By Sharon Seitz
Annabel Streets has always loved walking, whether in the English countryside or at home in London. Her book, “52 Ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time,” takes readers on an eclectic series of journeys.
But Streets, who also writes historical fiction (under the name Annabel Abbs), is also a consummate researcher, guided by an insatiable curiosity. So her book is more than a mere series of strolls. Streets shares the unusual walking habits of others – like a friend of William Shakespeare’s who dance-walked 127 miles in nine days – and backs up the benefits of varied styles of walking with scientific evidence. Additionally, the book prepares the reader mentally and physically for each walking experience.
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“When it comes to walking,” Streets said during a recent video interview, “We sometimes get into a rut. This book is to get people out of that rut, out of that way of thinking.”
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. Why is walking important?
You can build your life around it really and then improve your fitness quite dramatically. It’s such a simple thing, and I think it’s something that we really have evolved to do and are designed to do. Anyone can build some walking into their lives.
Q. Why do we need a book telling us how to walk?
One reason I wrote the book was because so many people were ringing me up saying, “I can’t walk today because it’s raining or it’s a bit cold, and you can’t walk in this.” Or “I don’t want to do that route or it’s a bit muddy.” I just thought, Let’s turn all these excuses on their head. I just started digging further – walking in altitude, walking near water, walking when you’re hungry, walking when you’re tired, walking at night. And there were compelling reasons for almost everything.
Q. At the end of each chapter, you provide tips to make each walk more comfortable for the reader. Why?
We don’t always have the right kit [gear]. When we go out in the rain, we think we’re going to get wet and cold, but actually, if you’ve got proper waterproof clothing and proper waterproof boots, that doesn’t happen. A rainy walk is one of my favorites, but you really have to have the right clothes. I’m a big fan of waterproof trousers. You can’t really enjoy rainy walks without them.
Q. Each one of your walks is supported by scientific evidence. How difficult is it to keep science accessible and engaging to the average reader?
I have read thousands of studies written by scientists, and while they are brilliant at science, the reports can be deadly dull. As a writer, I look at something that’s really turgid and dull and try to make it a bit more interesting, a bit more accessible, a bit more exciting so people actually want to read it.
Q. What is one of your favorite walks?
Night walking. We all think that the dark is the time to stay in and watch Netflix or sit on the sofa with a book. I go night walking with groups of other women and it’s just a very powerful, quite beautiful, quite wild experience. We discovered we were talking about subjects that we didn’t talk about in the day. Darkness creates a sort of intimacy.
Q. Prior to this book, you wrote “Windswept, Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Women.” Did “Windswept” inspire this book?
“Windswept” was sort of my diving board really. It involved doing all sorts of things I had never done before, like walking on my own for 10 days in a foreign country. And I had done quite a lot of digging for “Windswept,” so I already had a big stack of research.
Q. You also write historical fiction. How is researching for fiction different than researching for non-fiction?
You don’t have to go through statistics (Streets has a master’s in statistics) and be able to dissect a complicated and dull piece of information. Historical research is not like that at all. It is fascinating from the get-go. I did history and literature at university, so that’s probably my first love really.
Q. Before writing books, you worked for 15 years at a tech company. How did the job prepare you for the kind of writing you do now?
When I look back, I can see that it was a brilliant training ground. I was writing speeches and articles and features, news pieces. It was not dissimilar to taking very dull science reports and turning them into something more readable.
Q. When did you decide you wanted to write?
I left my job in my late forties and had some time out with my four kids. And then I was desperate to do something. It was quite hard to find something that fit in with the children going to school. So I fell into writing. You can work at night. You can work around different people’s schedules. So it’s quite flexible in that respect. Then I just thought I’d try to write a novel. I didn’t have any expectations. (Writing as Annabel Abbs, she entered her manuscript, “The Joyce Girl,” a fictional account of James Joyce’s mysterious daughter, in a competition and won. The book was published to critical acclaim.)
Q. I haven’t tried walking backwards, but was intrigued by Plennie Wingo who, wearing reverse-looking mirrored glasses, walked 7,000 miles in the early 1930s and holds the Guinness record for “greatest extent of reverse pedestrianism.” What is one of your favorite stories?
Oh, it’s definitely Wingo. He may even be my absolute favorite, but I quite like Kant the philosopher who walked every day at 5 o’clock breathing only through his nose. We now know after COVID that it’s good to breathe through your nose, but he knew it in the year 1800. He always walked alone because if there was someone with him, he would talk, and couldn’t just breathe through his nose.
Q. I love walking in our local cemetery. Did you ever think about including a chapter called, Walking with the Dead?
Walking with the dead is a great, great, great idea. I should have done a whole chapter on that. I love cemeteries because you’ve got nature, you’ve got silence, and you’ve got history. In a city, that’s as good as it gets.
Q. As someone who has trouble sleeping, I found it interesting that taking a 10-minute walk upon waking has amazing health benefits. What was a big surprise you discovered during your research?
I found all the data on waterfalls and crashing waves really fascinating, how the force of water and all the molecules colliding, break apart the molecules, and each one creates an additional charge becoming a negative air ion. Studies done in Austria show there are health benefits from just being near this tumbling, colliding, crashing water. It’s almost magic, isn’t it? Like alchemy. This can’t be science. It’s just like Harry Potter!
Related links
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How Robert Macfarlane journeyed down into the earth to find ‘Underland’
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