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Thursday, September 28, 2023

Speed walking

There aren't a lot of great hiking opportunities here in the Ottawa area unless you go to Gatineau Park which is well across the river on the Quebec side. And that's too far to go on a daily basis.

So, as regular readers know, we do a "power walk" every day while we're house sitting here in Manotick. We've got several routes that we try, and one of them is almost exactly 5 kms (3 miles).

I walk quite quickly, and Ruth does too, although with my long legs she has a hard time keeping up and sometimes has to break into a jog and get a little ahead of me.

We tend to do our 5 km walk in about 43 minutes, which is a pretty good pace for walking.

The other morning, we went for a power walk with my sister Elaine, and she thought I should try "speed walking". 

So yesterday, I went out by myself to see how fast I could do 5 kms. Walking only, no jogging.

Time was 37:14


As I said, normally we do this in 43 minutes: or so when Ruth and I are out together, so I don't feel like this was that much faster, yet there is no way I could have done it any faster unless I broke into a jog. I don't understand how those speed walker guys move their legs so fast. I did some research and it has something to do with how they move their hips which is why they look funny when they're doing it.

Anyhow, my cardio was fine... didn't feel like I was too out of breath at all, but my legs were tired. I think it would be easier and definitely faster to break into a jog at times. I think I'll try that next!

I really want to break the 30 minute mark, which obviously would mean increasing my speed to an average 10 km/h. Should be doable.

My great grandfather was a competitive speed walker. My mother has one of his medals where he did a 24 hour competition in 1909 (he would have been 39 years old at the time) where he did 117miles 570 yards!

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