Let's Walk - the long dormant domain that promises much

Walking.  I usually walk everyday and I truly cherish it, though this was not always the case.  Walking to me was usually reserved for those rare instances when I was not able to drive to a destination. However, a few years ago in an attempt to lose a few extra holiday pounds I started walking around my local park. The “short loop” around the park was a little under two miles and would take me about 35 minutes. When I first started all I could think about was the actual walking part and how good it was for me and how super-awesome I was for exercising. After a few weeks of my daily walking regimen I unconsciously stopped thinking about walking and was instead thinking of nothing in particular, admiring the seasons change while watching the world go by.

I did lose some weight, my stamina got better and I was sleeping very soundly at night.  I noticed that my concentration was better when working too and many times when I was stuck with a work problem, by the end of a walk, I’d have figured out my next step, pardon the pun. So perhaps I wasn’t thinking of nothing after all.

The walking progressed to jogging and from there to running. In 2012 I ran my third marathon (my wife, running in the same event finished an hour ahead of me, but I put that down to her youthful vigor as she is all of 19 months younger than I). The running was not without its problems however. I have had recurring knee problems ever since I had a skiing accident 15 years ago. That knee surgery has led to hip issues and lower back pain. As we all know, when one thing is out of alignment, almost everything else starts to go wrong all of which was exacerbated by the running.

After the marathon I kept up with the running pretty religiously until I injured my “good knee”. I was holding our then newborn, Benjamin, and I tripped over a laptop cable. Clinging onto Ben with all my might I gave not a care to my legs and so the victim ended up being my left knee. No more running.

This injury took an age to heal and while my knee rested my waistline expanded. Determined to at least get moving I started back walking some four months later. The lower impact of walking compared with running seemed to not aggravate my knees too much and I could once again admire the changing seasons and have the sense of smug accomplishment that can only come from exercising.

Which got me taking a trip down memory lane…

In 2002 I was driving back from Florida to Atlanta and I was trying to think of a catchy phrase similar to the Nike® Just Do it™ to use for Pedors. It was an eight hour drive and I had nothing else on my mind so I went through all sorts of permutations of phrases that I hoped would encapsulate what Pedors (then a fairly new but rapidly growing company) was all about. The phrase I came up with was, “Let’s Walk”. Pedors shoes have helped numerous people to get back on their feet and walking again and have also helped even more people improve upon the walking they were already doing, so it seemed appropriate. Luckily for me nobody else had yet thought of that name for a website so I managed to snag the Letswalk.com domain name too. That domain has been dormant now for over a decade and I’ve decided that it is about time to do something about it. A few weeks ago I tentatively brushed off the dust from the site and I’m in the process of putting it together.

On my walk today I was thinking about what I should write about; diet, exercise, travel, shoes, orthotics, socks…but the most important thing to write about I think is just getting out and walking. I’ll start off by documenting my daily walks (and anything that catches my eye). I’ll also invite all that would like to contribute to send something in and I’ll put it up on the site. It will start off small, but hopefully it will snowball into a movement about movement.

First of all, I need a good logo.

If you have any ideas or comments, please send them to me at johnohare@pedors.com