4 days ago
Retiree has walked 128m steps without ever leaving Limerick
When it comes to awe-inspiring feats, Vinod Bajaj is not pedestrian… Well, in fact he is, but that's exactly what makes him special.
Mr Bajaj, 75, has walked the equivalent of two-and-a-half times around the world in just nine years and hopes he can inspire people to be more active.
The retired business consultant has clocked up an amazing 128million steps, or just over 100,000 kilometres, since he began his remarkable pedestrian efforts in 2016. Vinod Bajaj from Limerick in the west of Ireland who has walked 40,075 kilometres over the past four years without ever leaving his home city. Pic: Niall Carson/PA Wire
Mr Bajaj walks approximately 32 kilometres a day near his home in Castletroy, Limerick.
He has even walked the length of an entire marathon in a single day hundreds of times.
Interviewed last week – unsurprisingly, while taking a walk – Mr Bajaj said: 'Retirement doesn't have to mean just sitting on the sofa.
'If I can do it, anybody can do it, especially younger people.' Vinod Bajaj from Limerick in the west of Ireland who has walked 40,075 kilometres over the past four years without ever leaving his home city. Pic: Niall Carson/PA Wire
He has never missed a day of walking since he started his treks and spends approximately six hours on two or three walks every day.
Mr Bajaj uses an app called Pacer which has recorded over 128million steps since he began his impressive feat in August 2016, initially starting out at ten kilometres a day.
He said: 'My wife was worried at the start. But I spoke to my doctor and he said it was all fine. My wife said, 'If you keep walking, you still have to do the housework.' Vinod Bajaj. The Limerick pensioner who says he has walked more than twice the circumference of the Earth is bidding for world record recognition. Pic: Niall Carson/PA Wire
'There are times I do a 35-kilometre walk and come home tired and need to cut the grass for an hour.'
Mr Bajaj, who moved to Ireland from India 48 years ago, has walked the equivalent of the distance from Dublin to Sydney six times, or 40 times the length of the Wild Atlantic Way. It's also four times further than Forrest Gump ran across America in the hit film of the same name.
The first big milestone that inspired him to increase his effort was when he realised that he had walked the circumference of the Moon and decided to aim for the circumference of the Earth next. Vinod Bajaj. Pic: RTE
'When you walk, your mind is very free, you get a lot of ideas. I got the idea of writing a book during my walk. I wrote my first book, Pension Without Tension, in 2021 with all the proceeds going to Pieta House,' Mr Bajaj said, adding that he plans on writing a second – and also has his eyes on a very different kind of book.
'I went to the Guinness World Records and I could not see anyone who had walked this much,' he said. 'I thought maybe I might have created a record, so I plan to approach the Guinness World Records to see if they will recognise my feat. I just crossed the 100,000-kilometre milestone in late April.'
Mr Bajaj has worn out close to 25 pairs of runners since he began the campaign of daily walking in all kinds of weather. The biggest challenge he has faced on early morning walks is not being able to find a bathroom.
'Everything is closed and especially in the wintertime if you're dying for a leak, there's nowhere to go,' he explained. 'One morning it was six or seven o'clock and I was walking and I saw one house that had a light on, so I asked to use the toilet and they thought it was a joke.' He added, laughing: 'They didn't want a stranger in their house but eventually they let me because I'm 75.'
Surprisingly, Mr Bajaj does not have a favourite route but instead said the joy is the walk itself, not the destination or the route.
He said he plans to 'slow down' slightly with the walking but has no plans to stop. He added that anyone planning on getting into the activity should walk for at least 30 minutes at a time to be effective and that 'discipline and self-motivation' are the key to his success.
