This week I did two walks that completely changed my thinking about walks. My friend Kathy and I hit the park trail near where we live. Kathy takes really long walks. I sort of thought of that as a waste of time. I’d rather jog a bit and get the thing over with. Plus to really push myself I need to jog right? In addition I usually just walk in my neighborhood. But I’m doing the Walk It Challenge so I’m committed to walking.

Kathy walks at a nice clip so I knew it would be a good way to burn some calories and I’ve been very attentive to my pedometer, Eddie Fisher. (Here’s why I refer to my pedometer as Eddie Fisher.) We set out for what I thought would be a brisk walk, half an hour, maybe 1 loop around our park. One large loop is about two miles.  I wasn’t surprised Kathy wanted to keep going maybe one more loop right? That’s about 4 miles. I could handle that, we’re talkers so a walk and a talk is fun, more than work. 

We did our 4th loop and Kathy wanted to go again. So we did. In the end Eddie Fisher revealed that we walked over five miles. My feet hurt and what’s more at the end of the day I was sort of sore all over. Which to me meant I had a great workout. Having Kathy push me past 3 miles AND walking in a different environment really increased the oomph of my workout. So you know what? We did it again the next day and we went just under 6 miles. I don’t know if it will show up on my weigh in but I’ve got a new place to walk, a new appreciation of a longer walk AND Eddie Fisher says I’ve done 17,000 steps each day!

So give it a try, pick a friend you love to talk to, and a place you haven’t walked in a while, and keep going. Your butt will thank you.