A few days have now passed since I completed my goal of walking 43km on my 43rd birthday. My legs are recovered, there’s one last blister on my foot that’s just about healed. I’ve been in positive spirits, and I’m already making new goals.
What started as a goal for my birthday, (read about that here) turned into a life changing experience. Here’s what I learned.
1. You can solve a problem if you give it time. I went for long training walks (4-6 hours) where I had a lot of time to think. If I was upset about something, I had it figured out by the end of my walk.
2. Toronto is 13% parks. Being able to walk through quiet, safe green space to get from one end of the city to the other, brought me so much joy.
3. When I look at the calories I burned to walk for 4-5 hours, it makes me rethink eating that entire bag of potato chips.
4. Not enough people get out and walk. I’m not expecting people to walk marathons but a thirty minute walk is not on many people’s list of things to do. Between the people that thought I was crazy to the people who were in awe of what I was doing, most people didn’t choose to join me.
5. Walking long distances has trained me to get places with my two legs. My bicycle may have a flat, public transit could be down and I don’t own a car. When I have the time, walking can get me pretty far.
Now that I’ve completed my goal of walking 43km on my 43rd birthday, people want to know if I’ll be doing 44km on my next birthday. Probably not. I will, however, perfect my 21km distance. That’s a distance I’ve enjoyed the most. It’s long enough to get somewhere far and a good enough time to decompress mentally, without taking the entire day!
Interested in joining in on my weekly walks? Tune in each week at here to find out where I’ll be doing weekly walk.
Sunrise and solitude. Mt Pleasant cemetary.
Southern end of the Humber trail. My new favourite trail in Toronto.
Great Egret on Humber Trail.
Cormorants in the Don River.
Avenue Road and Heath Street at dawn. No cars.
Batman at Yonge and Eglinton.
Long and difficult walk at Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland.
25km on Wolfe Island.