Like everyone else, I kept my sanity early on in lockdown by going for walks. At the beginning, I did two walks a day: a “city streets” walk around my neighborhood and a “country” walk where I just did laps around Donnelly Field, on the grass. As I began to get to know my neighborhood, I decided to start tracking where I went to make sure I saw every street.
When I quickly finished every inch of my neighborhood, I broadened the goal to be my whole zip code. But I live in the second-smallest zip code of Cambridge, so that wasn’t enough of a challenge. It became clear that I wouldn’t rest until I had covered the entire city; all five zip codes.
As I found my stride, my walks got to be long. Average four miles, record eight. A walk under an hour and a half feels short. A big moment was when I borrowed a car from friends in East Watertown, not far from the Cambridge line. I had taken the bus there to get the car, but, since it’s a pandemic, want to avoid public transit. I balked at the 3.7 mile, 1 hour 17 minute walk until I realized that that’s a totally normal walk length for me. Not only did I go for it, but I took a long way home, hitting more 02138. That walk ended up being 7.08 miles, which I did in 2 hours 11 minutes.
My goal, of course, is to walk every street of Cambridge. I decided to go public with the goal and progress because, well, it’s lockdown and it’s nice to have purpose! My Instagram posts about my walks have garnered some interest and attention.
Stay tuned to learn more about the process, my accomplishments so far, and everything to come!
Sophie Strollin' Streetblocks 