5 ms·

Lately I've been walking 20 km per day (~12.5 mi). Takes at least 3.5 hours. I try not to listen to any audio -- I just let my mind wander. To step it up a not

by bbig 4y ago

Lately I've been walking 20 km per day (~12.5 mi). Takes at least 3.5 hours. I try not to listen to any audio -- I just let my mind wander. To step it up a notch, I put on a weighted backpack (i.e. ruck). I'm typically carrying 30 lbs, sometimes 50. This raises the heart rate and roughly doubles the caloric burn. Low injury risk, too. Michael Easter's book "Comfort Crisis" has a nice chapter on rucking. I just wish it was easier to contact nature on my walks. I live in a big urban centre, so it's not always easy. But at least urban centers can facilitate social walking -- I've found some fantastic Meetup groups where I can partake in social hikes. Can't say enough good things about walking/hiking/rucking. It's foundational to the human experience. Get outside, everyone :)

cnagesh 4y ago
> Lately I've been walking 20 km per day (~12.5 mi) This is crazy distance, keep it up.
bjarneh 4y ago
> 20 km per day (~12.5 mi) That is some serious distance. I remember thinking I would be able to do at least 25-35 km per day, a few years ago when I walked parts of the camino de Santiago in Spain. Blisters and destroyed feet in just a few days, not ever reaching 30 km per day I think.. How long did it take you to get used to this kind of distance daily?
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  I have heard of the camino de Santiago from someone planning to do it. I just looked it up and it says you can choose one of many routes. Camino Frances being the most popular. Feel like this will be on my bucket list if I can ever get that fit :-).
  - bjarneh 4y ago
    > I just looked it up and it says you can choose one of many routes. Yes, I've done small parts of the route on two different occasions. First time I quit due to problems with my feet, the second time I quit after problems with the heat :-) I never planned to go the full camino, as most of these routes are quite long. The one that starts in France is about 800 km (500 miles) I think, so that will be a full summer holiday and probably a few weeks off work at best. Not ideal to walk during the height of summer either, as the heat can be brutal.
- cnagesh 4y ago
  Does the quality of shoe matters here ?
  - Doxin 4y ago
    Yes, but in my experience the quality of your socks matters much more. A single wrinkle is gonna give you a nice blister within 5km. Get nice socks and pack blister bandages. Those things are like magic.
    - accrual 4y ago
      Are there any socks you recommend? I've had good luck with Darn Tough socks, but I'd be interested in something better if available.
      - pluies 4y ago
        From my adjacent experience (ultrarunning / multi-day races), after trying a bunch of different brands, I've settled on Drymax. By far the best blister resistance! They're really good at keeping feet, well, dry, which helps a lot against chafing. If you have particular hot spots, I'd also recommend applying some foot cream like Trail Toes. I always use it for runs over ~30km.
      - mhitza 4y ago
        Merino wool socks are definitely what I'd recommend for trekking.
        Doxin 4y ago
        Socks with a high percentage of wool are amazing if you've got even remotely sweaty feet. You can be having a complete swamp in your shoes and still have warm feet.
    - nottorp 4y ago
      As an anecdote, I stopped buying "normal" socks from regular clothing stores completely. All I wear is hiking labeled socks from sports stores. Greatly reduces wrinkles even if you go for the cheap ones. (Decathlon's store brand for example, but that's EU only i think).
- bbig 4y ago
  I had a good baseline fitness from other activities, so was able to pretty much launch into 20 km daily. Blisters happened at the beginning. Investing in Darn Tough socks helps.
  - bjarneh 4y ago
    > Investing in Darn Tough socks helps. Thanks for the advice. In the army we got the opposite advice, they said we must never use woolen socks when we did the 30 km march, always use cotton they said...
wingerlang 4y ago
That's a lot of time spent walking, how does a typical day look for you in terms of work?
- loloquwowndueo 4y ago
  People who spend a lot of time in mindless remote meetings (the kind that proliferated during the pandemic) can take most of them while walking. There’s a ton of resources on walking meetings going back many years, some are geared towards just grabbing the attendees and all going for a walk, whereas the tendency these days is for remote / video / audio meetings. There are even tools that transcribe meeting audio and try to extract summaries, agendas and actions from the discussed material.
vanous 4y ago
Awesome advice on the weighted backpack to keep the calories burning.
theonething 4y ago
Do you work full-time as well? How do you fit that in your schedule?
ajuc 4y ago
I'm doing 20-30 km on free days and 1-10 km on most work days for the last 2 years, but not nearly as fast (my average speed went from 4.5 to 5.1 km/h in that time). Are you sure about the doubling of caloric burn? Cause I started when I was 130 kg and now I'm 90-100 kg and I measured calories in and how much I walked, and calculated the calories burned/km walked depending on weight and it's basically linear for me (roughly 60 kcal/km at 100 kg). It would be very weird if just 30 kg doubled the caloric burn, maybe the speed makes the difference? At any rate I agree it's great, it completely changed my life. It's very hard to be frustrated after a 5-hour walk.
scotty79 4y ago
You are very lucky. After walking about 6km every day for few months arches of my feet started to hurt. Basically overuse injury. I probably should be varying shoes and places (surfaces) I walk on.
busyant 4y ago
> 20 km per day I'm not sure my body could handle that (my hips would need a day to recover from a 20 km walk). I'm in my mid 50s, so I'd like to believe my age is part of that. I do about 7 km / day, which still takes time. I've probably done everything mentioned here (thinking, audiobooks, music, walking with my kids, etc.). Lately, I've been simply listening for birds. I've gotten pretty good at identifying several species by vocalization and it has the added benefit of putting me "in tune" with my environment.
- bklaasen 4y ago
  > (my hips would need a day to recover from a 20 km walk). > > I'm in my mid 50s, so I'd like to believe my age is part of that. Nah, it's just lack of practice. I turned fifty during my walk across Europe from Dublin to Istanbul. I'm 55 now and can happily cover 30 km every few months. Try going for an extra ten or twenty minutes on your regular walk, and when that feels good, add another ten or twenty minutes. Keep going until you can knock out 30 km in a day's walk, with a break for lunch. Good luck, and enjoy it!
widg3t 4y ago
I'm an avid walker (I guess rucker, considering I always wear my backpack). My worst is when passing cars stop and offer me a ride. Apparently it's socially acceptable/normal to run, though.
magic_hamster 4y ago
I started doing this and got to walking ~10-15km per session, but boy does it take a long time. It gets old fast. Music helps but at some point the time cost is just too high. I started swimming instead and it feels like 30 minutes in the water is roughly equivalent to 2 hours walking, though I'm not a very good swimmer. There is definitely a risk for injury walking. Aside from the obvious risk of tripping over, you can also mess up your feet and your back, especially when carrying weight. I didn't have any knee problems but apparently that's another risk.

