Pedestrian Power to the People!
Volksmarching puts the sport of walking within the reach of anyone with a pair of sneakers.
Story and photos by Donna Clayton Lawder
Whether you're looking to get some healthy exercise, see historic sites, travel to interesting destinations or simply spend some enjoyable "outdoor time" with friends or family, Elisabeth Johnson-Lewis thinks you can't find a better way than through Volksmarching, an international non-competitive walking sport. Johnson-Lewis, president of the Sun Country Striders Volksmarch club in Las Cruces, even met her husband through the sport.
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Elisabeth Johnson-Lewis displays
some of the many patches on her hiking shirt. She earned the credits
by completing special walking programs and logging Volksmarching miles. |
"Well, actually, we'd met online and had been emailing each other for a solid couple of months," the trim and vibrant senior citizen says. She asked her perhaps-Romeo to meet her for a walk so she could see him in the flesh and "so he could prove to me that he was who he said he was!"
Love blossomed, but she didn't want to move where he lived, nor did he want to move to Las Cruces. Then Johnson-Lewis emailed and said she'd be gone for a couple of months traveling and participating in Volksmarching events.
"He said, 'Well, why don't we just get married then? I can't imagine not being in touch with you for that long!'" she recalls with a fond smile, eyes twinkling at the memory.
The lovebirds tied the knot on national television at the annual Bloomsbury Day race in Spokane, Wash., combining their nuptials with yet another athletic event and a visit with Johnson-Lewis' grown daughter. Since then, the two have been inseparable, sharing their love of athletics and the outdoors. Both participate avidly in Volksmarch events, taking club-organized walks all over the country, and both are nationally competitive Senior Olympics athletes in cycling and archery.
Volksmarching gets its name from the German. "Volkssport," as in the American Volkssport Association, translates loosely as "sport of the people." Anyone can do it with just a pair of walking shoes or sneakers. At the COAS Bookstore in the Las Cruces Downtown Mall, Johnson-Lewis pulls out the Volksmarch box, a small file holder, and pulls out entry forms, maps and club information. Many walks are year-round and self-guided, enabling walkers to participate at their own pace.
In addition to scoping out your future spouse, Johnson-Lewis says Volksmarching is a great way to meet new friends. Often people show up at a course's starting point and say they don't want to walk alone.
"Just wait a few minutes," she tells them, "and you'll make a new friend."
Volksmarch walks are clearly mapped, 10-kilometer (6.2 mile) jaunts with historical notes and points of interest. Johnson-Lewis says most anyone can complete the round-trip courses in about two-and-a-half hours. Walkers should plan to finish before dusk, and may choose as their guide the basic list of points along the walk, or full historical notes that give details of the sites along the way. There are 350 clubs in the US, with groups and walks in all 50 states, holding more than 3,000 walking events per year on more than 1,400 unique trails.
There are three year-round walks in the Las Cruces area, originating at the COAS Bookstore in the Las Cruces Downtown Mall, at the Las Cruces Hilton and at the Mesilla Valley Inn in Mesilla. The Sun Country Striders club also sponsors a walk in Deming that begins and ends at Peppers Supermarket and traverses sidewalks and streets in the historic downtown. There are also Volkssport clubs and walks in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, El Paso and Tucson.
Special "event" walks highlight unique destinations or geography and even holidays. In December, for example, there is a "Christmas Light Guided Night Walk" in Mesilla.
Hitting the trail is as easy as tying on your walking shoes and grabbing a water bottle. Volksmarchers choose a walk and go the trail's starting point. There, an informative "host" or a box of information and materials awaits to start them on the trail. The walker fills out an envelope and picks up a map and notes on the trail's historical points of interest. Walkers can complete the walk for credits or awards (for a $3-$5 fee) or simply walk the course for free.
If the walk is a special event, with a host at the information table, the walker will have the envelope stamped by Volkssport personnel upon completion of the walk and return to the point of origin. Or the walker can fill out the envelope and deposit it in the Volksmarch box. Club personnel mail the envelopes in to national headquarters monthly.
But don't try to cut the course short and still get credit for the walk, Johnson-Lewis says. There are checkpoints along the way where the Volksmarcher will see secret messages they must record on their envelopes to prove they walked the whole course.
"It validates that they did the whole walk, and it just adds to the fun," she says.
Annual membership fees are $6 for an individual and $12 for a family. A beginner's packet of information and starter materials is available through AVA headquarters. The starter kit includes coupons that can be used for course fees. Courses are open to the public and you need not be a member to walk the trails. If you'd like to accumulate some Volkssport patches, pins or certificates to keep track of and proudly display your Volksmarching achievements, however, you will need to join.
Johnson-Lewis notes that there are all manner of interesting special programs and mileage markers in Volksmarching. She holds up a light blue denim shirt bedecked with colorful patches, earned in the four years she has been Volksmarching.
"This is my hiking shirt. I actually had to take off some of my patches," she says with a laugh. "It was getting too heavy to wear!"
One special Volkssport program includes walks where there are scenic rivers, earning the Volksmarcher a "River Walks" patch. There are special awards for "Cemetery Strolls" and for "Railroad Heritage" walks, one for the Lewis and Clark Trail and another for lighthouses. Johnson-Lewis points to her "California Heritage" patch, for which she completed 12 different walks in the Golden State. She has a "Walk the USA: A-Z" patch, for which she completed walks in towns starting with every letter of the alphabet. Earning the "Q" was a tough one, she admits. Her husband, she reports, currently is working on his "Walking PhD."
"He'll be a 'Road Scholar,'" she says. That program includes numerous Volksmarches on university campuses, of course. Johnson-Lewis already has her patch for that one. There are also mileage patches in 500-kilometer increments. Johnson-Lewis' shirt sports two rows of those, all the way up to 2,500 kilometers.
To accumulate the credentials for awards, a Volksmarcher logs walking achievements in an event or distance book, available on request from AVA headquarters. But keeping track and earning awards is strictly optional; many people Volksmarch just for the fun and exercise, Johnson-Lewis says.
As president of the club, Johnson-Lewis maps out the course, bikes it with her odometer to confirm the mileage, and then submits the proposed route to AVA headquarters to become an official course for which Volksmarchers can get credit. She currently is altering the course that starts and ends at COAS Bookstore to include a leg past a historic cemetery. This will qualify it as a "Cemetery Stroll," she notes happily.
"It's already a 'Railroad Heritage' walk, because it goes to the train depot," she says.
She also notes with excitement that the international Volkssport headquarters (IVV) recently decided to allow both 10-kilometer and five-kilometer courses at each site. That means she will be able to make new courses of the shorter distance, starting in 2007.
"It's not only good for beginners, but also for our diehards," she says. "Some of our local club members who want to take a walk after work can't manage to fit it in then. A five-kilometer course will be just perfect for that after-work stroll."
Though they're already decorated with some pretty high mileage patches, it's easy to imagine the Johnson-Lewis lovebirds taking advantage of the five-kilometer courses around town for an early evening Volksmarch.
For more information, see the Sun Country Striders Web site at www.zianet.com/dpiland/SunCountry, or contact the American Volkssport Association, (800) 830-WALK, www.ava.org.