Out of Step With Your Walking Partner?

Do you, like me, walk with someone who is constantly walking either ahead of or behind you? Someone who seems to be pushing you forward or holding you back?

Do you agonize over what to say to them to change their pace, eventually get them to slow down or speed up only to find them repeating their maddening behavior just 10 minutes later?

I really and truly believed that my husband was walking just ahead of me to force me to pick up my pace. As I walk creditable 6km per hour, I was somewhat peeved to be pushed. I mulishly determined not to speed up at all and the mental struggle was on! It appeared that the more I stuck to my position, the more he (silently) pushed.

A chance conversation with a fellow walking fanatic provided me with an answer I could deal with. He explained that if your walking partner is of a different to you, it stands to reason that their stride length will be different. You don't even have to be that unevenly matched for height - in my case 10cm is enough to get me out of step and anxious.

So even if you start out walking at the same speed, the longer stride length will carry the taller person further and they will be in front or forced to slow their pace or shorten their stride length for their shorter partner.

I told my husband this. I was very pleased to be informed and able to share this insight. I was quite smug to had found the root of the problem.

He found this very interesting. He totally agreed with the theory. He then confirmed my earlier fears. He freely admitted that he was walking faster in an attempt to cut our daily walk down to 45 minutes and yes, actually he was trying to push me along.

Now when we began our fitness madness, many months prior to this conversation, our walk of 5.5km took us 1 hour. After about 8 weeks, we had been doing it in 55 minutes and I personally was very happy with this. I was not prepared for the increase in sustained energy levels it round our course in 45 minutes. I couldn't see how I could do it without jogging and I had absolutely no desire to either jog or power walk.

My motivation for our daily walks was to get lean and fit while enjoying the fresh air and scenery (female type goal). My walking partner's motivation was to expend maximum calories over the time we had available to us (male type goal).

Our exercise goals were out of step. We discussed walking faster, we discussed maintaining the status quo. We discussed taking our walks separately, but in our talks that a major contributing factor to us walking every day was the quality time we spent together, so splitting up our walks was not an option.

We reached a compromise. Our walks are now (even 2 years later) between 50 and 52 minutes in length.

It may not sound like a big deal, but we solved a problem that was niggling at both of us. A problem that had the potential to put a huge dent in our exercise and fitness program.

 Out of Step With Your Walking Partner?

Do you, like me, walk with someone who is constantly walking either ahead of or behind you? Someone who seems to be pushing you forward or holding you back?

Do you agonize over what to say to them to change their pace, eventually get them to slow down or speed up only to find them repeating their maddening behavior just 10 minutes later?

I really and truly believed that my husband was walking just ahead of me to force me to pick up my pace. As I walk creditable 6km per hour, I was somewhat peeved to be pushed. I mulishly determined not to speed up at all and the mental struggle was on! It appeared that the more I stuck to my position, the more he (silently) pushed.

A chance conversation with a fellow walking fanatic provided me with an answer I could deal with. He explained that if your walking partner is of a different to you, it stands to reason that their stride length will be different. You don't even have to be that unevenly matched for height - in my case 10cm is enough to get me out of step and anxious.

So even if you start out walking at the same speed, the longer stride length will carry the taller person further and they will be in front or forced to slow their pace or shorten their stride length for their shorter partner.

I told my husband this. I was very pleased to be informed and able to share this insight. I was quite smug to had found the root of the problem.

He found this very interesting. He totally agreed with the theory. He then confirmed my earlier fears. He freely admitted that he was walking faster in an attempt to cut our daily walk down to 45 minutes and yes, actually he was trying to push me along.

Now when we began our fitness madness, many months prior to this conversation, our walk of 5.5km took us 1 hour. After about 8 weeks, we had been doing it in 55 minutes and I personally was very happy with this. I was not prepared for the increase in sustained energy levels it round our course in 45 minutes. I couldn't see how I could do it without jogging and I had absolutely no desire to either jog or power walk.

My motivation for our daily walks was to get lean and fit while enjoying the fresh air and scenery (female type goal). My walking partner's motivation was to expend maximum calories over the time we had available to us (male type goal).

Our exercise goals were out of step. We discussed walking faster, we discussed maintaining the status quo. We discussed taking our walks separately, but in our talks that a major contributing factor to us walking every day was the quality time we spent together, so splitting up our walks was not an option.

We reached a compromise. Our walks are now (even 2 years later) between 50 and 52 minutes in length.

It may not sound like a big deal, but we solved a problem that was niggling at both of us. A problem that had the potential to put a huge dent in our exercise and fitness program.