National Walking Day 2024

If you’ve been here for a hot minute or two, y’all know I like to talk about offbeat observances and holidays, both official and unofficial. Today’s observance is no different, meaning it’s National Walking Day 2024!

Here, I’m all about a healthy lifestyle as much as possible, and I recognize that it’s super easy to fall off the wagon now and then. Hell, I’m living proof of it, haha. I’ve figured out that either I’ve wildly miscalculated my counts for the day, overestimated my step count burn, or both. Either way, I’m turning this horseshit around, and getting back to where I wanna be.

According to Holiday Insights, National Walking Day 2024 came to be in 2007, by none other than the American Heart Association!

The second link takes us to the AHA’s page on National Walking Day 2024, and it’s chock full of resources on getting started. For me, I got started in college, since I don’t own a car. It’s bike, bus, or walk for me. I learned some of this stuff the hard way, too. Like dressing for the weather. I’ve gone out thinking it’d be warmer than it ended up being, and it didn’t end well.

Let’s just say the walk home sucked donkey balls the whole time. 10/10, wouldn’t recommend.

I know there’s influencers out there or whatever who say you need this, that, and the next in order to work out. Maybe they don’t say it in these specific words, but that’s the feeling you’re left w/, or that’s your takeaway from their content about it. Like, you need Lululemon stuff, On shoes, Hoka shoes, or bust.

I don’t even own anything Lululemon. I’ve not tried a pair of On shoes, but I’ve been considering em for when my 4-year-old Asics finally bite the dust. Hoka shoes don’t even come in my size, at least not yet. I wonder if maybe they’re testing the waters w/ kids’ sizes, and it’ll be a different story soon.

When I was on my most recent sojourn w/ the gym, I did see ppl in Lululemon and the latest workout gear. But for everyone I saw in the latest and greatest, I saw at least 3 others in whatever they had. I was among em, in jean shorts and a t-shirt w/ Martina McBride from 1993. My shoes came from The Children’s Place, on sale. Since I was only walking on the treadmill, I wasn’t super concerned about anything else. . 

That tour of duty w/ the gym  ended when the pandemic came onto the scene, and we were in the lockdown. I’d been meaning to renew my gym membership, but never got around to it. It was probably for the best anyways. 

Instead, my neighborhood became my gym. I’d walk around the neighborhood, going on my Sunday walks and runs. The runs were something I’d save for the middle of the night, since I hated the attention it got me during the day. 

I always will. Besides, why should I even bother w/ marathons or whatever, when I already do what amounts to one on my walks anyways? 

I’d walk and bike places, and during the pandemic, there’d be this creepy old asshole following me. In the 3 years he spent basically stalking me, he’d always try to lure me into his car. At one point, he even fuckin chased me across a parking lot to get at me. Nothing stopped this asshole, not even the coronavirus and a fuckin pandemic.

I’m happy to report my last run-in w/ that son of a bytch was a little over 3 years ago, and I haven’t seen him since then. I hope I never do.

When I got my day job, I started racking up the step counts, and currently I’m at anywhere between 15K to 20K steps per day. I’ve been considering going back to the gym, but on the other hand, my neighborhood as my gym’s been good to me, so far, anyways. Now that the weather’s getting better, and pool season’s coming up, I’ll be getting my customary early bird pool pass, and I can ride over there instead. 

To celebrate National Walking Day 2024, I’ll be making sure to get my step count on the higher end of my range. Even though I feel like hardcore shyt from a cold, I’ll suffer through it. I did it before. I can do it again.

In the end, I managed to get 16K steps in, despite whatever this crap is that I caught. I wanted more steps, but I’ll call that a victory anyways. 

Over to you, readers. How’d you celebrate National Walking Day 2024? Did you even know it was a thing? I somehow didn’t until now. Either way, I’d still love to hear all about your thoughts and takeaways, so drop it all like it’s hawt, and let’s talk.