Walking for health and fun over fifty - Articles - Zimbio

Welcome to our wikizine called "Walking for health and fun over fifty"

Sun, 21 Apr 2008 03:05:22 GMT

posted by gablack05
Wikizines are interactive magazines that anyone can create or edit - and this one is called "Walking for health and fun over fifty". Here you can find fresh voices and respond in real time. Some members write articles about recent news and trends related to the wikizine's topic, others recount relevant personal stories or share their favorite pictures and video clips. Got an interesting idea or story to share with other members of this wikizine? Well, then put on your journalist's cap and add your own article!

Trash Cans in the Walkable City

Wed, 8 May 2008 13:39:53 GMT

posted by marysoderstrom
There are now five trashcans in the little woods I usually walk through at the edge of my district and the beginning of the next, Côte-des-neiges. Once upon a time there was an orphanage on the land, but part was sold off about 20 years ago and luxury condos built. A sizeable portion was preserved as an undeveloped park, which now serves as a dog run and pleasant short cut for hundreds of people every day.

Tuesday morning I met a small covey of city workers, armed with spike tools to pick up trash, plastic garbage bags and the task of deciding where to put trash cans. I stopped to talk to them because they were seemingly very surprised to see that the woods had so little trash. Probably, I said, that was because for most of the winter through access was cut off due to a construction project on the water system. Before the work started last fall, it was easy to walk through the woods from several residential neighborhoods to the Université de Montréal and two big hospital complexes. The aqueduct work entailed digging a huge trench, though, and when the site was closed down when temperatures fell below freezing, it was fenced off so far fewer people used the path.

"There was so much snow too," one of the city crew said also, as if that helped explain things.

"Well, no," I said. One of the interesting things about Montreal as a walkable city is that snow doesn't stop people walking. In normal years there are paths tramped in the snow within two hours after a storm, and even this year people quickly tramped alternate paths around the edge of the woods.

The foreman listened to me politely and then explained they were trying to find the best places for the trash cans--where people walked, but not too far from a road so the clean-up worker wouldn't have to carry trash sacks too far to his truck. Avoiding walking seemed to be high on their agenda.

The clash of culture between walkers and non-walkers is something very real. Jane Jacobs said in the introduction to a later edition of The Death and Life of Great American Cities that the reaction to her book varied greatly between people who walked and those who didn't. Walkers agreed with her analysis because they saw what happens when streets are lively and lived in, while non-walkers didn't understand at first what she was talking about.

As for this week's city crew: it looks like they found a solution. Certainly the woods looked pristine this morning, as people hurried to work and school and I strolled along.

Saturday April 19th Walkers Recap

Sun, 21 Apr 2008 03:22:13 GMT

posted by gablack05
From: Marie

It was a very small group this morning at the Brandon Park Way. Marie, Julie and Dale. Bonnie had to leave the meeting early to go have her blood work done so she couldn't take our pictures this morning. It's a shame she couldn't be there because Dale and I walked to the fountain and on the way we saw something really weird looking on the way there. In the pond around where we usually see the little bunny, in the water was what at first we thought was a couple of turtles, but as we walked down to the bank and got closer we could see it was not turtles. We stood there for a few minutes trying to figure it out they looked like little snouts, or paws sticking up out of the water, it was too murky for us to see clearly. Then Dale thought maybe it was a couple of baby Nutria's. We are still not sure, because as we were watching they went down to far in to the water. There were about 4 or 5 little things that kept coming up. I wish Bonnie would have been there with her camera. There were not a lot of people there this morning, maybe we saw 5 people the whole time. I hope you all had a good time and a good walk, can't wait for the pictures and to hear all about it.

From: Mary

We had a really nice time at the JDRF walk, today in downtown Tampa. Those walking were -
Jennifer and Christine both of which go to the 9:00 AM Saturday WW meeting, Tina, Deborah and Pam who all work at Time, Inc, Pam's two sons Foster and Johnathan, Mary M., Tony, Gary, Bob, Bonnie, F. and Val. That made 13 of us for a Total of 40.3 miles walked. We walked for the St. Pete Times Forum down Bayshore and back for a 5K - 3.1. miles. There were lots of participators, but no one at JDRF announced the final count of walkers or how much money that raised. The food was good before and after the walk and plenty of it. There were 2 water stations along the walk route. There were lots of companies handing out promotional trinkets. They had string strap backpacks, so we all filled up on the free stuff. We got comments about our T-Shirts for some of the other walkers. They thought it the name and the T-Shirts were neat.

We have less than 1200 miles to go!! WOW! We are right on track to make our goal by the end of the year!!!