Perhaps worst of all for the likes of me, the death rate among the slow walkers was high even if the distances trekked were long. Williams’ work – alas for me – shows that the deaths were disproportionately drawn from the ranks of those who stroll slowly rather than those who stride quickly along. Almost 2,000 people out of the total of 39,000 in the database have died since 1998.

His analysis was recently published in the journal PLoS One and summarized in The New York Times.ĭeath catches up to all of us, even the most lean and serious of walkers. Williams of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who has worked through the data on about 39,000 middle-age walkers in the National Walkers’ Health Study. Still, isn’t it possible that the long distances we go makes up for our relatively leisurely pace?Įnter a statistician named Paul T. We walk, all right, but not fast enough to get some of the health benefits of exercise.

In other words, Buster Brown and I don’t make the grade. For walkers, that translates to walking at about a 4-mile-per-hour pace. Medical authorities recommend we do at least some moderate-intensity exercise for 30 minutes each day, five days a week. They gave researchers detailed information about their walking habits and their health histories. People in the study were recruited starting in 1998. The idea about speedier walking comes from work done on the National Walkers’ Health Study, a database that records the walking patterns maintained by thousands of Americans who like to walk for exercise. Recently published research suggests that if I want to do my health the most good, I should check with my medical provider and then work on picking up my pace. I think I average about 3 miles per hour. While I do walk what many Americans would consider significant distances, I am not fast. I think I can speak for both of us when I say that we simply feel better about the world when we’ve completed a long walk. Closer to home, there is a six-mile loop around town we enjoy. There’s a six-mile walk in the canyon we like to do: me limping along in a straight line, Buster ranging over a wider area of ground sniffing for wildlife. Sometimes on weekends Buster Brown and I stroll at the bottom of the Snake River Canyon where dogs can be off-leash (as Mother Nature intended).

One of the things my mutt from the pound and I like to do together is go on long walks.

Brisk walking pace