How Long Would it Take a Reasonably Healthy Early-70s (Me) to Walk a Mile?

officerripley said:
To me a pleasant walk would be on sidewalks with store windows to look into and stores to go into.
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You would really like my part of West Toronto, along St Clair Avenue, also known as Corso Italia. It was first developed around 1875, and it grew to be a major east/west street with blocks of stores, shops, bars and local supermarkets. In one block there are 2 Italian cafe/social clubs, a Mexican diner, 3 shoe stores, 2 burrito places, my favorite diner The Lakeside, a medical building, a McDonalds walk in, a Popeye's, a 7/11 walk in, and 3 banks. All of that in a 300 meter long block.

Now, multiply that by the entire length of St Clair Avenue, which is about 15 kilometers and you have lots of places to see and enjoy. St Clair Avenue is served by a TTC streetcar line that runs 24 hours a day, which connects along the way with 7 other bus lines that run north/south. You can travel anywhere in the city on the TTC for the senior's fare of $2.50 per ride. Toronto is a 245 square mile big city, and it is the largest in our country.

Toronto is a city made up of about 140 neighborhoods, each with it's own unique features and streetscapes and local names. Jimb.
 

MarkD said:
I’ll be 71 soon and until this year I could walk 2-3 miles in an hour or a little more if there was much elevation gain. Now I wouldn’t walk quite as fast or be at all concerned with speed. Now I just try to walk smoothly at a rate that feels good and take steep hills with the same goal but necessarily slower.
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@ very close to 83 now my walking is very similar to yours of walking smoothly at a rate that feels comfortable. It's more about distance [getting steps in] than speed. I'm not planning on doing any marathons just trying to stay healthy.
 
My hips and back would be screaming out in pain after 1/3 a mile.

I really need to get a bike. My muscles are fine for my age, but my back and joints are not.

Ironically and sadly, from what I have read about arthritis in the back and hips, it can be exacerbated by careers and work in which one had to stand most of the day. Most of the jobs I've had in my life have required standing for 4 to 8 hours a day.
 

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We have an approximately 1/4 mile long circular driveway. We walk a mile in about 20 minutes. We usually walk
2-3 miles a day in less than an hour. Hope you will enjoy walking as we have for many years!
 
MarkD said:
I’ll be 71 soon and until this year I could walk 2-3 miles in an hour or a little more if there was much elevation gain. Now I wouldn’t walk quite as fast or be at all concerned with speed. Now I just try to walk smoothly at a rate that feels good and take steep hills with the same goal but necessarily slower.
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An hour to walk 2 miles ..or 3... that's a long time, do you walk slowly... ?

I can walk 2 miles down the steep hill where I live in 30 minutes.. and just 35 minutes walking back ...altho' I rarely ever walk back UP the hill because the back, knees and hips get sore.. but walking on flat ground or downhill is much less painful..
 
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hollydolly said:
An hour to walk 2 miles ..or 3... that's a long time, do you walk slowly... ?

I can walk I can walk 2 miles down the steep hill where I live in 30 minutes.. and just 35 minutes walking back ...altho' I rarely ever walk back UP the hill because the back, knees and hips get sore.. but walking on flat ground or downhill is much less painful..
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Well most of my favorite walks involve a fairly steep climb and descent. When we backpacked we always figured on 3 miles/hour fully loaded while covering a decent number of miles each day. When Lia was just over 50 and I just over 40 we hiked with my stepson from Mammoth Mountain on the eastern side of the Sierras into Yosemite Valley, a distance of over 50 miles in about a week. Outstanding views all the way and some of it off trail. But I don't expect to repeat that now.
 
I can walk "forever" on a level surface that doesn't have anything for me to trip over.

A couple of years ago, my sister took me on a hike to see a waterfall in North Carolina. Getting there wasn't bad at all because it was pretty much downhill. Getting back about killed me....uphill all the way. At one point, I told her, "Just go on without me. Don't worry about me. You won't have to cremate or bury me because the bears will just drag my dead body off into the woods and eat me." I really meant it.

