Slow down!

The phrase in the title and many other variations will be used when I am walking with other people! You see, to me the best form of exercise is quick walking and I actually find it way more tiring to walk slowly. There is a certain amount of exaggeration used when describing my walking and it used to be the source of some amusement at work when people saw me ‘speeding’ through the streets from London. I find something between 3 and 4 miles an hour to be the sweet spot, pace wise. I feel nice levels of exertion but I don’t feel uncomfortable. The same is not always true for the people who walk with me and, as my wife and daughter told me last week their fitness trackers actually showed them as running 🤣🤣!!

I know that walking can seem boring to many people, but if you set your targets, stretch your pace at times and constantly challenge yourself it makes it a very satisfying form of exercise. On the walk to work I used to find people who were walking at a similar speed to me and then look to get ahead of them. It was a great way to keep myself focused on intermediate goals. I also looked to beat my previous best times from one place to another and that way shaved about 3 minutes off of my walk to work over the years.

I have done, I think, 6 charity walks over the past few years and one longer term challenge of walking 1 million steps in 3 months in aid of Diabetes Research. That was a brilliant challenge because I needed to average about 12000 steps a day and I explored areas of my town I had never visited before in order to keep my step count up.

Walking keeps me fit for my age, active in a way that doesn’t take too much of a toll on my joints, and makes me content even in times where things are difficult. I will never stop appreciating the fact that I can walk around and keep active in such an uncomplicated way.