Wordsworth on the trail

Spend some time reading (slowly, mind you) William Wordsworth's "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798." This is what might hope to see because Nordic walking takes you outside and into nature.

Here's a sampler from his poem:

• ...again I hear / These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs / With a soft inland murmur.—Once again / Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, / That on a wild secluded scene impress / Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect / The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
• The day is come when I again repose / Here, under this dark sycamore, and view / These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, / Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, / Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves / 'Mid groves and copses. 
• Once again I see / These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines / Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, / Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke / Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
• Therefore let the moon / Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; / And let the misty mountain-winds be free / To blow against thee: and, in after years, / When these wild ecstasies shall be matured 
• Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind / Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, / Thy memory be as a dwelling-place / For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, / If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, / Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts / Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, / And these my exhortations!

A scene worth contemplating with your valentine before snapping a selfie and moving on.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Going solo

William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" puts you in the mood to get out into nature with your Nordic walking poles. 

Some tidbits:

• I saw a crowd, / A host, of golden daffodils; / Beside the lake, beneath the trees, / Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
• The waves beside them danced; but they / Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
• I gazed—and gazed—but little thought / What wealth the show to me had brought:
• For oft, when on my couch I lie / In vacant or in pensive mood, / They flash upon that inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude; / And then my heart with pleasure fills, / And dances with the daffodils.

Never say never

From Nordic Walking Suffolk on Facebook, a study of one person. There are questions about how much we can generalize from it, but it does demonstrate you're never too old to benefit from working out.