One of my “unpublished” resolutions is to walk more often with the Buckeye Striders — the walking club I belong to. The club meets every Saturday at 8 a.m. at various parks around the city. When it is too nasty out, we meet at an indoor track.

There are a couple reasons why I like to walk with this group:
1) They are all positive happy people! I feel good whenever I see them.
2) They know a lot. We offer each other advice on everything from training to eating and what to wear. New shoes are ALWAYS a major discussion!
3) They are so supportive! When a group of us is planning a major event such as a marathon or half marathon, we schedule our long training walks together. We encourage each other to keep going.
4) They make me laugh! This morning, the amount of laughter coming from our group was amazing.
5) We meet at local races, or travel together to events out of town, and it makes these events so much more fun.
6) Just knowing they are at a park ready to walk encourages me to get out of bed earlier on a Saturday to meet them.

It’s not the largest walking club in Central Ohio, but it is a close knit group. Still we welcome newcomers as if we’ve known them forever! We are a diverse group of people. Our professions include engineers, lawyers, teachers, nurses, Realtors, doctors, speech pathologist, and me the editor. Some of us are married, some are not. Some of us have kids, some don’t, some have grandkids. Some have dogs, others cats. It gives us a wide variety of things to talk about while walking.

But the absolute best thing about this group is, as a whole, they all are genuinely happy to see which ever members of our group show up. What more can you ask for on a Saturday morning!

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