A couple of years ago, we went out to Seattle to celebrate our 75th birthdays (all three of us) with my brother-in-law. We got the great idea one day to hike to the bottom of Snoqualmie Falls. Once again, it was downhill all the way. No problemo. We were congratulating ourselves on how fit we were for 75. Then came the hike back. I wasn't sure which one of us was going to have a heart attack first and what the other two were supposed to do about it. They don't have any defibrillators on the trail. The cellphones didn't have service there. By the time one of us got to the top and came back with help, I'm sure it would be too late.

We made it though, huffing and puffing. There was a lot of stopping and sitting on logs with our heads hanging down. We agreed that we weren't doing that again.
 
@officerripley, besides looking at this place that is close walking distance to stores, also consider places with public transportation. Riding a bus isn’t that bad and it will give you an alternative to just walking in your local area (if you ever get to move.).
 
Jules said:
@officerripley, besides looking at this place that is close walking distance to stores, also consider places with public transportation. Riding a bus isn’t that bad and it will give you an alternative to just walking in your local area (if you ever get to move.).
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I'm in California, so I have to ask, what is this "public transportation" you speak of? 🤣 And especially in a c0nservative area like this one, you know how they spell "public transportation"? "C - o - m - m -u - n - i - s - m". 🤣

Kidding aside, we do have a limited bus system but it only runs in areas which neither Huzz or I would want to live, run down and dangerous. He's forbidden me to ride the bus even if it did run in nice areas; he says that what poor people have to do. (He grew up dirt poor--lived in their car sometimes...in the summer, 100F heat...and his mom was pregnant one of the times--so it made him gun shy of "what poor people do.")

Hey, you know what? Next time you hear somebody say, "You know being poor is actually good for people, it builds character, it's even in the Bible with 'the rich man in his castle and the poor man at his gate', bla bla bla, you tell 'em I said that's hogwash: being poor ain't good for anybody.
 
hollydolly said:
An hour to walk 2 miles ..or 3... that's a long time, do you walk slowly... ?

I can walk 2 miles down the steep hill where I live in 30 minutes.. and just 35 minutes walking back ...altho' I rarely ever walk back UP the hill because the back, knees and hips get sore.. but walking on flat ground or downhill is much less painful..
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Ya, Holly....when I was 18, I could cover a mile under 6 min.
Point being, we are all different, age, conditioning, health overall, etc.
 
I remember certain springs that it was pretty difficult to run 1.5 miles in less than 11 mins which was a standard wildland firefighting preseason test in my mid 20's at 6000' elevation. In a few weeks though we were running 3 miles pretty darn quickly every workday morning and getting paid to do so.
 
jujube said:
I don't think even under 18 that I could run a mile in six minutes. I've never been able to run very well. I just can't seem to get into a rhythm or get both of my legs working together well. I've been told I run like a 3-legged elephant.
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Same here. You know how kids who are first learning to walk, and some people with very bad knees or who are very overweight, all walk without much bending their knees, they kind of rock back and forth from one foot to the other? Well, that's the way almost everyone in my family walks our entire lives because almost all of us are short and are "all torso and no legs"; so with short stubby legs like that, it feels unnatural to bend those knees.

This is what we all look like walking our entire lives:


I'm afraid to get my DNA tested, probably 3/4 Neantherthal. 🤣
 
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How Fast You Should Walk for Fitness and Weight Loss

The Right Walking Speed to Burn Fat and Build Aerobic Fitness
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Whether you are walking for fitness or weight loss, your walking pace will be determined by your individual capabilities. If you're looking to boost your aerobic fitness, you should walk fast enough to achieve moderate intensity in your workout. This is sometimes called walking at a brisk pace. The speed of a brisk pace is different for each person as it depends on your heart rate, age, and level of fitness.1

A brisk walking pace can range from 13 to 20 minutes per mile, or from 3.0 mph to 4.5 mph. At this pace, you should be breathing noticeably harder, but able to speak in full sentences.

If your walking pace is 20 minutes per mile, it may be either fast enough to be moderate-intensity exercise or too slow. If you are more aerobically fit, a 20-minute-pace might only be light-intensity exercise. You can only determine this by understanding what the moderate-intensity zone feels like and what heart rate will put you into that zone.

Better than usual urban street walking exercise is walking up hills, especially on trails at natural areas where one may also greatly enjoy the Earth creature experience.
 


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