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Comment by gandalfff | Hacker News Reader

I've thought about incorporating such long walks into my lifestyle but I'm not certain the benefits add up. Definitely a fun idea though!

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Last year I used the CityStrides website to track and walk every street in my town. All told about 385 miles or so.

Some changes I've noticed since doing this are listed below. Not that they are earth shattering, but just a few things I've observed.

* My resting heart rate fell by about 5 BPM.

* I can now run and walk in my dreams and rarely have the "legs in molasses" thing (if you know what I mean).

* I now wear trail running shoes all the time - a total shift from the old Birkenstock and whatever shoes I wore for years before.

* My town has a number of fun, curious little sidewalk shortcuts between neighborhoods that I did not know about. They aren't secret, just not obvious at all.

Getting to know the area you live is a great reason to start walking.

One of my favorite things to find in Santa Barbara are old concrete stamps marking which company/contractor poured that section of sidewalk. Often these are 100+ years old. I've currently found ~25-30 different ones.

5bpm is earth shattering for longevity and general health.

> I can now run and walk in my dreams and rarely have the "legs in molasses" thing

I know exactly what you mean. That’s fascinating that it went away with more walking; maybe the brain is now better able to “simulate” walking?

These are good reasons! Thank you for the motivation.

Try 1 hour a day for a few weeks. You'll have the benefits and time commitment isn't too bad. People do more than that because they get hooked.

Elaborate on 'I'm not certain the benefits add up'

He wants to have done it but needs an excuse to keep from doing it.

My interpretation is that GP is observing that the benefits do not scale linearly. Most of the exercise benefit happens after a relatively short walk. The extra two hours a day for a long walk is expensive in time, but doesn't multiply the benefits 3x.

Exactly this! Thank you for explaining this better than I did.

Walking is nice in that it's low-impact, although it's probably much more time-efficient to do a shorter, higher intensity exercise like running. (Saying this as someone who primarily walks and never runs)

Do you do any exercise at all?

Yes, I walk/run, but not this far.

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