Airport Walking

Wishing to leave my mark on history, I have invented a new sport. I call it:

Airport Walking.

Essentially, the sport consists of walking. In airports.

I recently went on a holiday consisting of two 22 hour multi-stage flights (out and back). The morning of the trip, I drove rather than cycled to work. Having sat at work all day, I arrived at the airport and considered the fact that a 22 hour sitting odyssey 'stood' before me. A few quick mental calculations told me that I had about 10 hours of waiting in airports, and about 13 hours of enforced airplane stress positions. 

While this was going through my head, I realised that I had already been walking around the duty free area for about 15  minutes - that was almost a mile! There was still another 45 minutes until boarding time. "I could easily do another mile", I told myself. 2 miles became 3 and by the time I boarded the plane, I had covered 5km or about 17 laps of the 300 metre waiting area.

At the first layover, I walked 2.5 miles (luckily, the waiting area was larger with a 600 metre stretch to explore). During the second layover (after an 11 hour flight), I was pretty tired, but still managed to walk another 2 miles, which made ~7.5 miles for the whole trip. 

7.5 miles! That's an additional 750 Calories burned, not to mention the other health benefits of over 3 hours of moderate exercise. 3 hours of value, rather than 3 hours wasted!

On the trip back, the first airport waiting area was only 100m long. As the flight was progressively delayed more and more, I racked up the miles. By the end, the other waiting passengers clearly thought I had escaped from some institution. They laughed at me each time I walked by. I laughed back (silently) - they'd been sitting for 2 hours eating crap, letting their arteries get more congested (My next project is to work on my smugness). I continued walking at the next layover - overall, I managed a total of 7 miles on the way back.

Airport Walking is about more than just walking. 

• It's about living consciously. 
• It's about making a choice rather than living on auto-pilot. 
• It's about not taking the easy option. 
• It's about doing the unexpected. 
• It's about re-wiring your brain. 
• It's about fighting back against your lifelong social programming.

Airport Walking involves making deliberate decisions about how you spend your time instead of being programmed by social pressures.

An airport is, in one sense, a consumer prison. You're trapped there for several hours, sometimes a whole day. Needing to make money, modern airports are designed to squeeze the maximum amount of moolah out of you for the duration of your captivity. They are set up to take advantage of your disorientation, your jetlag and your boredom. 

• Nothing to do? - "Might as well browse the shops and buy some airport crap." 
• You're not really hungry, but - "A burger and beer sounds good and will help pass time." 
• "Internet for only £1 a minute, sounds great - I can play Angry Birds."

Picture the following scenarios in which we implement the Airport Walking philosophy.

There's a comfy, plastic airport seat in front of you... Before you sit down: Stop, Think. "I've just been sitting for 6 hours, and I'll be sitting for another 6. My legs could probably do with a stretch, and my heart will probably thank me if I walk a little."

On your walk, you pass buy a restaurant offering junk food at only double the usual price. Sure, you're tired and you only had a crappy airplane breakfast, but before you order the Mega-max meal with extra fries: Stop, Think. "Actually, I'm not really that hungry, and £10 seems like a lot. I could probably wait until I get home to eat, and save the £10."

Having resisted that temptation, you begin to notice the bright, inviting souvenir and duty free shops. Before you fork over £50 for a furry national mascot and a jar of coloured rock-salt in a felt bag, STOP, THINK!. "Whenever people give me this crap, I have to smile and then throw it out when they leave - why would I inflict the same upon them?"

2016 has just begun, why not make a positive change in your life and take up a new sport.

Like Airport Walking, for example?