Today I want to talk about one of the most important elements of a fitness journey

and how it is often overlooked.

Welcome to Walking is Fitness.

This is a podcast of action, providing a little extra motivation to help you keep that fitness promise you made to yourself.

Hi, I'm Dave. I've been walking for fitness since 2013, averaging about 21,000 steps a day.

I'm walking right now, and I would love to have you join me for the next 10 minutes.

It is a cold day in South Carolina, a couple of days before Christmas. I guess that's to be

expected. I've got the ski cap on covering my ears, wearing a hoodie over top of the ski cap. It is a little

breezy so that cold temperature is even more invigorating than it usually is. I hope the weather

where you are is nice, enjoyable, or at least tolerable. Thanks for joining me today for our 10-minute

walk together.

For years when I was doing morning radio with my co-host, Tracy, in Baltimore, around this time of year,

sometimes it was actually on December 23rd, if not the 23rd, then the 22nd.

Tracy's best friend, Karen, would join us in studio for the entire program, the entire morning program. So she would arrive at the radio station, O Dark 100 before 6 a.m.

And she usually had to make multiple trips from the car into the building.

She had a folding table. She would bring that in. She would set it up in the studio.

She'd go back out to her car, grab a large box that was filled with wrapping paper and all kinds of ribbons and bows. And she would bring that in and set that on the table, go back out in the car,

and get her bag of magic tricks, as I would call it. In the bag were all kinds of fun little

things that could go on to a gift after it was wrapped to really make it special.

You see, Tracy's friend Karen was what I would call a gift rap artist.

She loved wrapping gifts.

And Christmas time was her magical time of the year.

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