This week we visited three cities in southern California. It was very interesting to me—and quite motivating—when I discovered how many miles we had been walking on that trip.
We wanted to see everything about these cities on foot, because you can see much more that way.
In the morning we drove from our hotel to the destination city. We then parked the car, and walked to all of the sites on our list including our lunch place. In the evening we drove back to our hotel, parked, and walked to dinner and back.
As it turned out we walked at least ten miles per day.
On some days I went fifteen miles, because I ran in the morning. After we got back when I added it all up, I couldn’t believe how much we had walked. I had covered the distance of more than two marathons in five days!
If we actually had done two marathons this week…
we would have been quite sore. We would also have had to train very hard before we did it. But, taking on the same number of miles in a much more leisurely fashion doesn’t hurt as much. In fact, it didn’t hurt at all.
We did have some training though—
We both exercise almost daily, and many of our training days are pretty intense.*
Having done the days and months of exercise that we do on a consistent basis makes it easy for us to pick up on a weekend and get wherever we want to go on foot, and walk for as long as we like.
It’s just another unrecognized benefit of exercise.
It’s also an example of how much exercise you can get on vacation without even setting foot in a gym.
Why did I explore these three cities so intensely?
I’ll share about that in an upcoming blog post.
Have you gotten unconventional exercise lately? Or, have you seen the benefits of your regular exercise in a way that surprised you? Share if you like in the comments below.
*Intensity means different things to different people. However, we all need to exercise at levels that challenge us on most days, in order to get the most benefit from a workout.