Allow me to make my point straight out by wickedly misquoting a sometime hero of mine, Colin Fletcher,
I had better admit right away that walking can in the end become an addiction, and that it is then as deadly as heroin…In this final stage it remains a (delectable) madness. The New Complete Walker
Our victimized author has essentially said it all. Walking is:
- a) deadly and
- b) madness.
Each year, as the season of ice and snow o’ertakes our streets, I am reminded of these truths. Despite its geographic venue (firmly in the “snow belt”), Stratford has staunchly embraced a, shall I say conservative approach to shifting of same. In short the city fathers generally adopt a wait and see posture — wait to see if it snows and see how long it takes to melt — before earmarking hard cash for its removal. The upshot, to the chagrin of the pedestrian population is that of having their very foundation literally and progressively threatened as winter wears on and the layers build beneath their feet.
I observe young and old, hale and infirm, inching their ways along the streets clearly fearful of raising a boot more than a centimetre or two from the surface lest they become fodder for the local orthopaedic surgeon. The strutters, the striders, the brisk walkers, all reduced to tentative shufflers. All that is except the runners! Forward progress may be somewhat attenuated — from plant and push off to plant and slide (a sort of variation on the old two steps forward, one back theme) — but the stride goes on.
Is this mere cockiness, hubris, a stubborn runner’s arrogance, a refusal to accept the realities of the season? I think not. More likely it is the conceit afforded the experienced. Walkers tumble and fall; runners’ don’t. Ipso facto, it is, quite simply safer to run than to walk! What proof, you ask? Poll any radiology department in mid-January as the clientele wait patiently to have this limb or that X-rayed. “Excuse me madam. Just how did that nasty fracture occur?.” “Well, young man (running is not the only conceit), my feet went right out from under me as I stepped out the front door.” Or query the runner regarding the torn hamstring: “Damnedest thing, just stepped in a hole catching the bus.” Ever tried walking a cross country course? Better you should run, tumble and recover your feet unscathed than risk six weeks in a cast, the victim of a bracing stroll in the winter bush.
So as the salt stains creep up the back of your tights and the shoes become crusty and crystalline, stride proudly and sure-footedly, forsake that tentative gait, secure in the knowledge that you are protected and will remain erect. Or to misquote the Ventures and that timeless tune of their’s: Run, Don’t Walk!