Last week I decided to take a break from my regular exercise routine and just walk every day.
I have some biases about walking for exercising. I feel like every middle-aged fat woman in the 90s and 2000s was obsessed with trying to go on walks. My fat mom tried to walk most mornings, and my fat dad and fat step-mom tried to walk in the evenings and it seemed like there was this wide landscape of middle-aged bellies out walking all the time.
I walked a lot in my youth because I had to. We lived in a small town and my sister and I walked back and forth to the middle school and high school until I turned 16 and started driving us. It was a journey of 1.2 miles, downhill the whole way there and very uphill the whole way back.
I walked back and forth to my job in the summer a lot too, but even after I would often go on a three-mile run in the evenings as well. Because walking didn’t feel like exercise to my teenage body, running did.
Walking continued to be background noise into my young adulthood. We lived in New York City for six years and didn’t own a car that entire time. We walked a half mile to the train station every morning, and a half mile back. Sometimes I would do that walk while carrying two 12-packs of beer (in glass bottles!), one in each hand. On weekends we would sometimes walk many miles to get where we were going. One of my most magical life memories is of walking across midtown very late at night on a cold December evening, not really paying attention to my route, and surprising myself by running into the warm, happy glow of a busy Rockefeller Center with a twinkling tree in the center of the action. And of course, I have many dark memories of trains shutting down, full buses, and long, unexpected walks home in the cold.
I hate to admit it but I am still judgmental of walks as a source of exercise.
But here’s where I was at the end of October: burned out on my regular exercise routine. Running didn’t sound good anymore. Doing squats and presses with Coach Kyle on Apple Fitness didn’t sound good anymore. Strapping myself into my sports bra and then getting all sweaty and having to shower sounded awful. I just couldn’t do it.
What do you do when you need a break but can’t take a break?
I decided to change my routine. The goal was to walk for exercise this week, 4 sessions x 3 miles. I would call it Walk Week and it would be amazing because I would not have to put on a sports bra or shower. So, here it is…
What I Learned from Walk Week
- I don’t really like walking for exercise like this. I do like looking at the houses. I like it when the squirrels are up to no good. But walking is just so boring and slow.
- One hour does not equal one hour. Part of the appeal of this plan was that it takes me a little under an hour to walk three miles, therefore this version of exercise would take about as much time as my usual changing into exercise clothes + exercising for 30 minutes + showering and changing again routine. But wow, an hour of walking felt WAY longer than my usual hour-long routine from start to finish.
- I missed the runner’s high and the aching muscles from a good strength training session. This was a big discovery for me. I’ve spent my life working out hard because I think I have to prove that I am healthy and strong. What I didn’t realize was that I actually do like working hard. I like having the runner’s high for the rest of the day. I like feeling aching triceps at work the next morning. I understand now that I do actually intrinsically want and need the high-intensity exercise.
- Walking is exhausting in its own way. My body was tired. It probably doesn’t help that this was also Window Washing Week at my house and much like walking, window washing isn’t hard physical work, but it does require constant movement. I was physically exhausted at the end of each day in a way that I am not during a normal exercise week.
- I could get away without showering, but I actually sweat a lot more than I was expecting (even on the cold days!) and still had to wash my face when I got back. I also realized after the first day that I didn’t really want to sweat that much in my work clothes so… I still had to change clothes, just not my bra. Win?
I actually think that adding a long walk into my activity routine each week would be enjoyable, but I am not all about adding more pressure to my life. Not this year, not any year.
I do have more respect for walking and walkers in general, although I also still have some biases I need to work through.
It was a good changeup to my routine, and I am genuinely looking forward to doing weight training with Coach Kyle again next week.