Do you walk for exercise?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Tell me something about your routine. Daily- time of day- alone or with other(s). How long, in (virtually) any weather? Urban, rural, park, track? Listen to music, podcasts, or ruminate? Your fav shoes or brand. How long have you been doing it? How has this routine impacted you mentally and physically, for good or ill? No detail too trivial to mention.

I’ve walked my dogs twice a day for a long time but that’s not exercise, unless it’s an exercise in futility, since there is much lurching, sudden stopping, sniffing every vertical object, including most blades of grass.

Over the years I’ve adopted walking regimens and abandoned them and back again. A week ago, when I got my Roku and gave up cable I found myself with a whole lot of time in the evening heretofore spent watching Law & Order reruns. I started walking after I took the doggies for their evening walk, just at the beginning of dusk. I wound up walking for 40 minutes that first night and for an hour each evening afterward. Much to my surprise, I might add.

I’m fortunate to live in an ideal walking area, a couple of residential neighborhoods about fifteen by six (loooong) blocks dating from 1900 to 1940-ish and spanning home values from lower middle class to college student apartments to million-dollar-plus mansions. Walking here at twilight is visually mesmerizing. There are a few churches, a couple of schools, and some businesses on the outer edges of the area. It’s the perfect mix, and walking for an hour has been easy.

The weather has also been perfect. (Sorry about what a lot of y’all have been going through.) Later, when it’s in the 90’s well after dark, we’ll see how I do.

2

Good luck on your walking. Been retired now for two years and find myself going off and on my walking routines. Past 5 months I have not been doing my walks and can see where I will go downhill if I don’t get back into it. I feel much better when I walk. I was trying a routine where if I was not physically active on some jobs I would walk. It just was not strutured enough, I need to walk regardless of how active my day is.

3

Well, what you need to do, ThelmaLou, is move to the UK, where we’ve got something in the region of 118,000 miles of public rights of way.

Some of these are extensively organized, mapped, documented and marked out (e.g. the South Downs Way, and the Thames Path), but others are merely notional lines on our Ordnance Survey maps.

Pretty much every weekend I’ll fire up a computerized version of my OS maps and plan a circular walk. Depending on the time of year this might be a 5, 10, or 15 mile walk. I’ll then print that out (and upload the route to my Garmin GPS for backup… really I use the GPS for tracking my average speed, distance etc, and it’s fun to upload the track I’ve taken when I get home), and armed with it and a compass I’ll drive to the start point and do the walk. I’ll always try and include something of interest if I can; maybe a hill fort, or a ruined monastery, or even just a river or reservoir that might be nice to take lunch by.

Part of the fun is navigating the route using map and compass (and cheating with the GPS), part is seeing bits of the countryside I’ve not seen before, and part is spending sometimes hours on end in seemingly empty space but really only a stone’s throw from a busy town.

Not so fun parts include trying to find my way when the landowners have deliberately obscured or blocked up the right-of-way by removing signs etc, although thankfully this is pretty rare.

Kit-wise, I make do with the aforementioned map, compass and GPS, a small backpack, a bit of lunch, girlfriend, water, a Swiss-army knife (mainly for cutting up my pork-pie), dog, a spare fleece, raincoat (essential in the UK) and good boots. I love my Meindl Burma Pro GTX leather boots. They’re probably a bit hot and heavy for many people, but in soggy, boggy (VERY boggy recently) England I wouldn’t be without 'em.

Heath benefit-wise, well I’m sure I’d be about 40lbs heavier if I didn’t walk, and my BP is well within the “very good” range… my Doc is always very impressed.

4

Yes, I do. I go to a gym and walk on a treadmill for 40-60 minutes five times a week. I get to leave my toddler in the care of my husband and read books on my Kindle while I do, so I love to walk.

The old ladies who own the gym go crazy. They say I should be doing harder cardio work. They can take a flying leap. I like my walking time.

5

To me walking isn’t an exercise. Well, it may be an exercise for old people. I’d rather just run a little. Running with your dogs in the park is cool. Also because dogs need to run more than we do.

6

Ahem… in your own words, from your user profile:

Interests:
Masturbating, surfing the web and eating

Just sayin’ :smiley:

7

My motto has long been “Walk or die.”

If you don’t get out and do some exercise regularly, and walking is something that most people should be able to do, you’re not likely to live a good long life.

