk

There are people who know I am not a neat person by nature. It's not that I don't try; it's just that tidying up always seems to be something I decide can be done later. Still, there are aspects of the chaotic nature of my personal space that baffle even me. Didn't I just clean out my purse last week? So, why is it that today I can't find my way to the bottom where I know there is a pen?

The other day, I bought a book called The Perfect Mess - The Hidden Benefits of Disorder. Even though I have justified my messiness with the explanation that it's good to be able to live with chaos - I mean, the world is a chaotic place - I do suffer from some guilt that somehow I could be more productive, if I could be just a bit neater. At the very least, the people around me might be happier. I thought this book my assuage some of my guilt.

The truth is I didn't really plan to read the book. The title was good enough for me. I bought it for my husband to read who is having a particular issue with the stack of books beside our bed. Well, chances are very high he won’t read it, since it will soon be buried under that stack. And, as it turns out, I have been hogging it. I even experimented applying the theory of messiness to walking which is I why I am writing about it in this blog.

While I was on my walk yesterday, after spending a good part of the afternoon reading about the benefits of disorder, I decided I might try a messy walk. What would a messy walk entail? Well, basically I applied disorder to the walk. Instead of following one of my more typical plans for a training walk where I might set about with some application of orderliness, such as hill repetition, or walking at a specified pace, I just walked fast and tried stuff as I went along. I may have a messy desk and a messy purse, but I tend to orderliness when it comes to my walking workouts. This might be interesting.

Here is what my messy walk looked like. When I came to my first hill I decided to walk up lunging. That was a good challenge and, as it turned out, a good way to stretch out while warming up. Within a few minutes along the path, I passed a children’s playground. Since no children were using it I decided to try a chin up. I’ve never been successful at chin ups but since I notice that limitation never stops children from trying, I just did what I could until my arms were ready to fall off. Then, I continued walking. I came to a place where the trail was hidden from view of houses, so I skipped. I skipped until I couldn’t skip any more. Then, I continued walking. Soon I found myself at another children’s playground. This time I climbed on a swing. I swung until I got bored. It took another few minutes after that to determine how to get my butt out of the swing. I’m sure when I was 12 I could just jump off. Thirty-five years later I lack confidence with this skill. Now I was on my final few blocks back to my house and I decided to race as fast as I could until I felt like stopping. I did that a few times. When I got in the door, I felt great.

I’ve decided the messy walk may have to become an integral part of my training. And I have a theory that the hidden benefit of disorder that results from a messy walk is that my body was surprised by the change in activity. As we know from research, the body greets change as challenge and that challenge with adaptation and improvement. Besides, it was fun. Try it and let me know what you think.