There is a certain happiness sighted when your bus comes along. It is of course a small specialized form of happiness and will never be a great thing.

-Richard Brautigan, The Old Bus

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Transitarian diet and exercise

"You get a little exercise in the morning, huh?"

I was boarding the bus, and it took a step or two before I figured out what the bus driver meant.

"Yep," I said. I flashed my bus pass and a smile and moved to the rear of the bus to take my regular seat.

It's nice to have a regular driver, and especially a friendly one. It makes the Transitarian diet that much more enjoyable.

I'm also enjoying the benefits of the Gmaps Pedometer, an online means of measuring how much you walk using a Google Maps interface.

As the driver had noticed, I don't always take the bus stop closest to my house, a distances of 0.0415 miles. Instead, I walk to a point two stops later, which Gmaps Pedometer says is 0.202 miles away, and wait.

As I've mentioned in previous posts about Transitarian exercise, I also have a choice of how much to walk on my way to work.

If I take the No. 30 bus from Sac State to downtown and remember to get off at 22nd and L (more than once I've missed my stop due to my book reading), the walk to work is 0.48 miles. If I go to the end of the No. 82 bus line and take light rail from the 65th Street station, the walk from the 23rd Street station to my office is 0.1951 miles. And on those mornings when I'm looking for a little exercise and I get off at 29th Street, the walk to work is 0.6966 miles.

This weekend I was playing with Gmaps Pedometer and mapped out a 2.4925 mile route from my home to the Starbucks at Watt and Kings Way. I walked there, enjoyed a coffee and then coordinated my return trip with the weekend schedule for the No. 82 bus. An excellent Transitarian weekend adventure.

Now, if only I could combine this nifty exercise with a sensible diet.

2 comments:

Maya said...

Are you one to enjoy the excruciating heat of Sacramento summers? I have been walking the .6 miles to the #67/68 stop that takes me to work, but I am concerned about the walk home, once the temperatures top 95. That's my threshold for misery.

Unknown said...

Yes, summer is going to be a problem. But I didn't melt when I walked in the rain, and I suppose I won't melt in the heat, although I will admit that I prefer rain over sweat as a melting agent.

In addition to walking to and from work, I also walk in the afternoons for my lunch break. I'm already getting a little sticky by the time I return to the office. After walking on 100 degree days my co-workers may start complaining.