Author Topic: Local walking  (Read 3276 times)

OneGirlandherDog

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Local walking
« on: 12:20:25, 27/02/15 »

I'm sure that like me most of you do your "big" walks at a weekend or when you have a few days off so I was wondering what sort of walking do you do during the week if you haven't got time to go too far but fancy a quick bimble? 

Most of my week day walks are done locally, are anything from 2.5 to 5 miles in length, aren't particularly hard and are usually on the flat, but they help improve my fitness and stamina and definitely lift my mood. 


I'm also a health walk leader and a couple of times a month, on a Wednesday, I take a group out walking to help improve their fitness and mental health too.  These people are stalwarts and turn up regardless of the weather - there have been times when I've turned up expecting to find nobody there because the weather was so foul outside to find 15 folk standing there in their waterproofs raring to go!  That's dedication for you.


Anyhoo, my walk today was a recce for next Wednesday's health walk along the River Wansbeck in Northumberland near my home, so if you have time have a look at today's post on my blog to see what it's like locally.   


Best wishes.


 ;D

Rhino

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Re: Local walking
« Reply #1 on: 13:26:06, 27/02/15 »
I do a morning walk with my Dog Jack on average 4 mornings a week in the week for between 5 and 5.5 miles and it takes me between 1.5 to 1.75 hours. Its on roads, pavements and dirt tracks and it has ascent/descent ranging from 600 to 750ft and i do it all year whatever the weather including xmas day morning. I get up at 04.40 and i am out of the door 5 minutes later in the dark in the winter and daylight in the summer. I vary the route but always have the ascent in and this is what gives me my hill fitness for the weekends.
 
At weekends i like to do 10 to 15 mile walks with more ascent or less if with the wife, generally better scenery and more people about other than the milkman and occasional jogger  ;D  (always more joggers/walkers dressed to the nines in the first couple of weeks of Janaury then back to normal after that). I generally do either the Saturday or the sunday and sometimes both mostly both in the summer. I might throw in an evening stroll during the summer months as well and walk home one night a week from work in the summer.
« Last Edit: 13:29:47, 27/02/15 by Rhino »
Wainwrights Completed 12/12/15

OneGirlandherDog

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Re: Local walking
« Reply #2 on: 15:16:55, 27/02/15 »
There aren't many inclines where I live (by that I mean in the town that I live, obviously I've got the cheviots on my doorstep for walks further afield) so if I just walk out my door and walk it's mainly flat but we always try to stride out to get the old ticker ticking. 

Best wishes :)


Mel

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Re: Local walking
« Reply #3 on: 15:23:08, 27/02/15 »
My local "out of the door" walks are between 1 and 4 miles of flatness on pavements, tracks and slick, squelchy fields of clay.  In fact, I can safely say the biggest ascent round where I live is climbing over a stile  ;D
 
In the depths of Winter when I go to work in the dark and come home in the dark, any mid-week mooches are purely on pavements and done simply to "get out in some fresh air".
 
I'm doing too many of these ^^^^ just lately and my legs are bored of the repetitive flatness  :-[   In fact, I can safely say, I ache more after walking 4 miles on the flat than 8 miles up and down hills  ???   eh?  How does that work then?  ;D
 
My local walks certainly make me appreciate the times I can get out to more hilly terrain though  O0

barewirewalker

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Re: Local walking
« Reply #4 on: 15:46:34, 27/02/15 »
One of the advantage of retirement is time, time to plan and time to execute, another advantage of senior status is a bus pass. Locally I know my own home ground pretty well, the usual circular routes can now be re-explored as linear routes, using an increasing permutation of the bus and railway stops. This tends to stretch the legitimate access to it's limit, justifiable trespass is logical and rewarding extension to the walking experience, especially as my excursions often prove that there are improvements that should be made to the access network.
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ninthace

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Re: Local walking
« Reply #5 on: 18:35:00, 27/02/15 »
One of the advantage of retirement is time, time to plan and time to execute, another advantage of senior status is a bus pass. Locally I know my own home ground pretty well, the usual circular routes can now be re-explored as linear routes, using an increasing permutation of the bus and railway stops. This tends to stretch the legitimate access to it's limit, justifiable trespass is logical and rewarding extension to the walking experience, especially as my excursions often prove that there are improvements that should be made to the access network.

