I’m a running nut. If I can get anywhere by running I’ll do it.
If I’ve got chores to do I’ll run to the shops. If my son is playing sport eight miles away I’ll run there and back. If I’m on a city break I’ll book a running sightseeing tour. I even run home after a night out with friends.
I’ve always found walking boring, slow and, in all honesty, a waste of time. Why walk when you can run and get an adrenaline rush at the same time, and cover the distance twice as fast?
But running can take its toll on the body, which I discovered after completing a 250km ultra-marathon this summer. I tried cutting back on running but by September my physiotherapist advised me to have a “proper rest”. This meant no running.
This also happened to coincide with a change of routine at home, which meant I had to take on all dog-walking duties. So, I decided I’d have a month off and switch from running to walking.
How my routine changed
I originally got my dog Zippy to run with. He’s a foxhound-trailhound, which means he needs a lot of exercise: on average a minimum of two hours a day. I was supposed to be racing with him in canicross events this fall, but my injury put a stop to this.
In my usual routine I run six days a week—anywhere from five to 20 hours across seven days. About a third of these runs are with Zippy. To rest my knee, but make sure that Zippy had adequate exercise, I needed to switch to 14 hours of walking instead.
This felt like a whole lot of walking for me, as someone who doesn’t really enjoy doing it. But after trying it out for a month, I learned to embrace the occasional stroll. Here’s everything I learned over those 30 days.
1. Walking made my day more efficient
I thought walking would be onerous and time-consuming because it’s much slower than running. However, it actually took up about the same amount of time in my week.
When the weather was warmer, walking actually saved me time. If I had been running—without the dog because it was too…
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