My friend Rob Hardy is this summer attempting to walk every street in Northfield. I would say this is quixotic, but the guy is really going to do it. He has already walked 500 miles since March!
Why he only started walking seriously in March, I have no idea.
Today I decided to see what all the fuss is about by walking home from work. (I’d tuned up a friend’s bike over the weekend, and rode it over to her house this morning on my way to work.) According to my tracking app, the stroll took me 34 minutes and 23 seconds and covered 2.1 miles, putting me just 497.9 miles behind Rob (not including any mileage he racked up today).
I guess it was fine, walking like some sort of caveman. I got really sweaty, but I also got to see Carleton’s ultimate teams practicing. I found 3.7mph to be quite a boring pace (pedestrian, in a word), but I did get to enjoy the juxtaposition of the golf course and the graveyard on the way home. (Same thing, amirite?) At one point, I walked in the road, but at another, I appreciated the ease of taking pictures while walking – at least as compared to the dangerous thrill of taking them while riding.
So in the end, I guess I’ll walk again if I have to, like if my bikes are stolen or if Big Oil mandates that everyone drive a Tahoe all the time. Till then, though, I’ll stay on two wheels as much as I can.