You are not doing this alone. Welcome to walking as fitness. This is a podcast of action,

providing a little extra motivation to help you keep that fitness promise you made yourself.

Hi, I'm Dave. I've been walking for fitness since 2013, averaging about 21,000 steps a day.

I'm walking right now and would love to have you join me for the next 10 minutes.

Most of us, as we listen to this podcast, are walking alone. In fact, I don't know about you, but I almost never listened to podcasts with

someone else. I listen to podcasts through earbuds or aftershocks, and it's a very intentional,

just me and the podcast time. So if you're listening and walking, chances are you're

doing it alone. And for most of us, that's perfectly okay. In fact, it might even be our preference.

I like walking alone a lot. I also like walking with other people, specifically my wife,

Ava. But those are two separate walks. There's my alone walk, which is much more intentional and

fitness focused. And then my time with Ava is really not about fitness. I'm not even thinking about how

fast I'm going. Actually, not true. Ava walks slower than I do, so I have to intentionally

slow my pace down, which sometimes can be a little bit of a challenge. But those walks are more about relationship, not about fitness.

But as we are pursuing fitness and we are walking alone,

we can also be in a space where we're the only ones walking.

I mean, as I'm walking right now, I'm looking around,

and I don't see anyone else.

And this is not uncommon. That's not to say that there's nobody in my community that is also walking.

I see them. But oftentimes when I'm out, it's, there's not a whole lot of us. And sometimes that can even lead to this feeling of,

am I a little crazy for doing this?

I mean, I'm the only one here.

Are they looking at me thinking I'm a little odd?

...