Luxury - I have committed my village bus timetable to memory.  Departs 11am on Wednesday, returns 15:30 in summer and 15:00 in winter.
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Dovegirl

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Re: Local walking
« Reply #6 on: 19:11:20, 27/02/15 »
I do a lot of walks from the door.  These are usually between 2 and 8 miles and are in various locations  -  the urban environment, parks, seafront, cliffs, the fringes of the downland.  In a way they're nearly as important to me as my walks out in the countryside because they help with keeping fit and because I just so much love being out walking. 

altirando

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Re: Local walking
« Reply #7 on: 19:26:28, 27/02/15 »
I am lucky, I can walk on a trail past my garden on to Whitegate Way for perhaps an hour or two, cross the road for a shorter walk down through woods, drive for five minutes and nip up Eddisbury Hill in the Delamere forest and do a circuit alongside a large lake.  Twenty minutes away there is the best bit of the Sandstone Trail.  I do increasingly value these very local walking opportunities, they do keep one in trim.  Even the Clwyd hills are well under the hour away.  Perhaps of interest to the original poster, I always take a pair of poles even for one of these short walks - they do help to give the upper body and lungs a workout, effectively brisk nordic walking I suppose.  I lived in Birmingham as a boy, got out of the city streets into the country on a bike then.

sbt

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Re: Local walking
« Reply #8 on: 20:28:12, 27/02/15 »
On working days my walks are local. I will walk my dogs for about one and half hours around what I call the block. Witch are streets with plenty of inclines and declines and a old coal tip of witch is always boggy so the dogs love it.
Most weekends we go on longer walks of about 4 to 6 hours.

gar303

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Re: Local walking
« Reply #9 on: 20:42:38, 27/02/15 »
Within 20min walking there's woods, old railways & industry, farmland & common

On a lazy day my dog walk is about 3-5km, semi rural, suburban I guess. Then a few longer circuits going 8, 12, 14km. Within an hour driving (give or take) I can get to the Beacons, Glamorgan Heritage Coast or the Gower, a bit spoilt really 


OneGirlandherDog

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Re: Local walking
« Reply #10 on: 23:53:34, 27/02/15 »
Sounds like we've all got some great local quickies and let's face it, any walk is a good walk if it cheers you up and clears your head.


Best wishes.  ;D

Si Clu

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Re: Local walking
« Reply #11 on: 12:50:58, 01/03/15 »
I have a choice as i live right at the foot of the cotswold escarpment. Either up the hill or stay on the flat. I have only once stayed on the flat. Boggy and boring. Give me the hills any day.
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sunnydale

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Re: Local walking
« Reply #12 on: 19:13:38, 01/03/15 »
Lots of choices from where I live without having to use the car 8) .... and my local wanders (in the White Peak) can be anything from 3 miles right up to 14 miles, according to what my GPS said on Wednesday! :o
A good mix of lanes, tracks, trails, fields, woodland, moors, dales (some with rivers, some without) and a fair bit of climbing (if I want it) to be had in any direction.


If using the car, I can get to most of the best Dark Peak walks in well under half an hour, while getting to (say) Edale takes around 35 mins.


I love living where I do and it would take only living at the coast to beat it  O0



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Rhino

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Re: Local walking
« Reply #13 on: 20:13:31, 01/03/15 »
On working days my walks are local. I will walk my dogs for about one and half hours around what I call the block. Witch are streets with plenty of inclines and declines and a old coal tip of witch is always boggy so the dogs love it.
Most weekends we go on longer walks of about 4 to 6 hours.

Staffies just can't get enough can they and they do two to three times our mileage.
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sbt

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Re: Local walking
« Reply #14 on: 23:30:33, 01/03/15 »
Staffies just can't get enough can they and they do two to three times our mileage.
Yes so true.
My 3 are always up for  a walk.  Two of them are getting on now but still go on and on.

 

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