Hey Everybody!  Ward Luthi, here, founder of Walking The World and Take a Walk on the Wild Side!

I’m sitting at my computer, with my black-and-white cat Moose in my lap thinking about doing a 100-day walking challenge.  Actually it’s a challenge primarily for myself, but I would love to have anyone out there who’s reading this join me.

I'm a Blue Footed Boobie in the Galapagos

So, what do I mean by a 100-day walking challenge?  I’m not sure exactly, except that I’m going to put in some time or miles each day for 100 consecutive days.  I’ll also add in some strength training exercises, some information about nutrition, do some testing of various pedometers and probably wax philosophical from time to time.  Oh, and I’ll add some great quotes on walking as well as some photos from my walks.

For the last several days I’ve been preparing for a Walking The World hiking tour of southeast Utah that I’ll be leading in a few days.  One of the most frequently asked questions I get is how to train for our trips.  I have a basic regimen I suggest to our walkers and it started me thinking about my own walking schedule.  Lately I’ve been doing a lot more biking and cross training so I thought I’d make a concerted effort to do more walking.  Plus, the latest statistics on obesity in America have been released AND things aren’t getting any better.

With the seemingly unlimited information available on diet, weight loss and exercise, why are we, particularly older adults, getting fatter and having more chronic diseases?  It’s not like we don’t know what we need to do and walking is an exercise that almost anyone can do in almost any area of the world.

One of my goals at Walking The World is to get as many people as I can into the great outdoors. Adventure travel for me is what life is about.  My theory is that we should all be sitting around a campfire at night with family and friends and actively exploring this magical planet during the day.  The outdoors is where we were born and grew up as a species.  It’s in our blood and in our DNA.  It’s where we do best – physically, psychologically, emotionally, socially and spiritually.  We’re more connected to ourselves, to our friends and family and to our natural environment when we’re outside.

If I’m going to make my goal of getting people into the outdoors a reality, I need to figure out how to help people reach and stay at a higher level of fitness.   Thus, my 100-day walking challenge.  It’s a way to help me better understand, on a daily basis, some of the reasons why people aren’t walking more.  And, of course, to give me one more excuse to get outside as much as possible. (If you join me in this challenge, it doesn’t matter where you walk, inside or out, but being outdoors has some added benefits you’ll never get inside.)

We’re physically designed to walk.  It’s our natural form of locomotion.  We’re good at it.  In fact, almost all of us have a PhD in walking. Maybe because it’s so natural for us that we forget that it’s what we were made to do and we take it for granted.

Walking by its very nature brings us into close contact with ourselves and our own physical strength, with the natural wildness that resides within all of us.  And walking, with every step we take, gets us up close and personal with our natural environment.   Walking allows us to feel the sun and the wind on our skin, to smell the fragrances of the earth, to touch the trees that line our trails, to feel the changing of the temperature and the humidity in the air, to be a part of our own environment.   These are the reasons I use walking as our vehicle for exploring this magical planet we live on.

I’m training a new guide on our upcoming trip to Utah so I brought out as many of our old trip journals as I could find, some dating back to 1995.  On every trip, at least for many years, we would produce a trip journal with daily entries about the trip accompanied by a lot of great photos of the trip participants and the scenery.  Reading back through the old journals made me chuckle.  We have some humorous folks who travel with us and every one of them has a special place in my heart.

Here’s where I start waxing philosophical a bit.  If you’ve never been on a walking tour with a group, try it sometime.  Spending time in the great outdoors, actively traveling through some of the most beautiful places on the planet with a group of other adventurous souls, has to be one of life’s greatest pleasures.  It is for me.  Even if you come on the trip not knowing a single person, by the time you’ve walked the last mile and given your feet a well deserved rest, you’ll have made some lifelong friends.  And you’ll know these friends better than most people you might have worked with in an office for 25 years.  There’s something about living and traveling in the natural world that produces a special and unique bond.

So, what’s all of that have to do with a walking challenge.  It just struck me today how much I like to walk – and to walk for no particular reason.  I’m glad that it helps keep me in shape but it also allows me, like today, to feel that soft warmth of the sun on my shoulders, to have some quiet time with the trees and the river and the sky and the birds overhead – and to appreciate how lucky we are to live in this United States.

I had also been talking to my fellow Utah guide about a Sierra Club book called ON THE LOOSE.  It’s a book of inspiring photos and even more inspiring quotes about the experiences two brothers had growing up wild and free in the Sierra Mountains in California.  And I remember saying to my friend that this book has always been one of my favorites.  It reminds me of who we are, of who I am, and that we were born to wander, to explore often and with unabashed excitement and joy.

And so I shut down my computer and went for a walk.  And I’m going to go tomorrow and the next day and the next and for at least 98 more consecutive days unless something utterly dastardly stands in my way.  I walked yesterday so I’m already getting ready for day number three tomorrow.

Walk with me every day if you will.  Send me your thoughts, your experiences, your stories.  Remember who you are as you amble down the path.  Your walks can be anyplace.  It doesn’t really matter as long as you walk.

Before I leave you for today, a quote from the book ON THE LOOSE by Terry and Renny Russell

“As for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by an unseen and unaccountable old joker…There is nothing like the perils of the wilderness to breed this free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy.”  Melville

Until tomorrow, GOOD WALKING!

Ward Luthi –  founder of Walking The World, an outdoor adventure company for those over 50.  We lead guided walking tours to more than 30 destinations worldwide.

Day 1          40 minutes          2.8 miles

Day 2          45 minutes          3.0 miles (worked out just perfectly!)

Day 3          Coming up!