MINISTER TO HOMELESS FEELS ‘THE WEIGHT OF MERCY’ Page 21
SPARTANBURGJOURNAL Spartanburg, S.C. • Friday, September 28, 2012 • Vol.8, No.39
Clint Eastwood’s hometown costar. Page 17
SIX-STRING CLASSICS AT WOFFORD.
HIGHWAY ROBBERY
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The DOT’s decision to divert local funds into a statewide repaving effort leaves Upstate road improvement projects in the slow lane.
Work continues on the SCDOT I-385 project.
GREG BECKNER / STAFF
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Upstate Pathfinders walk the walk By APRIL A. MORRIS | staff
Lacing up your sneakers and taking a walk is one of the most affordable and easiest ways to get the 150 minutes per week of exercise recommended by health experts. Since the 1960s in Europe, groups have been getting together to walk in a social and noncompetitive way as part of volkssport, or “organized walking,” clubs, initially offering a variety
Volkssport group aims to see the sights and slim down the Upstate of sports with walkers participating in volksmarching (peoples’ march). In 1976, volkssport came to the U.S. and the American Volkssport Association was founded. Now there are about 300 clubs nation-
wide, and one of those clubs – Upstate Pathfinders, the first and only in South Carolina – was launched in April 2011. Robert McDaniel, Pathfinders president, said he was introduced to the fitness walking activity when he was overseas in the military. His first experience was at a volksmarch that he attended with a friend from Germany. Soon he was participating in two to three events each weekend, he said. Volksmarchers meet at a predeter-
mined location and follow routes that are 10K or 5K. The routes are carefully planned and typically showcase littleseen sights along the way. Local members suggest and map out walks to be recorded as official routes. The Upstate has walks in downtown Greenville, Travelers Rest, Wofford College, Paris Mountain, Lake Conestee, Converse College and the South Carolina Botanical Gardens in Clemson. Weekend VOLKSSPORT continued on PAGE 11