by bbig 4y ago

cnagesh 4y ago

> Lately I've been walking 20 km per day (~12.5 mi) This is crazy distance, keep it up.

bjarneh 4y ago

> 20 km per day (~12.5 mi) That is some serious distance. I remember thinking I would be able to do at least 25-35 km per day, a few years ago when I walked parts of the camino de Santiago in Spain. Blisters and destroyed feet in just a few days, not ever reaching 30 km per day I think.. How long did it take you to get used to this kind of distance daily?

quickthrower2 4y ago
I have heard of the camino de Santiago from someone planning to do it. I just looked it up and it says you can choose one of many routes. Camino Frances being the most popular. Feel like this will be on my bucket list if I can ever get that fit :-).
- bjarneh 4y ago
  > I just looked it up and it says you can choose one of many routes. Yes, I've done small parts of the route on two different occasions. First time I quit due to problems with my feet, the second time I quit after problems with the heat :-) I never planned to go the full camino, as most of these routes are quite long. The one that starts in France is about 800 km (500 miles) I think, so that will be a full summer holiday and probably a few weeks off work at best. Not ideal to walk during the height of summer either, as the heat can be brutal.
cnagesh 4y ago
Does the quality of shoe matters here ?
- Doxin 4y ago
  Yes, but in my experience the quality of your socks matters much more. A single wrinkle is gonna give you a nice blister within 5km. Get nice socks and pack blister bandages. Those things are like magic.
  - accrual 4y ago
    Are there any socks you recommend? I've had good luck with Darn Tough socks, but I'd be interested in something better if available.
    - pluies 4y ago
      From my adjacent experience (ultrarunning / multi-day races), after trying a bunch of different brands, I've settled on Drymax. By far the best blister resistance! They're really good at keeping feet, well, dry, which helps a lot against chafing. If you have particular hot spots, I'd also recommend applying some foot cream like Trail Toes. I always use it for runs over ~30km.
    - mhitza 4y ago
      Merino wool socks are definitely what I'd recommend for trekking.
      - Doxin 4y ago
        Socks with a high percentage of wool are amazing if you've got even remotely sweaty feet. You can be having a complete swamp in your shoes and still have warm feet.
  - nottorp 4y ago
    As an anecdote, I stopped buying "normal" socks from regular clothing stores completely. All I wear is hiking labeled socks from sports stores. Greatly reduces wrinkles even if you go for the cheap ones. (Decathlon's store brand for example, but that's EU only i think).
bbig 4y ago
I had a good baseline fitness from other activities, so was able to pretty much launch into 20 km daily. Blisters happened at the beginning. Investing in Darn Tough socks helps.
- bjarneh 4y ago
  > Investing in Darn Tough socks helps. Thanks for the advice. In the army we got the opposite advice, they said we must never use woolen socks when we did the 30 km march, always use cotton they said...

