WHEE (Weight, Health, Eating and Exercise) is a community support diary for Kossacks who are currently or planning to start losing, gaining or maintaining their weight through diet and exercise or fitness. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are working on your weight or fitness, please -- join us! You can also click the WHEE tag to view all diary posts.
I've recently become aware of an interesting way to get my walking mileage up. Late last summer, I began a walking program, starting with about a mile per day and gradually working up to about 3 miles per day around my neighborhood. But frankly, it gets somewhat boring to walk pretty much the same route every day, or even to walk several different routes per week, but to walk the same routes once a week. I have this crazy idea that before the end of 2010, I want to walk a marathon, and building up to that requires progressively longer walks at least once a week.
I've thought about walking some of the local running races, but there's something about the idea of seeing my name as being in last place (or very close to it) that the competitive side of my personality doesn't find at all appealing. And having begun jogging 8-10 years or so ago and having had to give it up because of severe knee pain, and being told by my orthopedist that it would simply hasten the day that I needed total knee replacement surgery, running in those local races seems out of the question.
A friend then suggested that I try something called Volksmarching, which I'll readily admit I'd never previously heard about. I think it's a somewhat unfortunate name, since it evokes visions, at least to me, of a bunch of people marching in formation singing German beer-drinking songs or something. But having done a couple of their events now, nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, it's a very friendly, totally non-competitive walking program which has prescribed routes all over the country, and indeed all over most of the developed world.
It began with a meeting between some dedicated walkers from Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein who decided there should a new kind of sport -- one where there were awards for achievement, but not competition, and that the program should be international in scope. Much to my surprise when I started reading about this, the initial meeting happened to be held on what was my 19th birthday -- January 14, 1968. Their program has now expanded to include some cycling, swimming and cross-country skiing events, but at least in the U.S., by far the greatest number of events are walking events.
The "standard" distance for the walking events is 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), but in the U.S., perhaps reflecting our generally more sedentary lifestyle, there is also usually a 5K (3.1 miles) option. There are two kinds of events: Traditional events that are held on a particular day, where you show up during a range of times (such as between 9 am and noon) and finish by some set time, and year-round events where there is a route that is set up that can be walked anytime (or virtually anytime).
I've now done one of each type of event on the last two weekends. The weekend before last, I did a 12 kilometer walk along both sides of the Potomac River in Washington, DC and Arlington, VA. This was part of an international event that included several walks of varying lengths on each day, Friday-Sunday. There were everything from 5K walks to a 44K walk (which is a little more than a marathon). Some people jogged part of whichever walk they did, but since nobody was keeping time, there was really no need to push yourself to do more than felt comfortable. I worked in DC for 15 years, and I saw things and learned things for the first time -- including the fact that the National Park Service operates mule-drawn canal boats along the Georgetown part of the C & O Canal.
This past Sunday afternoon, I did an 11K walk around the Fort McHenry and southern part of the Baltimore Harbor area. This was a year-round walk where you pick up the guide to the route at a McDonalds at which the walk begins and ends. I've lived in Baltimore since 1970, have been in the general area where the walk was conducted a couple of times a week for the past 18 months as part of volunteering, but again, I saw things that I had never before seen.
There's definitely something to be said for building up mileage. When I did the 12K walk the weekend before last, I was so stiff by the time I finished that I felt like I could barely walk. This past Sunday, the 11K didn't feel so bad at all, despite the fact that until the last two weekend, I hadn't walked more than about 4 miles at one time since I was in scouting many, many years ago. And the nice thing about Volksmarching is that they try to set up the routes in areas that are interesting from the standpoint of either scenery or history (or both).
You can find an article about Volksports here, and you can find walks near you by clicking the link on the left side of this website.
Scheduled WHEE diaries:
October 30
Fri AM - Ed G
Fri PM sychoticI
October 31
Sat AM - ???
Sat PM - Edward Spurlock (Kessler, Ch. 19)
November 1
Sun AM - kismet -- the calorie value of everyday tasks
Sun PM - Chico David RN
November 2
Mon AM - NC Dem- Muscle of the Month-Deltoids
Mon PM- ???
November 3
Tues AM - ???
Tues PM Clio2 (Kessler, Ch. 20)
November 4
Weds AM - ???
Weds PM - Edward Spurlock
November 5
Thrs AM - ???
Thrs AM - ???