KC Counts speaks with AVA: America's Walking Group's publicity chair, Susan Fine, about the walking group, its potential benefits, and the many steps participants can get in during their visit. Here's a portion of their conversation:
KC:
Let me start by asking you what Americas Walking Club is. It really does look like, from a description in one community calendar item you submitted, that it's kind of a nationwide, maybe even an international thing.
Susan:
It is an international thing. It started in Germany. it's called volks walking and it's known as people’s walking. So, troops that came back from Germany started local clubs in the United States and we have clubs all over the country, including Alaska and Hawaii. And it's non-competitive walking, so people get directions, they travel, they go to a place and they can see parts of a country or a National Park or a local park that they would never probably have seen that they've just driven through; local clubs put on walks, and we have a lot of group walks. And that's what this Convention is, is we gather together every other year and we talk and meet and walk together. It helps social and it helps our physical.
KC:
Mm-hmm. We hear more and more studies all the time that show the benefits of walking in in so many different ways. Tell me about the choice to come to Las Cruces.
Susan:
Well, we've been to so many places, but we had never been to this part of the country. We've been to Texas, but never New Mexico or Arizona, the, kind of the Southwest area. I used to live in New Mexico, so I'm very familiar with Las Cruces. I was very excited. We're coming here and the Visit Las Cruces organization is very involved with us. They've done a lot of work for us. They're getting volunteers for us and we're very excited to partner with them.
KC:
Tell me how long you've been a part of the group and why you became a part of it.
Susan:
I have been with America's walking club for almost 30 years. I had started just, I like to walk and I had gone online and was trying to find a local walking club. You know, I used to do a lot of charity runs where you go as fast as you can for the time. But what I discovered with this volks walking is that you can take your time. You can take, let's say 6 hours. You want to go into a museum as you walk by it, go in and then get back on the route. And that's what I enjoy so much.
KC:
So when you're in Las Cruces and I, I'll say the region because the walks are really covering a very wide territory here. Tell us about the main event and what you're branching off to.
Susan:
Yes. Well, we there is one event on May 3rd that we want to invite the Community to. It's our community walk. We are meeting at the Visit Las Cruces offices downtown and then we are inviting people to learn about Volks walking. We'll give them the directions, but we'll walk with them. People can choose a 3K which is about 1.8 miles or a 5K which is 3.1 miles. And we'll walk through downtown. We'll walk through the historic Mesquite district area. And we'll kind of showcase what it's like to go in, register, get directions, and head out. Now that's just one part of what we're doing during this convention and I call it a convention. It's really a walking festival because many people are coming in for 9 days and we are walking from city of Rock State Park. To Silver City, we're going to the white Sands National Park, Mesilla Valley State Park and NMSU campus. So there's a lot of places, Mesilla, etcetera, that that we're showcasing. We wanted to showcase the best parts of the southern part of New Mexico.
KC:
And you are doing a little bit of international travel while you're here as well, right?
Susan:
Yes, thank you for that. Yes, we are on Wednesday, April 30th, we will be going taking buses to El Paso and then crossing the International Bridge and going into Juarez. And it's wonderful because Chihuahua and the city of El Paso and the Juarez city itself, are going to help us and walk us with us, give us snacks, have entertainment. And there's a little bit of a fee, you know, as you cross the border, I think it's .50 cents or something and they're going to pay for that for all of our walkers. We have about 300 walkers coming into Las Cruces and most of those are going into Juarez. So it'll be fun to kind of showcase the international, you know, compadre that we want.
You can learn more about AVA: America's Walking Club on their website
