Walking can be an important part of commuting. I mentioned before how I often take a long way to work so that I build up my step count early in the day. Even though I live just barely 500m from my office, I often walk a circuitous route so that I take nearly 3 kilometers to get there.
And this week I have been doing something similar. My work this week has not been in my regular office but instead has been in the company’s factory in the village of Stein, some 30 kilometers from Basel, in Aargau canton. Needless to say, I did not walk all the way to Stein each day. But I did use the commute to build up my step count each day.
Making sure that I was up early each morning, I would walk to the train station in Basel. By the time I got there, I would have between 4500 and 5000 steps. The train would then take me to Stein, and I would walk from the station to the factory. That would get me another 2000 steps. So by the time I arrived at work, I already had nearly 7000 steps.
Similarly, in the evening, I would walk from the factory to the local station and get the train back to Basel. Once arrived in Basel, I would walk most of the way home. That got another 6000 steps. So altogether, my commute had built up somewhere between 13000 and 14000 steps each day, making it easy to achieve my daily target of 16000 in total.
I often wonder, if instead of taking the bus from the nearest bus stop, but instead going to the second nearest, and alighting one stop earlier before the destination, what would be the effect on the health of our commuters. I suspect it could only be beneficial.
I did not have to walk during this commute. I could have got the tram to and from the station in Basel. And there is a bus service between the station in Stein and the factory. But where it the fun in that.
So I have been reaching my target of 16000 steps each day without too much effort.
Walkingman 