Sunday November 22nd, 2009
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Walk Talk #18—I Would Walk 500 Miles
Posted by Walk Talk on June 12, 2007 - 5:41am.
My boyfriend won’t ride the subway anymore. I live in New York City. It’s a problem.
He insists it’s a thoughtful decision on his part, and that it has mainly to do with his unwillingness to feel so vulnerable—why would we voluntarily go down into a dark airless cave? Better yet, why would we pay to?
Be supportive, I tell myself. Sigh. I guess I do live in the infinitely walkable city. And I am a faithful follower of the Walk Out. Shouldn’t I be excited to cover every inch of gridded ground on this island?
Plus, it’s endearing how he tries to get me to come around to his way of thinking. As if in a huddle, he asks me, “What’s our exit strategy!” to which I know to respond with an equally enthusiastic, “Keep it above ground if we want to stick around!” As I repeat the words I can feel them ringing, no, burning in my feet and calves.
Last week I planned an exciting weekend for us, and we had a blast. But I'm still recovering from my toes to my hips.
Day 1: We walked from 86th Street to Washington Square Park, aka 4th Street. That’s 82 blocks, at least. We took a break and haggled prices for digital cameras in the West 40s, before heading to our final destination: Yatagan, my favorite $2 falafel on MacDougal Street.
Down the last 10 blocks down 5th Avenue toward the massive stone arch in Washington Square Park he was hurtin’. I was beaming. My legs felt great as I gazed lovingly at my Go Anywhere sneakers. This feeling would not last.
Day 2: Feeling a lot more achey and a bit less ambitious, we decided to ride the electric beast waaay downtown to Fulton Street. Our destination: The Bodies Exhibit at South Street Seaport.
True that we did not work our bodies on Day 2 as nature perhaps intended us to. Also true that we felt infinitely more intimate with our own muscles after leaving Bodies. But there was one thing the exhibit couldn’t show us, and that was the physical limit of the human body. We had in fact, learned that the hard way the day before. But it didn’t kill us. Nope. It actually made us stronger—pun intended.
Annie Costner
New York, NY
So I guess I would walk up the side of a mountain and then pull myself up the side of a granite boulder for that man of mine, he's worth it!
We climbed Yosemite Falls together last summer while I had a raging headcold. I was feeling miserable but was too proud to say it. It's certainly not the most fun thing in life to be nasty exhausted and dragging your feet through the dirt with your partner but it just might be worth it. So good for you for doing Half Dome, and for putting in the extra time to train. As a native Californian it is one of my goals in life to make it up that rock. And one last aside: I think it looks much more like a dolphin nose than a half-dome.
Walking/hiking with a loved one is so special to me. Sharing nature and the great outdoors is so intimate. You experience things and see things together that make memories to last a lifetime. We still talk about some of the beautiful landscape we experienced together and that was 5 years ago.