Before the thaw I walked across the silent fields steeped in new laid snow
With head cast downwards I watched each boot stab the virgin crust
Each step by form and sound a perfect replica of each that went before
So studying the beat and measure of my walk
I realised that despite almost a lifetime’s walking
Each foot remains stationary for fifty per cent of each journey
As each leg in turn acts as a pivot for the forward thrusting leg
So by example in a walk of ten miles taking four hours
Each foot remains static for two hours!
Is this not a pivotal moment in appreciation of an obvious but unrealised fact?
Unrealised by me anyway!
I then began to ponder other facts
The Earth’s rotation coming first to mind
The circumference of our planetary home
Is twenty -five thousand miles
Therefore at one rotation in twenty four hours
We surface -dwellers are rotating at almost one thousand miles per hour
So why is it not possible hover above the earth and await
A chosen destination to appear beneath and then descend
To be reached in half the time of conventional flight by aircraft?
And at less expense to purse and environmental footprint
My thoughts then turned to world running records
Which are officially verified at international athletic events
Stadium tracks by necessity are not straight but circular
So all but the one hundred meters event
Involve the athletes negotiating at least one curve
Would record -holding athletes have achieved faster times
If the track was straight and curve free?
Are present records the ultimate achievement for mankind?
How many part or whole seconds might be cut
From say fifteen hundred-meter race?
After all, I surmise that were the racers cars and not people
The cars would brake and slow down for each bend
And surely attain a faster time if there were no bends
So would this likewise hold true for athletes?
There is no doubt that walking stimulates the imagination
And walking in the snow perhaps more so!