Walk This Way

Last summer I engaged in a self motivated walking program to improve fitness and prepare for a lot of walking (and stair climbing as it turned out) that I expected to do during my sabbatical travels. Over the winter my walking slowed to a stop, partly due to the weather, and partly due to my dislike of treadmills. With the arrival of warmer weather I resumed my walks, but I struggle with staying motivated to get out and walk instead of parking myself in front of my computer.

Two weeks ago however, I decided to participate in a walking challenge proposed by the IT Fit Team at work. The idea is that 15 teams will do a virtual walk from Oakbrook to Washington DC between Memorial Day and Independence Day. That's 687 miles in 40 days. Fortunately I'm not expected to walk the entire distance. I'm a member of a 5 person relay team and each member will walk ⅕ of the distance or 137.4 miles. Since it is a virtual walk, we accomplish it by carrying a pedometer all day and recording our total steps each day. One mile is about 2000 steps, so I need to average 6870 steps a day to cover my share of the distance in 40 days.

The challenge began a week ago on Memorial Day. I spent the week before getting my walking legs in shape and reassuring myself that I could manage the daily pace. Today is the end of the first week of the challenge and I recorded 58,253 steps which is a little better than the average I need to maintain. I'll report my further progress next week and hope to have some data about the other teams' progress as well.