Three or four weeks ago I saw a mention of “Kennedy Walks” on Facebook or someplace else. I’m not sure where, but it did bring back some very vague recollections of Kennedy administration members doing very long walks along the C & O Canal towpath near Washington, D.C.
In looking into the matter further, I found out that John F. Kennedy had learned of Theodore Roosevelt’s challenge to Marine Corps officers of his era to show their fitness by walking 50 miles. President Kennedy subsequently challenged members of his administration to walk 50 miles in twenty hours as a show of his administration’s vigor.
The President’s brother, Bobby, took the bait and walked 50 miles within twenty hours on February 9, 1963. He wore his regular leather business shoes and followed the C & O Canal towpath from Great Falls of the Potomac to Harpers Ferry for his route.
My memory, which could be wrong, was of twenty-five mile walks being popular at that time. I mentioned seeing something about Kennedy Walks to my friend Phil, and he told me that he did a twenty-five mile Kennedy Walk with some friends when he was in high school.
A couple of days later, Phil called me up to say that we should do a Kennedy Walk. Less than a week later we stepped off from Phil’s house at the base of the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque for our own “do it yourself” twenty-five mile Kennedy Walk.
We did not have a pre-determined route with exact measurements. Our destination was my house over eleven miles away by car in the Rio Grande valley. Our intention was to follow existing bike trails and footpaths to get there and to use my Fitbit to track of our mileage.
Our route would be generally downhill or level. And even better we were not going to march. We were going to walk at a pace that would get us to our destination and let us take in what was along the way.
Phil even remembered to bring along a Kennedy half dollar coin to honor our walk.
