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It was also very wet.\u00a0 Due to the rain, the riverbed itself was very full, and there were large numbers of puddles along the way.\u00a0 Those which had firm gravel underneath were fine, but the muddy ones, not so much, and I struggled and felt very wobbly, and on one occasion when it was much deeper than anticipated (I made sure my husband went ahead after this), I couldn\u2019t push through and \u2014 well, I didn\u2019t fall<\/em> fall, but put my feet down, and I still need to clean the mud off my shoes.\u00a0 At the end of our chosen section of trail, we had lunch at a spot at the nearest intersection (I had thought I would try to clean my shoes and dry my feet a bit but then thought better of it, not being sure how easily I\u2019d be able to put them back on), then turned around and headed back, and, well, I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019d gained enough experience with the mud-puddles on the first half to be able to handle them better on the way back, or if somehow that small stretch of time had helped them dry out, but the second half was more manageable in that respect.<\/p>\n But, geez, was I out of breath on the way back.\u00a0 And it\u2019s not that my husband was pushing me to go too fast.\u00a0 I mean, sure, maybe I should have forced myself to ride even slower, but it was super-frustrating.\u00a0 And I suspect that not that long ago, I would not have had this trouble.<\/p>\n So the whole thing was yet another reminder that time is passing.\u00a0 If I don\u2019t get in better shape now, it will be much harder in the future \u2014 and Bad Things Will Happen.\u00a0 Because at this point in my life, one key motivation (though it isn\u2019t always effective) is \u201cdon\u2019t be my parents.\u201d\u00a0 Get back into shape\/stay in shape.\u00a0 Take off the midlife weight gain\/stop gaining weight.\u00a0 Build that social capital.\u00a0 Get better about keeping the house picked up.\u00a0 Conquer the nagging items on the to-do list (this isn\u2019t about specific failures so much as executive function in general).\u00a0 Build that cognitive reserve!<\/p>\n But there\u2019s a whole chicken-and-egg issue.<\/p>\n Did Dad slow down physically and mentally because he didn\u2019t make a sustained effort to be active after retirement?\u00a0 Or did his bad knee and a subtle pre-dementia cognitive impairment prevent him from doing so?<\/p>\n Did Mom\u2019s failure to get her diabetes under control (and her failure to exercise and eat healthily) trigger the vascular dementia?\u00a0 A puzzle:\u00a0 she stopped going to the doctor, taking her medications, etc., round about the time when, retrospectively, we guessed that was first showing signs of cognitive impairments.\u00a0 But if no longer treating her diabetes triggered the vascular dementia, then what caused her to stop treating her diabetes?\u00a0 And it was years before then that we invited her to go on a walk with us and she made it for a block before turning around.<\/p>\n