Browsed by
Category: walking

Beating the Clock

Beating the Clock

Comments 0 Comment

I don’t know when cross-walks that flash “Walk” or “Don’t Walk” turned into cross-walks that give pedestrians a countdown of the seconds they have left for crossing, but I was thinking yesterday how this development has changed my walking style.

Before, I would find my cadence and stride confidently from block to block. My feet were on auto-pilot while my mind was free to wander. I stopped and started when needed.

Now if I spot a flashing “20” halfway down the block, I play beat the clock. The natural gait is gone. Instead, I race to the corner and dash across the street.The flow of thoughts is replaced by strategy. If I keep up the pace another block I can beat that light, too.

Do I get where I’m going any faster?

I doubt it.

Run, Don’t Walk

Run, Don’t Walk

Comments 1 comment

Sometimes it’s harder to walk fast than it is to run slow. So more often than not these days I find myself running. Not like these college girls, fleet of foot, majorly in shape.

No. I’m talking about a middle-aged version of running. Plodding, for sure.

The fast walk must balance speed with dexterity. The roll of the foot, still earthbound. Keeping the pace when gravity argues against it.

Whereas the run, after a while, becomes habit. There is a rhythm there that moves you forward. Kind of like living.

The Return

The Return

Comments 0 Comment

Walking an unfamiliar route can mean a longer jaunt than expected. Landmarks beckon: Just one more block. The temptation is to run too far down the beach or path. And then …. you have to walk home.

Yesterday I ran out and lost steam. The landmarks that flew by the first time passed more slowly on the return. On the other hand, it was on the return that I savored the sights I had sped by earlier.

I’ve always wondered about the different ways we perceive time on a journey. It often seems faster on the way home, perhaps because the sights are more familiar. But when you run one way and walk the other, the reverse is true. The return takes longer — but gives more.

Door, Wall and Flower

Door, Wall and Flower

Comments 0 Comment

Art imitates life imitates art. The door bedecked with flowers, a variety of hydrangea, I think, larger and more open-petaled than the usual. The wall decorated with wisteria — and a bicycle, in case you get tired of walking.

To walk in an old city is to stop often to photograph buildings. It makes for a halting step but a full camera (phone?) upon return.

It’s more than worth the trip.

The Places In Between

The Places In Between

Comments 0 Comment

In the winter of 2002, Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan. He arrived six weeks after the Taliban fell, and he dodged landmines, snow storms and rogue tribal chiefs along the way.

Stewart’s walk through Afghanistan was part of a larger trek that included 16 months of walking 20 to 25 miles a day across Iran, Pakistan, India and Nepal.

All of which makes him an expert on walking. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s a passage from The Places In Between:

I thought about evolutionary historians who argued that walking was a central part of what it meant to be human. Our two-legged motion was what first differentiated us from the apes. It freed our hands for tools and carried us on the long marches out of Africa. As a species, we colonized the world on foot. Most of human history was created through contacts conducted a walking pace….

And Stewart thought these thoughts — of course — while walking!

Tweaking the Commute

Tweaking the Commute

Comments 0 Comment

The general idea is to shorten the commute, find the cut-through, the shortcut, the (quicker) road not taken.

Lately, I’ve done the opposite, adding a longer walk in the afternoon and sometimes (today, for instance) in the morning, too; strolling to a Metro stop farther from my office, savoring the time I spend in the places in between.

En route I think of my great commutes in New York City, walking to and from midtown Manhattan from the Upper West Side and, later on, the Village.

The goal is to exercise, decompress, let the day begin (or end) on a vigorous, active, mind-toggling note. The reality is even better.

Quite a Track

Quite a Track

Comments 0 Comment

When I don’t have time for a long walk at lunch I “just” walk around the Capitol. This can be an exercise in frustration, as I thread my way past bomb-sniffing dogs, bicycle-riding police officers, sign-toting protesters and press-conference-giving legislators.

Most of all, of course, there are tourists. They stroll, they dawdle, they pose for photographs. As well they should. That’s what they’re here for, and our city is enriched by them, really it is.

But when the Capitol loop is your lunchtime walking track, and you want to round it twice before going back to your desk, well, it’s easy to stew and fume at the congestion.

Whenever that happens, I try to step back and remind myself where I am. And if I have a phone in hand (as I did one day last week), I become one of the picture-taking multitudes, too.

Boogie Wonderland

Boogie Wonderland

Comments 0 Comment

Never underestimate the power of soundtrack. The tunes in the ear set the pace, set the mood and sometimes make the day.

Take today, for instance, a gray Tuesday. Ho-hum. But over the weekend I watched a French movie, “The Intouchables,” which featured some of my favorite old Earth Wind and Fire songs. I already had most of them, but after Saturday night I also have “Boogie Wonderland” on my iPod. So that’s what I listened to on the short walk from Judiciary Square to New Jersey Avenue.

Impossible to walk to this song. You bop. You bounce. And you try, very hard, not to dance.

But don’t take my word for it. Listen (and watch) for yourself.

(See what I mean. Even the trees are dancing.)

Power Walk

Power Walk

Comments 0 Comment

The more walks I take downtown, the more I compare them with my walks in the suburbs — the pace, the people, the places.

Yesterday’s was an outlier but also an example: A helicopter buzzed the Mall, breaking through the music in my ears, annoying me. I vaguely wondered if I should be concerned. A truck bomb? A heightened security alert? (Do we do the colors of danger anymore? I forget.)

As I made my way back to the office, I found Constitution Avenue blocked. That phalanx of bicycle police I’d seen earlier, they were just the front guard. There were uniforms everywhere. No one would be crossing the street anytime soon.

You’d think I’d be motorcade weary by now, but I’ve seen very few and none for this president. So for five minutes I was a tourist like the others standing at my corner — only without a camera or smart phone in hand. And when the black cars passed, motorcycles in the lead, ambulances bringing up the rear, sirens blaring, all the trappings and pageantry — I wasn’t listening to the music in my ears anymore. I was completely caught in the moment at hand.

I wasn’t intending to take a power walk yesterday. But that’s what I did.

In and Out

In and Out

Comments 0 Comment

To exercise at lunchtime I don’t even have to leave my building. The health club upstairs is well stocked, well staffed and state-of-the-art. But two days out of three I put on my coat, slip in my ear buds and walk outside instead.

There are no weight machines, ellipticals or tread mills; no pool or spin class. Just pavement and people. But that’s the combination that works for me.

Turns out, it works for many. Exercising outdoors is often better than exercising indoors, studies show. It burns more calories and tweaks more muscles.

It has psychological benefits as well — and that’s what keeps me going. I come back inside after a lunchtime stroll tired and happy. The pavement is my treadmill, perspective my salvation.