After seeing someone else successfully attempt the gamut twice during the pandemic, 34 year-old Toronto resident, Richard Conway, embarked on traversing the entire length of Yonge Street — nearly 65 km — in one day, and he succeeded.
Though the popular myth of Yonge Street actually running at 2000 km long, making it the longest street in the world, has long-since been debunked, the major artery that runs between Lake Simcoe to Lake Ontario is still, undeniably, a long one. Especially on foot.
Starting (or ending, depending on which way you go) in East Gwillimbury and running all the way down to Queens Quay, the major artery through the south is actually somewhere around 86 km in its entirety, or 65 if you don’t count the Bradford-to-Barrie extension.
While, to me, walking anywhere near that distance in a single day falls somewhere close to root canal on the enjoyment spectrum, for Richard, the idea sounded like a fun challenge. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
For Richard, exploring Toronto by foot has been a favourite pastime of his ever since he moved to the city from Ireland in 2016.
“I already walk quite a bit, so I mentioned to my friends that I’d give it a try this year and set out last weekend,” he tells blogTO.
While, for many, a journey of this length could quite possibly require some training or preparation, Richard tells blogTO that he was already primed and ready for the trip.
“My go-to weekend walk during the summer is from Roncy to Woodbine and back, which is around 28 [to] 30 km,” he says. “With that regular routine, I felt prepared to tackle Yonge Street’s route from East Gwillimbury to Queens Quay.”
Armed with little more than a phone where Strava was tracking his trip and a good attitude, Richard set out for a walk that would ultimately take him nearly 11 hours total.
“The walk itself started off great — it was a quiet morning surrounded by nature, and I got to see some lovely homes,” he tells blogTO, explaining that, over the course of the walk he stopped through Newmarket, Aurora and Richmond Hill, which each had ample spots to take a load off if need be.
While the route itself had plenty of scenic views, Richard says that the one he most cherished over the course of the journey was none other than that of the downtown skyline in the distance from Richmond Hill.
“It really felt like victory was on the horizon,” he says.
Much of the walk was smooth sailing, Richard tells blogTO, until he hit the home stretch.
“The hardest part? Definitely the last 10 km,” he says. “Surprisingly, there were some uphill stretches I hadn’t anticipated — heading south, you’d think it’d be all downhill — and I could really feel the fatigue setting in.”
Only making two stops over the entire 11 hour trip — once for a coffee, once for a soda — Richard tells blogTO that he “wouldn’t necessarily recommend” skipping meals while attempting such a feat to the average individual, on top of admitting that, deciding to “power through” rather than take rest, his ankle was in “rough shape” by the end.
All the pain was not in vain, though, as, upon the completion of the journey, Richard posted his story to r/Toronto on Reddit, and it quickly took off, earning 7000 upvotes and a spot among the top ten posts of all time on the subReddit.
Richard’s sudden ascent to Reddit stardom has also inspired others to begin posting their own journeys on the platform, like one person who recounts walking from Richmond Hill to Union Station in just 5 hours.
It’s also inspired fellow walkers to begin planning their own journeys, which, Richard says, he’d be keen to get in on.
“Would I do it again? Definitely,” Richard tells blogTO.
“People in the comments [of the Reddit post] have been talking about organizing a group walk for charity next year, which would be awesome if it actually comes together.”
