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The Power Of Walking

This story originally aired on Jan. 21, 2007.

Walking is just so natural, so ordinary, so instinctual, even a baby can do it. But there's walking and then there is Scott Williamson's kind of walking.

To call him a "walker" would be like calling Luciano Pavoratti a crooner or Michael Jordan a mere ballplayer. Williamson is a walker extraordinaire. He is what is called a yoyo.

"That phrase is used because I'm starting in Mexico, hiking northbound to Canada and turning around and headed all the way back, so it's mimicking the motion of a yoyo," he told Sunday Morning correspondent Bill Whitaker.

Williamson hiked 5,310 miles from Mexico to Canada and back, traversing the wild and wondrous Pacific Crest Trail, the West Coast cousin of the shorter, more famous Appalachian Trail in the east. In the small but growing world of long-distance hiking, Scott Williamson is a rock star.

"The trail's over 2,500 miles long, but it's only about a foot and a half wide," he said. "So it's a very small community of people who know about me."

He started his trek at the Mexican border May 22, 2006 and hiked 191 days — more than six million steps — over mountain peaks, across raging rivers, through three states, wearing out 13 pair of shoes.

"I average 500 miles per pair," he said.

Williamson is the only person to do a yoyo before; he completed his first one in 2004. Filmmakers caught up with him at various points along the way of his second trip and are shooting a documentary, "Tell It On the Mountain," which will be released this spring. They also gave him a camera to capture his extraordinary solo journey. Along the way, he encounters not only jaw-dropping beauty, but also snakes, scorpions, bears and bugs.

"I like to say it's the greatest unplanned adventure you'll ever have," Williamson said. "I think just the adventure of it brings me out here and the challenge to push myself 5,300 miles. Your body gets into incredible shape."

Who doesn't want an incredible body, especially these early days of the New Year when almost everyone wants to trim that holiday fat? But New Year's resolutions often melt away before the pounds do.

"It would be nice if we could get motivation from this man who walked 5,000 miles, but somebody's going to look at that and say, 'My god, I can't do something like that.' But you don't have to," Bob Girandola, a professor of exercise science at the University of Southern California, said. "They only have to do a fraction of that."

Girandola teaches, and some might even say he preaches, the gospel of walking. He put Whitaker on a treadmill at a steady pace of three miles per hour — about the pace Scott Williamson walked. It builds up your heart and burns calories. It can even boost your brain power.

The health benefits of walking increase exponentially the steeper the climb. But for most Americans, the only thing on the rise is their size. The average American adult weighs 25 pounds more today than in 1960. Two out of every three adults are overweight or obese.

"If you can get one good hour of walking a day, I would say that would be great," Girandola said. "Even though it is a miracle exercise, most people, they're lucky if they walk off the couch."

How do you get people off their duffs? Well, motivation can come in many forms. One is the charitable motivation like the March of Dimes Walk-a-Thon. Ever since that first Walk-A-Thon in 1971, more and more people have been walking for a good cause — doing their bodies good, while raising money to fight birth defects, AIDS, and cancer. Few, if any, have done more good deeds walking than Barbara Jo Kirshbaum. She's 68 and did her first Walk-A-Thon ten years ago.

"I think I have walked about 3,700 miles for breast cancer," Kirshbaum said. "Now, I have raised $675,000."

Kirshbaum set a record for this cause and her goal is $1 million dollars. She tackles the toughest two- and three-day walks — a feat that surprises even her.

"Being raised in the '50s, I always thought, you know, you didn't break a sweat," Kirshbaum said. "That wasn't a ladylike thing to do and I never did anything that was very physical. I avoided anything very physical."

Today she says she is probably in better shape than she was in her 40s. Keeping up this pace isn't always easy, even for someone as motivated as Kirshbaum. Williamson also has to keep himself motivated to walk through the pain — through scorching sun, rain, hail and cold. When he made it 2,655 miles to Canada, what should have been one of his best days was one of his toughest.

"Because this is extremely difficult mentally to get here and to turn around and start all over again, I use a strategy," he said. "I call them micro-goals. OK, I'm going to hike, walk to that tree and when I reach that tree, I spot another object. Ok, I'm going to walk to that rock. Then OK, I spot something else, I'm walking to that ridge top. And if you do that over and over and over again, for months, pretty soon you've walked over 5,000 miles."

Williamson said the key is to start small with a short walk down the street, if that is all you can do. Gradually increase your distance. The best thing about walking, Girandola said, is that it can be done anywhere and at any time.

"People think, well, I have to go to the gym, you know, I have to find a formal time to work out. I have to find a pool," he said. "They don't have to do that. You know, you can walk anywhere."

"Everybody can do it. I don't think it's the issue really of can or can't. It's the issue of will I or won't I?" Williamson said.

Williamson is getting married to his sweetheart Michelle in June. They are going to do the yoyo for their honeymoon.

"We're going to start at the Canadian border, head southbound to the Mexican border," he said. "To me, it's my dream and it means a lot to me. Follow your dreams, keep at it, eventually you'll arrive there."

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