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Sunday, April 29: This morning I participated in Automattic’s Worldwide WP 5k, billed by WordPress as the “5k blogged around the world!” I went on my regular walking trail in Nizwa, Oman, which is actually a 4k trail that has every 500 meters marked with a sign.  In order to make it 5k, I doubled back 500 meters each way between two of the signs, creating a little 1k loop in the middle of the trail.

this is the start of my walk, with my GMC Terrain to the left...

It was a warm 75 degrees already at 6:09:10 a.m. when I started my walk.  The trail is hilly for the first half and then flattens out for the second half. The hilly section has a slight breeze, but there is no air movement on the flat part. It’s all desert here, so there are no trees, and thus no shade.  I worked up a sweat quickly in the sun, even though my pace is only about 13 minutes/km. I listened to my iPod Nano while I walked, a playlist that includes songs by Anna Nalik, Leonard Cohen, the soundtrack from the movie Slumdog Millionaire, and Canadian Loreena McKennitt.

and I'm off... !

Early on I got a small piece of gravel in my shoe.  I don’t know how that happened as the trail is paved, but this is a gravelly country and sometimes rocks jump into your shoe from out of nowhere. I didn’t stop to remove it because I wanted to see my time with no interruptions.

this is the view i have at the end of my walk; to my right are the mountains behind the town of Firq and an Omani man walking by...

I finished at 7:05:55, so my time for the 5k was 56:45 minutes, which I don’t think is very good!! I used to run, so walking seems soooo slow to me.  But my running days seem to be over due to a partial knee replacement on the interior of my right knee.  I guess I just have to get used to being a slowpoke.  I feel like I’m going at a fast walking pace, but apparently that isn’t the case.  Next year I’ll aim to improve my time and maybe even add some slow jogs to the run.

Anyway, it was a fun exercise and it was good for me to time myself so I can set some goals.  Thanks for another fun challenge, WordPress!!  I love this blogging community!!