Walkin'

I am, both by necessity and inclination, a walker. I don't own a car and while I can rent or borrow one (and do from time to time), for the most part I try not to. Given the other options, walking is my choice both for mode of transport and exercise. Though I live in a city with a better-than-average transit system (some would disagree with this assessment), I still prefer walking for several reasons:

• The bus doesn't go everywhere. Even when I take the bus, I must walk to the closest stop, then from the arrival stop to my final destination. In many cases, I might as well just walk the whole way.
• It can be something of a hassle to wait for the bus and accommodate to those times when it is not on schedule. When I am walking, I know pretty much exactly how long it will take.
• It's a bit expensive to ride the bus. If I am going to downtown Seattle, it is well worth the $5 to get there and back, but if I am travelling to a closer destination, it doesn't make as much sense.
• Walking just plain feels good.

Seattle is a pretty good city for walking. There are sidewalks in most neighborhoods and many interesting things to see, many of which would be missed from a car or bus. It's a pretty hilly place, though, which can be a challenge, but can also be good if you are up for that kind of workout. It depends on where you are, but most places in Seattle have hills to them or away from them. Going from the waterfront to the top of First Hill, for instance, is an epic hillclimb (the original Skid Row is here, so named because logs were skidded down to the water from the top of the hill). Going from University Village to the University District or Northgate up to Roosevelt is somewhat daunting. There are trails that are more level, such as the Burke-Gilman and around Green Lake, but these are crowded and less interesting (to me, anyway) than the neighborhood walks. Besides, I treasure the feeling of my legs working against so much gravity and my lungs taking in vast quantities of air.

There is also the opportunity to make walking into a meditative pursuit. Though walking meditation is usually taught as a slow-paced, concentrated focus on each movement, there are no rules about this and often a faster walk or even running can be just as meditative. I quite often turn my walks into an opportunity to listen to dharma talks; these tend to be about an hour long, which is how long I walk when I am going out for a pure exercise walk (as opposed to walking to get somewhere). Walking home from work at night has become my time to listen to audio books.

I am also fascinated with the physics of walking. It is truly the science of controlled falling, throwing oneself slightly off-balance with each step and then stopping the fall with the other foot, doing this over and over again. I love the feel of muscles responding to a grade and the lean I take on when it is steep, the better to recruit the major muscle groups in my thighs and butt and back. I love, too, that the whole body is involved in walking, not just the legs. When I pay attention I can feel how the arms and chest and abdomen add their voices to the chorus.

Many studies have shown that brisk walking is one of the best forms of exercise there is, giving the benefits of cardiovascular work without the high-impact damage of running or other more vigorous forms. Which is not to denigrate any other kind of workout, merely to advocate for the benefits of my favorite type. The other huge advantage I see is that I can continue to walk for the rest of my life. I am already anticipating that I will still walk an hour a day when I am 90, the only difference being that I won't go nearly as far.

See you out there....