A new study finds fast walkers have a lower ‘risk of death’ – is it enough to make fast walking socially acceptable?
This story was published on the LBC website – read it on the site here.
Today we learnt that walking faster could just save your life. A huge new study found that people who take fewer than 5,000 steps a day but walk at a faster pace have a substantially lower risk of death. In fact, the researchers found that if you walk fewer than 5,000 steps, but you do it quickly, you get a similar health benefit as those who walk 50% further, but slower.
This is fantastic news. Because as a fast walker myself, I can tell you that speed-walking has a serious PR problem, and we need all the ammo we can get to justify our pace to friends, family and the general population.
The problem is that a lot of people see fast walking as downright rude. I have spent my entire life being accused of ‘marching’ by friends, family and various girlfriends – as if an evening stroll is somehow improved by walking at the pace of a bridal procession.
The ‘marching’ conversation can be delicate though, especially when pop psychology dictates that if a man walks ahead of you, he doesn’t care. But honestly, even a loving bond worthy of Romeo and Juliet is not enough to keep me from straying ahead. I’ve explained several times: this pace is the natural outcome when you combine fairly long legs with an acute awareness of the brevity of life.
Time is precious. We are often reminded of the terrifyingly large chunk of our lives spent in traffic, sleeping or scrolling on our phones. Like a prison sentence, the figures are given in months and years. 30 years asleep. 21 staring at an iPhone. Eight months stuck in traffic. It really doesn’t leave much for the good stuff. The last thing I need is to waste any more time dawdling in Tube station corridors.
Besides, a faster pace makes walking better. It’s like listening to a podcast at 1.25x speed. You get exactly the same information. But you also get a bit of extra time to spend as you please – either doing something else or covering more ground.
Of course, I can slow down, and sometimes it’s essential to do so. The time I acted as a pallbearer at my grandfather’s funeral springs to mind. But outside of highly specialised scenarios, I am loath to drop the pace.
It’s not just friends, family and partners who get the hump when your pace is too high. Walking fast through london’s busy streets marks you out as the pedestrian equivalent of a boy racer – especially to the bumbling tourists who potter between Madame Tussauds and M&M’s World. I can hear them tutting and shooing, but I just can’t stand to slow down.
What fast walkers like me need is some good news. Something solid we can turn to to justify our shameful ways. And at long last, we’ve got it: according to science (pauses for emphasis), upping our pace is the best chance we’ve got of lowering our risk of dying.
And so, to my friends and family; to strangers I will never meet: forgive the man who strides ahead or sneaks around. He is not late, nor is he rude. He is simply trying to live that little bit longer, and to cover more ground in the process.
More of my work from LBC:
