The walking thread

My son works from home at a desk, so makes a point of going for a couple of long walks a day, at lunchtime and after dinner.
Sitting all day (at a desk, driving etc) is anything but healthy.
 
Thanks everyone for your contributions to this thread, it's great to hear than many forum members are keen walkers.

The walking is going well, I'm just doing short walks at the moment but will slowly build up. The plan is to build up to an 18 mike walk in the winter from our home to the in laws house. Instead of the family going together in a car to visit, I will set off early on foot, the family will drive there and I'll get a lift home afterwards.

One distinct difference I've found with walking, as opposed to triathlon (swim, bike, run), is that I can have a good think without it negatively impacting my exercise. With triathlon training, I have to constantly be thinking about the exercise I'm doing. For example, when swimming, I have to think about each stroke, reaching out fully, staying taut, timing my breathing etc to swim well. If my mind wanders and I go on autopilot I go floppy and my technique suffers. This is the same for the bike and running.

With walking, it's so natural that I can pretty much ponder, plan and daydream without it noticeably affecting my progress. No doubt when I've built up to bigger distances and I need to get a shimmy on to hit my hourly mileage I'll need to devote some attention to the walking, but even so it is nice just chilling out.
 
Still no zombies yet......
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One thing i'd like to add is for anyone getting frustrated if they don't hit the magical 10k steps a day, ignore it, it's basis is a 60's Japanese ad campaign for pedometers, it's a useless target.

7k is closer to the actual steps you need to make a significant difference and this tapers down even less the older you get, even as little as 4.5k steps a day can help those in their 70's and onwards.

Yes, overall, more movement is always good - however aim for 7k and anything over that is a bonus.
 
I started daily walks when i started my health kick at the beginning of last year, ive stuck with it ever since. I get out for 1 hour a day. In that time ive done 6.3 million steps or 5055km and worn through one pair of trainers and one pair of walking shoes.

I find there's so many benefits, the mental break, the fitness element, add on to this the extra calories i burn allow me to eat more without putting weight back on excessively and its an all round win.
 
Still keeping up with the regular walks, weather permitting i'm out for at 45/60 minutes every day. I had a few weeks off home alone in August so each time I went for a walk and saw a path I didn't know, went down it to see where it came out.
 
Well this morning I did a 19 mile walk from our house in Bradley Stoke, north Bristol, to the in-laws house in Nailsea, a town situated south west of the city.

I set off at 5:30 am, hoping to arrive by lunchtime. It took 5 hours 27 minutes with an 11 am arrival. My partner arrived half an hour later by car, having had a lie-in :)

The plan was to take a 10 min rest every hour after the first 2 hours, but it was -4c and I reduced the rest time to 5 minutes because my bum was wet and freezing due to the benches and bus stops along the route being covered in frost.

Here's a scenic view of the Clifton suspension bridge :)

PXL-20231202-081620188.jpg


Legs are a bit sore, so I think I'll ask for a lift home!
 
sigma said:
I was thinking about doing one of the Welsh peaks as a preparation walk, does anyone on here fancy doing it in August? Pen y Fan?

FYI, there's a hiking thread in GD as well.
Click to expand...
Ended up doing all of the peaks around Pen Y Fan, the circuit.

It was a great day, tough but fun! Annoyingly I don't think there's much else like it in the UK unless you go quite far up north. So the bar as been set quite high.
 
bainbridge said:
Well this morning I did a 19 mile walk from our house in Bradley Stoke, north Bristol, to the in-laws house in Nailsea, a town situated south west of the city.

I set off at 5:30 am, hoping to arrive by lunchtime. It took 5 hours 27 minutes with an 11 am arrival. My partner arrived half an hour later by car, having had a lie-in :)

The plan was to take a 10 min rest every hour after the first 2 hours, but it was -4c and I reduced the rest time to 5 minutes because my bum was wet and freezing due to the benches and bus stops along the route being covered in frost.

Here's a scenic view of the Clifton suspension bridge :)

PXL-20231202-081620188.jpg


Legs are a bit sore, so I think I'll ask for a lift home!
Click to expand...
Grab something like this, makes all the difference when you need a rest.
 
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