One Realisation and Two Ponders

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!