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WILKES-BARRE — Give him 24 years, and he’ll walk around the world.
Well, not really. For one thing, the oceans would be in the way.
But avid walker Mike Mulvey, 76, of Mountain Top, who has kept meticulous records of his near-daily walks since 1992, just walked Mile No. 25,000 on Wednesday.
Compare that to the earth’s 24,901-mile circumference at the equator, and you could say Mulvey is ahead.
“I’m thrilled,” he said of the accomplishment. “And I’m going to keep on walking.”
Mulvey’s favorite place to stride is the Wyoming Valley Levee System, where he doesn’t need his pedometer because the mileage is painted on the macadam.
“Once it’s in your blood, you have to walk,” said Dick Blaum of Kingston, a friend who often joins Mulvey for 4 or 5-mile jaunts. “I was with him when he got to 20,000 miles (Dec. 15, 2011) and his wife got him a shirt that said he went that far.”
Mulvey, who is a retired social worker, used to swim laps but gave walking a try and found he enjoyed it so much he didn’t have time leftover for swimming.
“Next thing I knew, I had 5,000 miles,” he said, adding he reached the 10,000 mile mark on Aug. 31, 2001.
“All my walking is outdoors. I’ve never been on a machine,” he said, explaining he enjoys watching the changes the seasons bring.
Mulvey and his wife, Suzanne, have four sons and six grandchildren but he doesn’t walk with any of them because it’s difficult to adjust his pace to theirs.
He typically completes each mile in 16 minutes, slower than the 12-minute pace he kept up years ago, but he still sees health benefits that he attributes to the exercise.
“I have Type II diabetes,” he said, “and all the walking keeps my numbers under control.”
Sometimes he listens to Motown or Sinatra as he walks. “I used to use a cassette player, then a CD, an iPod nano and now an iPhone.”
Music technology has changed, but the record of his walks is still low tech, entered with a pen onto the pages of a small pocket calendar.