Mall Walking
 

It's official. I am now an middle-aged midwesterner. Today I went walking in the mall for exercise. I'm going to change my name to Shirley, get a tight perm and strap on an enormous fanny pack and my assimilation will be complete.

My friend and I have a regular walking date twice a week, but at -19ºC this morning, an outside walk was just not going to happen, so off we went to the mall to give mall-walking a try. The stores were still all closed, although Arby's had a sign up promising to open at 9 with special offers for mall walkers on "fried potatoe". There were a lot of people there. All going in the same direction. We decided not to rebel and joined them. There seems to be a set course, going up and down all the little offshoot hallways and round the outside of all the trash cans and signs. We could feel rays of disapproval as we cut corners to overtake slowpokes without breaking our stride. Some walkers were so anal about following the course, they would go right into the corner and then almost stop and turn an abrupt 90 just as I thought they were going to smack into the wall for my entertainment.

There was a huge group of seniors at one end doing an organized workout. They started in chairs, but as we were finishing they were doing some pretty enthusisatic dancercize, and us walkers had to wait in line and take it in turn to dart past one gentleman as his flailing arems were at the far point of their motion. Three fast or one slow person could get through per flail, he was grinning like a nutter, completely oblivious to our peril.

And then there were the scary moms with strollers doing a vigorous program at the other end of the mall. Mom in charge must've been thrown out of the army for getting knocked up. The strollers were like mini SUVs and the moms were all about 12 years old. Scary.

But we were able to walk at a good pace without fear of slipping on the ice or getting frostbite, so it was a good workout. Scenery not so awesone -usually we walk in parks and nature preserves.....

Ho hum, needs must....

no particular point to this post, just thought I'd share my new experience and pat myself on the back for exercising. :D

Am I the only dwellar to have succumbed to such suburban pursuits, or are you all secret or out-and-proud mall-walkers?

Let's go to the mall. Today.

(From How I Met Your Mother, when it gets out that Robin was a Canadian Teenage Mall Pop Star.)

I'll admit I shed the best part of a stone by going to Bluewater every weekend it was raining (and the park every weekend it wasn't). As far as I was aware, I was the only one doing it though. There may be the sort of organisation you have described now, but back then most people I admitted it to thought I was crazy.

I used to take a packed lunch and treat myself to something healthy from M&S to finish it off (fruit salad, jelly etc). I'd be there for the best part of three hours and tried not to stop moving in that time. I included stairs and walking on escaltors for variety.

There just isn't anywhere in free travelling distance (ie walking!) for me to do this now. I walk round the park instead, but get discouraged when it's raining. It's nowhere near as attractive as the London parks, bring just a rectangle of grass in effect. Ah well, Mum and I start out Fat Loss Challenge next week. Once I get the chance to lord it over a 63 year old woman there'll be no stopping me.

PS - fanny pack :lol:

I've done the mall-walk, especially in bad weather. It's so-so. It usually happens when you went to the mall for another purpose, and ended up saying, I could get in another 4k steps if I did a couple of laps...

I have done lots of unintentional mall walks, where my wife's birthday is coming up and I have no idea what to get her. I just wander around for a couple hours and end up getting her some candles or something.

I wonder, what were the stores she missed?

Radioshack and Spencer's.

And Sports Authority or something similar.

the tobacco shop and/or knife store.

I'd try mallwalking, but it happens to early in the morning, and if I go at a time that's better for my schedule, shopping keeps interfering with exercising (unless I pretend that my whole trip consists of a lot of warm up and cool down strung together).

Dead Mall Walking.

GAP.

do all malls in America look the same, then?

Yes. They are as homogeneous as Starbucks.

So, this is like a common thing then?

I suspect one of the reasons that may not take off big here is that, other than than the metropolitan areas, our malls aren't really large and interesting enough, on the whole.