The Real Smart Car: Sneakers
Protect your heart. Strengthen your bones and muscles. Lose or maintain weight. Sharpen your thinking skills. Fight global warming. Save money.
What sounds like a wish list for the future is actually a sample of some of the benefits you can reap by being an active commuter. That doesn’t mean talking on your cell phone during the train ride to work or texting as you navigate rush hour. Active commuting means using any self-propelled form of transportation to get to or from work. Most active commuters walk or bicycle. But it also includes jogging, skateboarding, in-line skating, cross-country skiing, rowing — any physical activity that gets you from one place to another.
The payoffs are very real. Researchers with the ongoing Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study recently reported that men and women (average age, 45 years) who walked or bicycled to work were leaner and more fit than those who drove to work. An earlier analysis of eight long-term studies that included nearly 175,000 participants concluded that active commuting reduced the risk of having a heart attack or stroke, developing high blood pressure or diabetes, or dying of cardiovascular disease by 11%.
Active commuting, like other forms of physical activity, also improves mood and preserves memory and thinking skills. To top it off, it costs less than driving or taking public transit. And depending on where you live and the traffic in your area, it may even get you to work faster than other modes of transportation.
Even knowing all that, it is often tough to be an active commuter. I know this first hand. I live 3.1 miles from my office at Harvard Medical School — a perfect distance for active commuting. It’s a 20-minute bike ride or a 50-minute walk, much of it along Frederick Law Olmstead’s Emerald Necklace, a chain of nine parks linked by parkways and waterways. Yet I drive to work more than I walk or cycle. Family obligations get in the way. Several days a week I drive my young’uns and some of their classmates to catch the bus to school or pick them up at ballet or basketball on the way home — something I can’t quite manage on a bike. Sometimes I have to travel during the day. And sometimes I’m just in a hurry to get to work or get home.
But when I can pull it off, I love walking or riding to and from work. I’ve figured out shortcuts and detours that let me watch trout rise to the surface of Jamaica Pond or wild turkeys nosh their way over Hawthorn Hill. Sometimes I daydream, sometimes I prepare for the day ahead. The trip home is a great way to decompress. I don’t think about the health benefits, but I’m glad they’re there.
If you are an active commuter, you’ve already discovered its quiet satisfactions. If you aren’t, here are a few tips to get you started:
Plan ahead. Getting to work under your own steam may entail taking a new route. Check it out on a weekend before starting. Stash a complete change of clothing at work, just in case. And try not to lug home a computer or heavy files the night before walking or riding to work.
Pack right. Most active commuters don’t need a shower when they get to work. A trip to the restroom with a washcloth and change of clothes should suffice.
Start slowly. Active commuting isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. Try it one day a week. If it works, expand as you can.
Not everyone can use foot power alone to get to and from work. But many public transportation systems let you bring a bike on a train or bus, and it’s always an option to park or get off the train or bus far enough from work that you still have a hike ahead of you.
Do you walk, ride, or use some other self-powered method to get to work? What do you like — or dislike — most about active commuting?
Patrick J. Skerrett (pat_skerrett@hms.harvard.edu) tries to be an active commuter, but doesn’t always succeed, when traveling to his job as editor of the Harvard Heart Letter.
The Real Smart Car: Sneakers
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