I have lived in the same neighborhood my entire 65 years. Over the years I have noticed we have several what I call walkers, most of them have died off by now but a couple of them are still lingering. I estimate they are walking upwards of 20 miles per day judging by where I spot them walking. All of them start off walking south.
I first noticed them in my late teens 2 men and 3 women. The women seemed to have adapted a personna in thier dress, posture and manner of walking.
One of them wears nice just above the knee skirts, has very short hair and high heels. She looks as if she would work in an office. Her walk is very erect, shoulders back, head high. She walks at a decent clip maybe 3 miles per hour.
Another one of the women wears what we used to call pedal pushers or capris. She walks with arms folded head slightly down in a typical obedient type posture you might see in a Dr., nurse type relationship. Flat shoes short steps, medium speed. Waist long hair, that appeared to be meticulously brushed each day.
The last woman looks like a street walker and possibly could have been one at some point in her life. Low cut blouses, teased hair, tight short skirts, medium heels. She puts on a sexy walk.
The men appeared increasing disheveled over the years and dirty, walking very fast, sweating, talking to themselves, swinging thier arms in unison with thier long rapid strides.
I watched these people for close to 50 years and they never changed, they just got older then eventually dissapeared. I found nothing on the internet about this disorder, no one I have talked to around the neighborhood seems to have even noticed they existed. I always ask myself when I see them what motivates them, could it be they has some brief successful period in their life they associated with a walk and style of dress and could never let it go?
Or it’s the only (or easiest) way to keep their weight down and their energy up. I should probably be doing it.
My youngest used to walk seven plus miles a day because he had no car and needed to get to work. His route was very regular. The regular exercise did wonders for him. He was usually wearing khakis and a polo shirt, because that’s what was required at work.
There’s a guy who’s fairly well-known (by sight, at least) among those who work in downtown Chicago. Slim build, long hair, big mustache (looked a little like Yanni when he was younger), usually attired in a sportcoat and slacks. He’s been a fixture walking around in the downtown area for 15 years or longer.
A couple of years ago, someone made up a Facebook profile for him (entitled “Walking Guy”), which now has somewhere over 3000 friends; I have no idea if the guy knows about it or not (I suspect not).
My father had schizophrenia and basically walked all day long, but in his case he paced through the house on a regular course. He would sit mainly to watch TV when a baseball or football game was on. I don’t know about the women, but this sounds like mental illness to me.
There’s a woman in our local higher-end mall that I’ve wondered about. She’s there just about every time I go, which is roughly biweekly. She’s clean and groomed, with makeup and her hair styled, and maybe 5’6", but if she weighs more than 85 pounds I’ll eat my hat. She has zero body fat, basically she looks like a skeleton with skin over it. She does the retiree “walk around the mall for exercise” thing, but she’s probably not more than 40, and she’s zipping along, I’d guess at about 4-5 mph. I’ll usually see her a couple times as I make my way around the mall, so counting the time I spend in the stores, she’s probably making 10 circuits in the time I’m there. Very strange.
I have wondered if people think I’m the “crazy walking lady.” I see the same license plates zoom by day after day, so it is likely I am noticed too.
I recognize that my walking hobby is unusual. I suppose it could be a sign of unhealthiness if I did it compulsively and I experienced anxiety on nonwalking days. But neither is the case. I just like walking a lot.
I think it helps me stay sane and burn off excess energy that would otherwise result in pyschic discomfort. But I get the same benefit from sculpting and painting and messageboarding.
In the case of these people I believe walking is about all they do, I see them walking south in the morning and in the late afternoon walking north toward home, not unusual to see them 12 or more miles from home.
I have been trying to force mysef to walk 1.5 hours per day but usually get bored after I hit the 1 hour mark and quit.
I’m sure people assume the same about me. I walk to work in the mornings and work home in the evenings. Which makes me look like I’ve been walking all day, when really I had an eight hour break.
Also, it’s really easy to overestimate distances when you aren’t hoofing it. I only live three miles from work, but no one ever believes me when I tell them this. They swear the distance between my neighborhood and office is five, six miles.
Also, sometimes I run errands in the afternoons and will combine walking with taking the bus. Like, after work I might take a bus to the shopping center to pick up a few things, and then walk home from there. It could create the illusion that I’ve done more walking than I have.
Finally, even if it is 12 miles, that’s not necessarily a sign of anything but someone with a lot of time on their hands. It’s unusual and the people probably are unconventional in other respects (like yours truly). But that’s about all you can say in the absence of other information. Simply being unusual is not the same as being mentally ill.
Do you listen to music or talk radio when you walk? This might help with boredom.
Not completely on topic but what about adult men in grubby street clothes who are ALWAYS riding 10-speed bicycles? They are usually always the same: about 40 (or so, it’s hard to tell), emaciated, unshaven, usually with a conspicuous brown paper bag tightly gripped in their hands. I’ve seen the same guys riding around my town for YEARS. Always the same scene.
There’s a guy like that who lives near me. He does odd jobs around the neighborhood (he has offered to mow my yard). I think he owns a van, but more often than not he’s riding around on a bicycle. I assume he’s an alcoholic probably receiving disability or SS.
As for walking people, anybody that has lived in or near Tucson for the last few years has seen Lydia. She walks around Oro Valley/Catalina in elaborate prom dresses with parasols. She seems mentally ill just because of all the walking, but she will accept rides from people that offer. She also has a facebook page that was made for her.
There’s also a curly-haired blonde guy that walks all over Tucson, usually pulling a little hand cart. I have spoken to him several times, and he’s harmless but obviously not all there. I figure you pretty much have to be mentally ill to walk around Tucson in the summer for hours on end.
To be fair to the OP, I will say that when I’m melancholic, walking is about the only thing that I feel like doing. It’s a form of escapism. When my body is engaged, my mind goes on automatic. No worries, no emotions. Just simple movement.
I used to burn through entire weekends just walking aimlessly through town. Sometimes I’d get so “inward” I’d get lost. Or I would think I’d be walking, but I’d actually be frozen in place. Scary!
Walking provides sensory stimulation. A number of neuropsychiatric conditions (ADHD, schizophrenia, autism, etc.) cause sufferers to yearn for stimulation (aka stimming). Which is why you will often find people with these conditions “on the move”. If I had to be honest with myself, I would say this is why I walk as much as I do. But it just feels really weird attributing a hobby to a “disease”.
There was a guy in Worcester, Mass called the Whistler. Local legend. He walked all over town wearing a bright yellow slicker with words on the back, whistling very loudly and sharply. Story goes that after the service, in which he was wounded, he was accused of/did time for fondling a child. The Whistler, name of Walter Barch, believed he was wrongly accused, so he wrote his story on the back of the slicker, which he wore so he could be seen easily, walked the streets so he could never be accused of being somewhere he wasn’t, and whistled so he couldn’t be accused of sneaking up on somebody.
He did this for many many years. Happy guy, always calling out hello and telling the ladies “you get prettier every time I see ya.”
One more data point. There is a guy named Ward “Chip” Leonard (a/k/a Spooky Boy) who used to walk the Appalachian Trail more or less constantly, from early spring to late fall. Definitely had a reputation for being a very odd character, and possibly mentally ill. Some speculate he had schizophrenia.
I had a 15 year addiction to making all wood bows and arrows with hand tools. I started my full time job at 2pm but would be outside carving wood from daybreak until work time everyday. I did recognize it as being something abnormal but really loved doing it. The past year since I retired I find myself endlessly building things or fixing things. I come inside about every hour for a computer break.
There’s this guy who is famous in Bradford, West Yorkshire (northern England), has several Facebook pages and a websites dedicated to him. Bradford’s Jesus Man is seen out walking most days and, if you’re lucky, he’ll give you a cheery wave and a big smile. You can also find clips of him on Youtube