WALKING DISTANCE
Is it a societal thing that people just don't want to walk? Or, possibly, we don't want to exert ourselves beyond an agreed upon minimum distance and effort?
Since I decided to prepare for a 567-mile hike next year, and I've started going out for walks, people I meet seem to shiver--even step away from me--when I tell them about my activity.
What is the acceptable distance for someone to walk? One-hundred feet? A block? A couple blocks? Perhaps a mile at the outside?
This morning I left my studio and started walking toward the south end of Fort Collins. Along the way, I decided to see about getting a pedometer, perhaps from REI. But when I arrived, the store wasn't yet open. I walked on over to Target,and found a simple gadget that will meet my needs for the next year.
I left Target--roughly about three miles from home, and started walking down South College Avenue, with the goal of walking to Loveland.
Five miles later, with sore feet, I stopped when I found a bus stop for a regional bus line. Just minutes later, I saw a police cruiser heading north. I saw it make a U-turn, and it pulled up to where I was now sitting.
"Are you okay?"
"Sure," I said.
"Someone saw you, and called it in," the officer passenger said.
"I know what I'm doing," I assured him. "I've done this walk before. Today though, I'm waiting for a bus, and it should be here momentarily."
"We're just checking on you," the officer said.
A minute later, they were gone.
Two minutes after that, the bus, heading south to Loveland, arrived, and my day of exercise was officially over.
In the next 363 days, I'll work on increasing my endurance, my distance walked, and start adding weight to my backpack.
It is my fate, it seems, to be an outlier, an exception to whatever rules I encounter. I don't have the time, or the intention, to participate in debates about what I should or shouldn't, can or can't, do
I have a journey to get ready for.
