person “you walk fast”
me “I like to walk”
person “I thought you were rushing somewhere”
me “nope, just stride as I walk”
On average every step I take is two and a half times longer than most people therefore I cover distances in half the time it takes others to do the same. That’s because I love walking. I used to walk an hour a day after high school and the distances expanded over time. One day I wanted to create a gps track to see what it looked like so I walked nine kilometers within the space of an hour. I wasen’t even tired at the end.
Last night I went to a house warming party and the night finished around 2 or three in the morning and walked with a friend to the bus stop. I waited, and waited until I got bored. A bus came but when I asked whether he was going my way he told me “look at the front of the bus”. His arrogance made my mind up. I’d walk from Aldgate east, via Bank and temple to Traf. Square before catching the night bus I wanted to catch and going home.
It’s a long walk. At moments I ran, then I walked. I was listening to music so that was fine. At one point an accounting student asked me the way to where he was going so I chatted with him for a while. He was walking too slowly and it’s too late at night to hang around chatting so I told him which landmarks to use for navigation and started walking at my cruising speed again.
I covered big distances. I saw St Paul’s, I saw the Tate Modern tower and I saw the London Eye, quite far, I thought. Didn’t deter me. I walked past the club boat and people were standing on the pavement whilst others were making the way home. Caught up with them within thirty seconds. They turned right away from the bank but I continued.
The London eye was getting bigger. I passed the Savoy where I saw a few police cars and some people chatting. I don’t know what it was about. IÂ passed the royal horse guard hotel, good memories of two nights spent there before a flight to New York.
I turned and started to head from the river towards Trafalgar Square and spotted the N18 in the distance. Great. I ran, with big strides that conserve energy by covering a lot of ground. I got to the bus and saw whether he could let me in before the bus stop. No luck.
I started to run. I ran across the roads of Traf Square, watching out for traffic of course, and got the the bus stop. I was slightly out of breath but I had run fast enough so that I was waiting for the bus. Conventionally other people have to run to keep the bus from running. I got on. Sat down at the front and looked at London as it slid beside me, one bus floor below mine. Cars were around, drunks were waiting for their respective buses and heading home as well. Time to daydream.
I arrived at Sudbury as the sun was rising. 7 minutes till the next bus, ah well, that’s not so bad. Finally I got home, decided to have some crisps before going to sleep for a few hours.
That was a nice walk. I really needed it. Hardly any traffic, no slow movers in front and no people to avoid. Just the way I like my walks to be.