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The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday August 12, 2006 - 3 The power of walking For Karin Lynn Cumming, the journey from a couch potato to a power walker was taken one step at a time By Wilma Blokhuis OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF BARRIE ERSKINE / OAKVILLE BEAVER Walking is rejuvenation. Karin Lynn Cumming is walking towards optimum health. The 61-year-old grandmother has grey hair and a healthy glow. "I'll never have a waistline," said Cumming, who describes herself as `chunky.' "But, my legs are hard as rock and my arms are toned." A life-long couch potato, Cumming decided three years ago to `get off her butt' and started walking 15 minutes a day. Now she power walks half marathons. "I've been a slug all of my life," said Cumming, who for the past dozen years has worked part time as a artistic furniture painter, sometimes "Knowing this working with designers. "I've never liked sweaty, older, fat lady physical exercise. And, I always walked for eightsaw myself a chubby. I got and-a-half hours chubbier with each kid." She stuck in my head has three adult children and and I thought if she five grandchildren. "I started feeling guilty can do it, I can walk whenever I saw somebody walk- 15 minutes a day." ing. The clincher was when my daughter went to run a Karin Lynn marathon in the Finger Lakes Cumming and I went down to support her. "I saw somebody who was my age, and heavy, with a coach on each side. I asked my daughter about her and was told this lady had started walking an hour ahead of everybody else and finished in eight-and-a-half hours. Knowing this older, fat lady walked for eight-and-a-half hours stuck in my head and I thought if she can do it, I can walk 15 minutes a day." Cumming started her walking regimen while on a seven-week winter vacation in Portugal. "I told my husband Bob I was going to start walking 15-25 minutes a day, and at the end of our seven weeks, I told Bob I'm going to walk half marathons." Turns out Bob is a retired high school physical education teacher and vice-principal, and two of her three children graduated in physical education from university ­ hence the support was there. Upon returning to Oakville, Cumming looked for some coaching and joined Lee Scott's Walk on Water (WoW) REWARDING WALK : Karin Lynn Cumming, a 61-year-old grandmother, on one of her daily power walks. See Walking page 7 The One. The Only. Over 16,000 graduates in Oakville since 1979 (905) 845-7200 AUGUST 28 9:30am-4:15,p29, 30, 31 m · 4 DAYS SEPT 11 · Mon & Wed 6:00pm-9:15pm · 4 WEEKS NEXT COURSES: