Today’s walk was a perfect example of how Arizona can turn “a quick Starbucks walk” into a full-blown environmental side quest.
The walk TO Starbucks was honestly pretty mellow:
1.3 miles
2,925 steps
32 minutes
average heart rate 93 bpm
Mostly light zone movement with just a few minutes in moderate. A calm little “Starbucks Carrot Method” morning walk according to my heart.
My shoulder and neck were irritated because I accidentally slept on the couch. It actually felt good having the sun try to bore a hole through my shoulder. We will call it heat therapy.
My legs were trucking at a pretty good clip, so they would like to file a complaint that my heart rate gets all the attention, because they work hard to get me to Starbucks.
At the midpoint bench
I ran into Wild West Bob — one of the regulars from the neighborhood walking ecosystem. Full camouflage outfit, camouflage Lakers ball cap, giant Wild West mustache, looking like a man who could either teach you survival skills or tell you where the cheapest biscuits and gravy in Phoenix are located.
Plot twist: he’s actually from Minnesota.
He’s a Navy vet from around the Vietnam era, and somehow the combination of Midwest roots, military stories, desert survival mode, and cowboy mustache energy makes him feel like a character straight out of old Arizona. We stood there for a bit talking while the morning still felt semi-human, both of us doing the universal Phoenix resident calculation of: “How much sun is too much sun today?”
That’s honestly one of my favorite parts of these walks. Sometimes the exercise is the exercise. Sometimes the real wellness comes from these tiny human moments with the people who are all out there trying to survive the Great Laser in the Sky together.
Then came the walk HOME.
Walking froM Starbucks to the crow’s palm tree to the Cheeto Mesquite 6 to the Eucalyptus tree at the middle school. Then that last half mile of no shade hit like the sun had personally selected me for a side quest.
The pavement started radiating heat, the air stopped cooperating, and suddenly the mission became: “Locate tree. Survive tree.”
Enter: THE AQUANET TREE.
This glorious tree somehow transformed me directly into 1987. The second I stood under it, my hair achieved instant mall bangs and emotional body perm energy. I went from “hot Arizona walker” to “fifth grade Metrocenter kid holding a Hot Dog on a Stick lemonade.”
And yes: Orange Julius remains kind of sticky nasty. I said what I said.
Metrocenter in the 80s was elite summer survival. You could walk into that freezing mall, feel your skin return to life, and sit over the ice skating rink drinking lemonade while watching skaters loop around below you like some magical suburban snow globe in the middle of Phoenix.
The funniest part is how dramatically the Fitbit stats changed even though the distance was basically the same:
1.26 miles
2,909 steps
over an hour total
396 calories burned
average heart rate 111 bpm
58 active zone minutes
38 minutes moderate
10 minutes vigorous
Walk Receipts
That heart rate graph tells the whole story.
Same neighborhood.
Same person.
Completely different physical cost because Arizona summer adds its own boss level mechanics.
This is one of the biggest things fitness trackers don’t fully understand:
Heat counts. Stress counts. Shade breaks count. Recovery counts. Stopping under a magical Aquanet Tree absolutely counts.
Sometimes wellness looks like:
• power walking
• sometimes it looks like negotiating with the sun
• sometimes it looks like standing under a tree listening to Patsy Cline while trying not to become human fajita meat
Spotify also seemed to have opinions about my behavior because “Crazy” by Patsy Cline started playing right as I was wandering around making heat-delirious tree selfies with my tongue out like a 10-year-old.
Honestly? Accurate.
After finally making it home, I was immediately greeted by feline quality control:
▪︎ Willow supervising from the pinball floor fluffy floof loaf mode fully activated
▪︎ Gabby inspecting operations inside and out
And somehow that’s the real theme of this whole thing:
Real wellness is messy.
It’s funny.
It’s imperfect.
It includes old mall memories, survival trees, lemonade nostalgia, cats, pinball machines, sweat, shade breaks, and still choosing to walk anyway.
Still counts.
Did you enjoy this walk with me? Read more.
Walk 1 of 5 Week of May 31 – The Heat is On!
Starbucks Carrot Method – North Phoenix Walking Series
Steps for Sips at Weekly Reads