Surprisingly, some good things have come out of our lockdown experience, and one of them has been my involvement with the C2C Walking Group. During the first six months of the pandemic, my husband, Tom, and I did lots of walking: in our local neighbourhood; in city parks; on golf courses; and on trails in the mountains. With winter fast approaching and no reprieve in sight, I became concerned that we might get too cozy indoors and not continue our regular exercise routine.
In mid-September 2020, we invited three couples from Canada and one from Arizona to join us in a virtual walking group. I had quick affirmative responses from everyone, and we began our trek at the beginning of October.
Our plan was to virtually walk across Canada, starting in Vancouver and ending in St. John’s, Nfld. Each couple agreed that they would keep track of the distances they walked each week and send me their weekly total. I would then add up our group distance for the week and plot that on a map to see how far we had travelled. A weekly email update tracked our progress. This was not a competitive pursuit; I tracked only our total mileage as a group.
Doing a walk of this nature during a Canadian winter presented some challenges. While our Arizona friends walked or hiked similar distances most weeks, inclement weather impacted the rest of us. During the weeks when we were experiencing either frigid temperatures, lots of snow and/or cold winds, our total distances tended to be low. A few of us have memberships at gyms or fitness centres, so when those facilities were allowed to be open, we could get our steps indoors.
In addition to the intermittent closure of gyms and fitness centres, the pandemic affected us in other ways. While, thankfully, no one in our group contracted COVID-19, four of us had to self-isolate at different times because of exposure to positive cases.
We all enjoy each other’s company, and in “normal” times, we would have likely gotten together regularly to walk and have coffee or lunch together afterwards. When the rules allowed, we have occasionally been able to meet one or two other people in our group for outdoor walks, but for much of the time, each couple has been walking on their own.
After a couple of weeks, we hit our stride and then usually averaged 300–350 km per week… not bad for a group of folks who are mostly over the age of 75! The journey went surprisingly quickly, and we completed our trek in a little over five months. The total distance we clocked from Vancouver to St. John’s was just over 7,200 km, following the TransCanada Highway.
I discovered several benefits from participating in this walking group. It definitely provided incentive for us to get exercise almost every day. Tom and I usually went for a brisk walk but also did some snowshoeing and cross-country skiing. We both lost weight during our journey, and while we did cut back somewhat on food, I attribute the weight loss primarily to our consistent exercise.
Another benefit of our C2C Club was that I learned a lot about Canada by tracking the trip. While I am quite familiar with Western Canada, once we got east of Regina, my knowledge was sketchy. Prior to this, I was not familiar with the TransCanada Highway route beyond Manitoba, and it was interesting to see the route and do research about the various communities we virtually travelled through.
Certainly, the best – and probably most unexpected benefit of this club – was getting to know our friends better. Their weekly mileage report usually included news about how they were doing and what they’d been up to. Over and above that, though, as we travelled across Canada, our fellow walkers shared all kinds of interesting stories about their experiences – or their family’s experiences – in the various places we travelled through. This was particularly interesting when we got to the Maritimes, as a couple of our members have deep roots there, and they shared some fascinating stories about their family histories.
During our Zoom celebration call at the completion of our journey, the discussion turned to “What’s Next?” After exploring a couple different options, we decided to continue our trek by virtually flying to Chicago and then virtually walking across the United States via Route 66. Stay tuned for more about this second part of our adventure in an upcoming issue.
Janet McMaster is a freelance writer based in Calgary, Alberta.
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