Assuming everything goes according to the plan — which is saying something in the year 2020 — a team of 38 people representing the Pennyrile Area Development District will walk a combined 7,600 miles by the end of November.
They are PADD employees, family and friends who signed up for the Christian County Health Department’s 100-Mile Challenge. If they were to walk their combined goal like a relay, they would have to trudge from Hopkinsville to the outskirts of Bangor, Maine, and back. Three times.
But luckily for them, the purpose of the walking challenge isn’t a big, cross-country trek. It’s mostly distance racked up in local neighborhoods, day after day, to encourage the healthy habit of regular exercise through walking.
“It gets me moving,” said PADD employee and team captain Cindy Tabor. “That’s what matters.”
Tabor is among hundreds of people in Christian County who have signed up for the health department challenge. This year it’s named in honor of the late Wally Bryan, a former mayor and Challenge House founder who first encouraged the health department to organize the annual community walk several years ago.
The walkers began counting their daily mileage on Sept. 15, and they’ll continue until Dec. 1. A virtual awards ceremony will follow to recognize several individuals and groups that set high marks in various categories.
Last year, PADD won a couple of awards, said Tabor. They hope to repeat.
Tabor usually walks with her dog, Buster. This is her third year in the challenge.
For some walkers, the pandemic has given them an extra incentive to get outside and set some goals for exercise.
“We’ve been so restricted, but doing the 100-Mile Challenge is all up to you,” Tabor said. “You decide when you walk and where you walk.”
The pandemic might also make the mental health benefits of walking more obvious this year. Being cooped up can bring on anxiety and depression.
Cindy Starling, a clinical social worker who has a private therapy practice in Hopkinsville, sees many advantages in walking — for her and her clients.
“I tell my clients, push yourself early in the morning,” she said. “It makes you feel better.”
Although she didn’t sign up for the health department challenge this year, Starling has made walking part of her routine for decades. Recently, she joined an online group that’s doing a virtual Appalachian Trail thru-hike with the phone app, Walk the Distance. They use their pedometers to track how far along they would be on the 2,190-mile AT if they were there instead of walking their neighborhoods.
Starling says walking is a way of getting the mind moving and gaining some control during a time when many people have lost control in different parts of life as a result of the coronavirus.
Because she walks every day in her neighborhood and sometimes across town near her therapy office, Starling has started to develop a ritual with people she sees from her sidewalk view. One woman, who is essentially a stranger, often connects with Starling on Millbrooke Drive. They maintain social distance but keep pace with each other for about 5 minutes and have a brief conservation as they go. Others wave to Starling from their yards or honk their car horns.
“I feel like I’ve got a whole new sense of community,” she said.
Several of Starling’s clients have been exploring hiking trails at Pennyrile Forest and other state parks during the pandemic.
There are benefits to being in natural settings, she said.
“It helps you feel like the world is continuing … like there is some continuity in the world,” Starling said. “I love nature.”
(Editor’s note: The online walking group that Cindy Starling mentioned in this story is an Appalachian Trail virtual hike Jennifer P. Brown organized. Brown is also doing the health department’s challenge walk.)
(Jennifer P. Brown is the editor and founder of Hoptown Chronicle. Reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org.)
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. She spent 30 years as a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
