The social side of exercise

It's fair to say that I've a lot of kilometers under my feet over the past 6 months or so and during a recent walk with my husband at the "1000 steps" in the Dandenongs, I got to thinking about the social side of exercise.

We were on the downhill return choosing to follow the path rather than the steps as we could actually walk next to each other and enjoy the experience.  There was a woman trudging up the hill towards us and made eye contact a few times, however with a couple of metres to go, she put her head down and walked right on past.  My smile and "hi" went unacknowledged.  Now, I get it that it was probably tough going.  God knows I was happy we weren't walking up that section, but I just don't get it when people don't acknowledge other like minded people when out and about exercising.

I sometimes go for a walk around Albert Park lake on the way into work.  I am doing this to improve my walking pace, so I'm going pretty hard and concentrating on keeping up the speed.  But I still think it's important to look around and enjoy the experience.  My experiment has shown there aint a lot of people who'll return a smile at this location.

So, then there's the Tan.  I sometimes do the Tan at lunch time from work.  Again, I'm trying to do it pretty quickly and will often throw in some jogging along the way.  Most people are pretty focused during the lunch sessions so I tend not to get much of a response and to be honest, I don't dish them out as willingly!

I've been having to ramp up some distance walks on the weekends as part of my training for Coburg so this usually takes me through the streets and I really don't expect much in the way of smiles from people just out doing their daily thing, but more often than not, I'll get my smile returned.  I recently walked 30kms along the beach from Chelsea to St Kilda and noticed a marked difference in the location and the "response rate".  It was 5am when I left home and up until the Mentone section of the beach, it was still what I would call "bloody early"! And of course, at this time EVERYONE says hi because we're all nuts.  But as I got closer and closer into the city, there were more and more sour faces and markedly less smiles.  Incidentally, there was also a LOT more dog poo covering the path and people walking poodles.  Perhaps the 2 are linked?

But I digress.    

To me exercise is so satisfying and rewarding that it makes me really happy.  Even when I am hating it and not wanting to do it and wondering how I am going to put one foot in front of the other.  I get people not returning a smile when you're out on the streets but out in the bush or on a casual path, I think a smile can brighten someone else's day.

On the personal front, I am stoked with the way my running training is coming along.  I am into week 6 of couch to 5k without having to repeat any days or weeks which I never thought would happen.  We even went for a run together on the weekend which is the first time in 15 years of being together that we've ever done that.  It was a great feeling and I look forward to more of it.