Lately, I've spent much of my morning walk being pulled by a 90-lb., 11-month-old German Shepherd. Seeing as I walk so early in the morning--when it's still quite dark outside--I decided that yelling "Sarge! No! No! No!" isn't really the best thing. I don't want the few people who are awake at that hour to think someone is in distress. Well, I guess I sort of am in distress, but not the kind that requires police intervention! While I often welcome the push Sarge gives me to walk just a little faster, mostly it's annoying.

I typically look at the clock on the VCR as I'm walking out the door and it's usually the first thing I see when I gingerly open the front door upon my return. I like to see--and compare--how long it takes me to do my 1.57-mile walk. I'm averaging around 25 minutes lately.

This morning, though, with a super-high fasting thanks to last night's Halloween-candy binge, I decided to take it slow. Well, as slow as I could with the 90-lb. dog to contend with. As is often the case, I found myself so enthralled with the exercise and the good feeling I get from the cold morning air in my lungs and twitching muscles that I was walking nearly at my "pushing it" rate. And then I reminded myself that I needed to slow down. This is where I found myself saying "Eventually, Sarge will get tired of me yanking the leash and will actually drop the pace."

Anyway, this all got me thinking about how different this morning's walk was compared to other days--if it was that different at all. I remember reading an article (and darn it if an exhaustive CNN and Google search couldn't turn it up!) recently about quality versus quantity walking. If memory serves correctly, the article relayed that those who walked slower than those who walked the same distance at a faster pace lost more weight. I suppose it has more to do with the length of time spent exercising, not the speed at which the exercise was performed.

So while I came in roughly five minutes later than usual this morning, I still feel like I had an excellent workout. Yes, we need to increase our heartrates (which I definitely did this morning) to get the maximum benefit out of exercise, but sometimes it's enough just to be out there--even if we're not going at breakneck speed.