Walking As A Way Of Life

Week of March 30, 2024

This program explores walking for fitness, recreation, inspiration and transportation, how walking can boost your brain power and creativity, how to incorporate walking into your life and what it takes to make your neighborhood a more interesting and engaging place to walk.

Walking for Fun and Fitness
Walking is one of the easiest ways to stay fit and active, lead a healthy lifestyle, and avoid obesity. Do you really need 10,000 steps per day?  We’ll answer that while exploring how to get more bang for your walking buck and how to incorporate walking into your daily routine.

Creating Walkable Places
What does it take to make your neighborhood a more interesting place to walk?  Learn how design can motivate you to walk more often, what you need to know about transportation planning to advocate for creating walkable places where you live, and the details that matter to make it easier and more fun for you to get out and walk.

Walking to Boost Your Brain Power
Throughout the ages, poets, philosophers and pilgrims have found inspiration in walking. From Aristotle and Beethoven to Muir and Thoreau, great minds have one thing in common:  walking.  We’ll take a stroll through walking history to learn why your best thoughts and creative ideas come while walking and how you can tap into the power of daily walks to clear your mind, boost your brainpower and energize your creative juices.

Walking Workshop:  Walk Your Way to Fitness
Learn some basic techniques for fitness and recreational walking to help you bring health and energy to your life!  This workshop will cover walking technique, including stride, posture, shoes, and stretches for warm up and cool down with on-the-track instruction and evaluation.

Lynn Weigand, Ph.D., has “walked her talk”  for recreation, transportation and fitness for most of her life and brings a unique perspective to the topic with experience as both an urban design and transportation planner, and as a fitness coach. As an urban planner, she has managed transportation planning projects focusing on pedestrian and bicycle access and was the founding director of the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation at Portland State University.  She holds a PhD in Urban Studies with a focus on designing healthy communities.  Lynn also is a Certified Personal Trainer and the owner of Portland, Oregon-based Encore Fitness, focusing on fitness walking and health coaching.