Do your legs ache after 10k steps?

[TootsAtOwls]

I've always considered myself fairly active, walking to work, swimming etc. I now work from home and have a dog, so my walks tend to be slower shuffles around fields while the dog sniffs to his heart's content.... but I've noticed my legs really ache at the end of each day. Is this normal? Just age? (I'm 42) I do 10k steps a day on average.

15k steps over the moors, and yes.
10k steps on pavements and tracks, no.
Same age as you, and could do with shifting a few stone.

I find walling slowly is more tiring than walling faster. Also do you wear wellies? I walked quite a lot in these recently and had very achy legs, either using different muscles or or not being supported.

Could it be that you’re doing something different that your body isn’t used to? Different type of shoes, different terrain etc? I never get pain from walking 10,000 steps a day, but that’s very common for me and I used to walk more. We tend to ache a lot when we do things our bodies aren’t used to even if we are active in other ways. I went horse riding on Sunday for the first time in years and I’m still in pain from it now - when I rode regularly I was never in pain from it. It might be worth looking at what is different now to what you used to do, is the field quite bumpy compared to walking to work on pavements? Etc

You are most likely wearing the wrong footwear.