A journey of a thousand miles begins with...

... a single block.

Over a two year period between 2002 and 2004, Caleb Smith walked down every street, avenue, boulevard, thoroughfare and lane in the entire borough of Manhattan, a total of over 700 miles. Pics and stories at NewYorkCityWalk.com. (via Spinneyhead)

This San Francisco Chronicle article mentions Smith along with a diverse cast of other walkers such as Francine Corcoran, who took three years to cover all 1,071 miles of the streets of Minneapolis and Phyllis Pearsall, who covered London's 23,000 streets on foot in just one year(!) in 1935, walking over 3,000 miles.




...a single step. Backwards.

One new trend in running is backwards running or retro running. Apparently it's been common in Japan and Europe for quite some time, but is just now catching on in the US. True, you may get some odd stares, but there actually do seem to be some physical benefits to running (or walking) backwards. If you take up the sport, you may want to invest in a head-mounted rear view mirror, I would think.

Technorati tags: walking, backwards