Take a Walk

By Ellie Hodder

Ellie Hodder is the
founder of Women Walk
the Marathon® in
Portland, OR and
creator of the website
www.everything4walkers.com

Why Are You Choosing Your Workout? Part 2

Link to Part One

In the May/June 2009 issue of Walk About we talked about general fitness and goals to avoid preventable disease. Now let’s take a look at goals where increasing intensity would be a plus.

What actual goals would one have that would make intensity training useful?
• I want to walk an event that has hills.
• I want to do some hiking or trail events.
• I want to see what my body can handle.

All of these are worthy goals. You may also have others that would make intensity training useful.

How Often?
As a general rule, hard intensity training ought to be relegated to one or two workouts each week with a less challenging workout in between. Hard intensity workouts are just that — hard intensity — and for those walking endurance events, should not be confused with extra long walks, which should be done at moderate intensity.

Remember that rest is as valuable to your body as hard work. You need time to recover from physical challenges. The downside of failing to do so includes the increased likelihood of injury, burnout, and decreased performance — the opposite of what you are trying to achieve.

Terrain
The easiest way to increase your intensity is to increase the challenge of the terrain of your walk route. If you live in a relatively flat neighborhood, look for a route with rolling hills. In Portland, Southwest Terwilliger Boulevard is a good starting place. This route has long, rolling hills, but also has sidewalks and relatively few places where you need to wait for traffic lights. This is an especially appealing route during the rainy season when trail walking requires a love of muddy, wet shoes that only intrigues some walkers.

Learning about hiking is another way to increase intensity. Keep in mind, though, that walking on uneven surfaces and steep hills such as forest trails puts different stresses on the foot and lower leg than urban walking. Make sure you have the proper footwear and be sure to start off with shorter hikes of less elevation change. The first time you walk to the top of Multnomah Falls, for example, will challenge your body more than the 15th time. The first hike may even leave you with killer sore calves, but, with proper stretching and slowing adding challenge, this will abate.

Look in the local listings for organized hikes. Community centers or groups like Mazamas sponsor many. These organized hikes are graded and supported by knowledgeable hikers. You will be introduced to many forested areas from our fabulous Forest Park (the largest urban forest in the United States) to the Columbia Gorge, Mt. Hood and beyond. Trust me: After a season of hiking, you will be stronger.

Speed
Increasing your pace a couple days a week will also benefit your fitness and event readiness. Make sure you have given yourself an ample warm up and then pick up the pace for the middle of your walk, ending with a nice cool down.

Consider “interval training.” Interval training means that you will work hard for a period followed by an equal or unequal period of rest/recovery. An easy way to do this would be to (after your warm up) walk as fast as you can from phone pole A to phone pole B, then drop your arms and walk casually from pole B to pole C. Repeat this process during the middle of your walk and finish with a cool down.

Or, see if your GPS watch or sports watch has a stopwatch function. Set the watch to go off after one minute, then two minutes, setting uneven intervals repeatedly for the duration of the middle of your walk, and finish with a cool down.

Combinations
Fartlek, the Swedish word for “speed play” can include both terrain and speed challenges. Lay out a route with both hills and flat stretches and vary the challenges. Use sidewalk chalk to indicate “slow” or “fast walk” or “hill” or “jog.” The fun of this kind of walk is that you just plain have fun. Fartlek workouts are a ton o’ fun with friends.

These are just a few ways to introduce intensity challenges into your workouts. The bottom line is that you want to spare yourself injury while keeping yourself engaged in being an active person. Unlike saving money under your mattress, with exercise, the benefits disappear from lack of use, and no one out there wants to be a couch spud! Happy walking.