wingerlang 4y ago

That's a lot of time spent walking, how does a typical day look for you in terms of work?

loloquwowndueo 4y ago
People who spend a lot of time in mindless remote meetings (the kind that proliferated during the pandemic) can take most of them while walking. There’s a ton of resources on walking meetings going back many years, some are geared towards just grabbing the attendees and all going for a walk, whereas the tendency these days is for remote / video / audio meetings. There are even tools that transcribe meeting audio and try to extract summaries, agendas and actions from the discussed material.

vanous 4y ago

Awesome advice on the weighted backpack to keep the calories burning.

theonething 4y ago

Do you work full-time as well? How do you fit that in your schedule?

ajuc 4y ago

I'm doing 20-30 km on free days and 1-10 km on most work days for the last 2 years, but not nearly as fast (my average speed went from 4.5 to 5.1 km/h in that time). Are you sure about the doubling of caloric burn? Cause I started when I was 130 kg and now I'm 90-100 kg and I measured calories in and how much I walked, and calculated the calories burned/km walked depending on weight and it's basically linear for me (roughly 60 kcal/km at 100 kg). It would be very weird if just 30 kg doubled the caloric burn, maybe the speed makes the difference? At any rate I agree it's great, it completely changed my life. It's very hard to be frustrated after a 5-hour walk.

scotty79 4y ago

You are very lucky. After walking about 6km every day for few months arches of my feet started to hurt. Basically overuse injury. I probably should be varying shoes and places (surfaces) I walk on.

busyant 4y ago

> 20 km per day I'm not sure my body could handle that (my hips would need a day to recover from a 20 km walk). I'm in my mid 50s, so I'd like to believe my age is part of that. I do about 7 km / day, which still takes time. I've probably done everything mentioned here (thinking, audiobooks, music, walking with my kids, etc.). Lately, I've been simply listening for birds. I've gotten pretty good at identifying several species by vocalization and it has the added benefit of putting me "in tune" with my environment.

bklaasen 4y ago
> (my hips would need a day to recover from a 20 km walk). > > I'm in my mid 50s, so I'd like to believe my age is part of that. Nah, it's just lack of practice. I turned fifty during my walk across Europe from Dublin to Istanbul. I'm 55 now and can happily cover 30 km every few months. Try going for an extra ten or twenty minutes on your regular walk, and when that feels good, add another ten or twenty minutes. Keep going until you can knock out 30 km in a day's walk, with a break for lunch. Good luck, and enjoy it!

widg3t 4y ago

I'm an avid walker (I guess rucker, considering I always wear my backpack). My worst is when passing cars stop and offer me a ride. Apparently it's socially acceptable/normal to run, though.

magic_hamster 4y ago

I started doing this and got to walking ~10-15km per session, but boy does it take a long time. It gets old fast. Music helps but at some point the time cost is just too high. I started swimming instead and it feels like 30 minutes in the water is roughly equivalent to 2 hours walking, though I'm not a very good swimmer. There is definitely a risk for injury walking. Aside from the obvious risk of tripping over, you can also mess up your feet and your back, especially when carrying weight. I didn't have any knee problems but apparently that's another risk.