IN OUR LEISURE
Passion FOR WALKING
HOW TWO FEET TAKE ONE WOMAN JUST ABOUT EVERYWHERE SHE NEEDS TO GO hen she has an errand to run or a place to be, graduate student Parisa Afshari, MD decides whether she can get there on foot. She walks four miles from home to campus, where she conducts research on schizophrenia as she works toward a doctorate in neuroscience. Once at a conference in San Diego, she went for a seven-hour walk, seeing more than 20 miles of sights.
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Walking is her exercise, but it also brings Afshari happiness. “I’m very happy when I’m walking,” she says. “I can daydream, but I also concentrate and make decisions about studying and my research, and think about what’s going on in the lab.” Afshari fell in love with walking and hiking while in Iran, where she earned her medical degree and worked in emergency medicine and sports medicine until 2008. She lived and worked in a mountainous region of Iran, and her colleagues invited her to join them for an overnight hike. She enjoyed it so much that her next hike was up 18,603 feet to the country’s highest peak, Damavanad in northern Iran. Now living in Syracuse, Afshari owns a car but only uses it when she cannot walk. Her ideal walking weather is temperatures from the 40s to the 70s, with mist or a light drizzle, or sunshine without heat. Typically she averages 4 to 4 1/2 miles per hour, depending on terrain and traffic lights. She dresses with comfort in mind and Asics sneakers on her feet. She carries a phone for emergencies and an iPod, “but the most important item is my CamelBak hydration pack, which has been with me literally every day for the past three and a half years, and still goes strong.”
three FAVORITE PLACES TO WALK ●
LaFayette Road, which is almost 18 miles both ways and very scenic.
● Various
sections of the Erie Canal towpath.
● The
long trail around Green Lakes State Park.
Afshari usually tunes her iPod to a podcast about a topic in psychology or social science. Sometimes she listens to comedy. Sometimes she disconnects digitally and hears just feet hitting the pavement. ●
MASTER OF PUBLIC HEALTH JOINTLY OFFERED BY UPSTATE MEDICAL UNIVERSITY & SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
w w w.upstate.edu/cnymph
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U P S TAT E H E A LT H
winter 2014
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