Mrs. FtG is a serious walker. I do it frequently. We go swimming as our main regular exercise. But walk at other times. Got iPods, walk around the neighborhood. Sometimes we walk part of routes together.

Plus we also don’t worry about walking in everyday situations. E.g., we don’t care how close we park to something, it’s just an excuse to walk a little more.

8

I’ve been walking daily for about six years. Three miles to work in the mornings, three miles home in the evening. My major exceptions: when it’s rainy and snowy, and the temperature is above 95 and below 25. During the winter when it gets dark early, I forgo the evening walk. Otherwise, I’m out there.

It is wonderful exercise. I don’t have the usual aches and pains of my age cohort, and if I’m not fit, at least I look like I am. It also makes for a zen lifestyle. I used to worry and stress out about stupid crap. Now I’m all, “Whatever. I’m going for a walk!”

I don’t like to sweat or feel like I’m about to keel over. So I’m more about maximizing distance over intensity. Which means that I’m not going to win foot races anytime soon, but I do have super endurance.

9

I walk to and from the parking lot to work every day. That’s 25 minutes at a brisk pace. I’ve been working out with a newish gym membership, too. Sometimes I use the treadmill, it’s about 50/50 with an exercise bike. I feel like the bike is a better workout though, my heartrate gets higher because it’s easier to push hard when I’m sitting vs standing. I can only do 5 minutes on an elliptical before my life is flashing before my eyes!

10

My husband and I do this too! We bought the OS app, you can buy ‘tiles’ of the UK map on demand. So we try to exhaust one tile before buying another.

I wear Karrimor walking boots (specifically,these ones). I find Karrimor do the most comfortable walking footwear for wide feet.

11

Great aren’t they? I use Anquetand buy the OS tiles for that. I get really geeky about OS maps; I could sit and look at them all night… I’m all like “Oooh look, a Roman Road (path of) and an Airfield (disused)” :smiley:

Interesting; I’ve got wide feet too. I’ll have to try a pair on next time I’m slavering over the kit in Cotswold Outdoor.

12

It’s always been a dream of mine to do a walking vacation in England.
<wistful sigh>

13

Well, so what? I run pretty much every day :smiley:

I hate running, but I do it just because of my health

14

I’ve taken up walking again. I try to do some every single day, and am working up to three miles. I do burst running during my trips. Little short amounts that get my heart rate up but aren’t going to wear me out and make me keep over. I hope to enter a 5K within a year. My shoes of choice are Saucony. They hold up well, don’t hurt my feet and are reasonably priced. I take with me my water bottle, pedometer and lip balm. I love it.

15

Whenever possible. My favorite places are my own rural back road (55mph traffic but sparse, only a car every 5 or 10 min), Main St in 2 different nearby small towns, trails around a river about 20 miles away, and trails in the Blue Ridge Mountains whenever I get a chance. It’s about my only exercise aside from working on stuff around the house or my vehicles.

16

Well, if you’re in a position to in a couple of year’s time, we’ve got plans to up-sticks from London and move to the Peak District, where you’ll get views like these. We’re aiming to buy a nice big property with some out-buildings that we’ll convert to eco-friendly self-catering holiday accommodation for walkers.

You’ll be most welcome, and we’ll give you some very very very good rental rates :slight_smile:

I’m also thinking of running navigation courses for beginners there if you’d be up for that.

17

I can confirm the Peak District is the best place in the UK for walking (I used to live in Macclesfield)! :smiley:

18

You’re breaking my heart!

I’m putting it on my calendar for the spring of 2016! :slight_smile:

19

My wife and I walk together, usually between 1.5 and 5 miles, depending on weather and energy level. The gent who said ‘walking isn’t exercise’ has no idea what he’s talking about. It helps keep my blood pressure and glucose levels in the safe zone, keeps the blood moving, keeps the leg muscles from becoming unable to do their jobs. We usually walk down to the river and up through the park there and then onto city sidewalks. On an ambitious day, we head out the same way, but end up doing a very long stretch along the Oaks Bottom trail in the woods, which is up and down, and pop out a fair distance from home. During the summer, we hike in the mountains or on beach trails, as well as our usual home routine. In my experience, people who age and don’t get any exercise end up RIP (rusting in place).

20

I jog, bike hike and swim regularly, but I also walk almost every day if the weather is good. I guess I put in about 15 miles a week easy. Just about everything I need to do is within walking distance of either home or work. Sometimes I’ll take the light rail to places that are a little further away and walk back from there.