REWARDING: A group of pilgrims moving to Jamrat Bridge for the stoning on Sunday. Pilgrims walk a distance of up to 45 km in the holy sites during the five days of the pilgrimage. (SPA)

MINA: Many pilgrims walked an average distance of 45 km in the five days of the pilgrimage. Apart from the spiritual benefits, there are material ones as well. It is a sure way to burn calories.

The pilgrims start at Makkah and then move to Mina for the night before walking to Arafat.

They then head to Muzdalifah where they stay the next night. Early next morning they return to Mina where they stone the Jamrat, slaughter their sheep and shave off or trim their hair. From Mina, they go to Makkah to do Tawaf Al-Ifada and the Saie between Safa and Marwa, and then walk back to Mina to spend the night there. During the three days of stay in Mina, they walk to the Jamrat every day to for the stoning ritual. The can be exhausting, but not without rewards.

“I lost five kilos in the four days I spent walking between the holy sites,” said Nabeel Abdul Maksoud, an Egyptian pilgrim.

He said he suffered from fatigue and exhaustion at first but after three days he regained his fitness and was ready to walk up to a thousand kilometers.

Doctors say most of their cases are aches and muscle strain resulting from walking.

“Such patients represent about 55 percent of all the cases we treat,” they said.

The doctors said they usually advise these patients to reduce the amount of walking they do every day, to take some rest and to distribute their rate of walking among intervals so as to rest the muscles.