Worst Walk Ever

Each day I try to walk at least three miles. It usually takes me about an hour, sometimes a little more, and it's a surefire way of guaranteeing that I will be in, if not a cheerful mood, at least a civil mood when Husband comes home. Walking also allows Baby an opportunity to sleep, since he doesn't do it that often during the day, unless he's curled up against me with on demand access to the boob, or in the stroller or car. I love being outside, and the route I take is challenging but manageable. I'm generally happier if I can go for a walk.
Until today, I hadn't been able to go for a walk since Thursday. We spent Friday running around for hours and hours doing chores. By the time we got home, I had to feed Baby and shower so we could go out for Husband's birthday. I spent Saturday at the Leesburg Outlets with some friends from college. So I did spend some time walking, but it wasn't the briskly paced three+ miles I've come to rely on. Rain thwarted my walking attempts yesterday. Miserable, cold, heavy, March-like rain. Husband and I planned on going on a four mile hike-a hike we were supposed to do a week ago-but we woke up to an unhappy baby and buckets of rain.
I was really excited about being able to go for a walk today. I checked weather.com and received a good report. Temperatures in the 70s and 80s, not getting hotter than 84. Great. I even decided to go in the morning because Baby wouldn't go to sleep, and I wasn't going to spend my day with a baby who refuses sleep. I got my shorts on. I found some clean socks. I put my shoes on and got the bag ready. Then I remembered my ipod. Music is essential for me when I exercise. I will pretty much shut down if I don't have music. I've made it to the gym several times, only to realize I'd left my ipod at home, given a ten minute half-assed attempt on the treadmill or elliptical, given up, and gone home. Today I searched for twenty minutes and still didn't find my ipod. Baby's cries got increasingly louder, and even though I tried to explain the situation, he wouldn't have any of it. I gave up and fed him. It was a giving up and feeding him kind of day.
When Husband got home he encouraged me to go on my walk. Getting me and Baby out of the house allowed him to get some packing done, and I really needed to exercise in order to pull myself out of my four day funk. Husband told me where I could find my ipod, I got ready and headed out. Things went wrong almost immediately. When I parked and started walking, I almost immediately noticed a big, scary dog. I've been afraid of dogs all my life. When I say afraid, I mean completely frozen in terror afraid. When I come across a dog that looks like this,













I see this. So the black lab lounging lazily under a tree caused me to quickly turn the stroller around and cross to the other side of the street. It didn't matter much that there was no crosswalk. While I'm pretty sure my protective mothering instinct will cause me to jump in between the stroller and an out of control SUV, I'm sad to say that I'm not sure it's powerful enough to cause me to jump between my baby and a big scary dog.
Crossing the street was dumb, though, because the sidewalk ended almost immediately, so I had to cross back. I got annoyed. Then I got a couple of phone calls and discovered that I could not, in fact, push a stroller and talk on the phone. I'm just not that talented. After that, I managed to have a Gatorade erupt all over me and the stroller. Red Gatorade filled the cupholder to the point where I had to dig through what was once my hip schoolbag and has now become my matronly diaper bag to find a onesie so I could mop up the Gatorade. Gatorade is sticky. I spent the rest of the walk with my sticky hands touching my sticky stroller and being generally cranky. Then my stomach started to feel funny. Not nauseous or crampy, just funny. I couldn't place the sensation for awhile, and then, as I passed a row of restaurants and didn't have the urge to enter any of them, I realized I was full. Overstuffed. I think the Gatorade filled me up. The Gatorade that didn't end up in the cupholder or all over me, that is. So I felt like ass for the rest of the walk. I trudged along, stopping to rest every 50 feet or so. On a three mile walk, that adds up to a lot of stopping to rest. It sucked. And although the endorphins kicked in, they didn't bring the happy thoughts with them. I spent the entire time listening to my ipod and thinking, at best, neutral thoughts. Most of my thoughts weren't neutral, though. They were anxious and sad and insecure. I wondered what the point of exercising was if the happy thoughts weren't going to come.
After almost 90 minutes of walking, I ended up back at my car, hot, sweaty, sticky, and crankier than I was before I exercised.