I am not, by any means, a gym rat. Until this past fall, the last thing that I did for my health was quitting smoking: in 1990, after 15 years of it, I managed to quit. I've never been horribly out of shape, but I've never been in shape, either.

But my physician has been on my case about my cholesterol levels (to my mind, he seems to be too willing to medicate the problem away), and I have long known that my heart isn't made of teflon. I've had too many friends die suddenly of cardiac arrest in their fifties, forties, even thirties.

So I started walking for exercise in October. I started out by slipping out of the office at lunch hour: I told myself, "I'll just walk for ten minutes and turn around and walk back." That turned out to be somewhat more than a mile. Now, I'm up to three miles each time I go out, three times a week (or two or four, depending on the weather).

I've been reluctant to write about my new exercise plan, because writing about something is a sure way to lose interest in it. And of course lots of us, this time of year, are trying to stick to post-holiday resolutions, and so many of us fail. I don't want to become one of the casualties.

Naturally, I bought a couple of books to get me started. The Healthy Heart Walking Book, by the American Heart Association, was the most helpful for assessing my baseline level of fitness; providing some simple motivation; and establishing realistic early goals. It's apparently out of print, but I located a good copy through Amazon.com's used booksellers. Kathy Smith's Walkfit for a Better Body has been useful for techniques to improve my speed, now that I'm up to 3 miles a session now. I've also picked up a few tips from About.com's site.

I bought a bare-bones chest-mounted heart rate monitor. Sometimes I'm a little puzzled by the readings I get, because my measured heart rate will rev up to my theoretical maximum (220 less my age in years): I feel the exertion, but I feel like there's still another warp factor left in the engines. (Electronics and record-keeping: now that's my idea of exercise.)

I really prefer walking's low impact to the knee-pounding that jogging would do. I've had very little discomfort: a bit of pain in one knee; grumpy shin muscles when I move up a level of effort; and a persistent blister of my left heel where I have some kind of a bone spur. Moleskin and time have soothed the blister.

What's more difficult is the mental discipline of going out there three times a week, knowing that when you're done for the day you'll only be back two days later. I won't lie to you: it's dull. It's a little hard to stay mentally focussed for 40 minutes at a time: I can only entertain myself with my own thoughts for about half an hour.

I've improved to the point that I can maintain a pace of a mile in 13:40 for 3 miles, which works out to 40 minutes and change. To do this, I started bending my arms at the elbow, which means that my arms swing faster, and hence my legs. (If you try this, the first time you do it you will feel quite goofy, like Cary Grant caught in the Tokyo Olympics walking marathon in Walk Don't Run.)

As far as my diet goes, I have redoubled efforts to reduce saturated fat, and I'm taking a plant sterols/stanols supplement. So we'll see in a few months whether my cholesterol numbers have budged. An unexpected side effect is that I have lost 5 pounds, and I'm not complaining about that.

I walk along the blacktop paths in Reston (it's nice to check out the nearby neighborhoods that are nicer than mine) and on the Washington & Old Dominion Trail. When I walk during the work week, I end up at the Whole Foods on Maple Avenue so that I can get a coffee and a treat. On weekends, I like to drive a bit and walk a new segment each time. So as of now, I can say that I've covered the trail from mile marker 10 near Cedar Lane in Vienna to marker 24 in Loudoun County (except for a half-mile stretch, the result of some confused map-reading). (More record-keeping...)

The habitat along the W&OD is brushy, disturbed, and full of invasives. It's not easy to do much birding at 4 mph, but I have seen a Red-Shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) perched up, as well as a couple of wintering Yellow-Rumped Warblers (Dendroica coronata) up close and personal. Today I heard the thin whistle of a White-Throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis).

posted: 8:31:56 PM  

I sent my biographical blurb for the Six Degrees program to Leta, who works up the programs for the Stage. We're under a 50-word cap because of the size of the cast, but I don't like to rattle on about how much fun it was working on the show or how supportive my pets have been through the process or any of that, anyway.

For the True West program it was a point of pride with me that my bio was a third the length of Andy's. I managed to make it shorter than the lighting designer's.

This is what I submitted:

David Gorsline (Larkin) appeared in True West (as Austin) last season for the Stage. Other acting and backstage credits: The Miracle Worker, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), The Foreigner (all RCP [Reston Community Players]), and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (the Stage). A Northwestern University graduate, David lives in Reston.

posted: 7:19:24 PM