I am a walking fiend. Too bad I don't like it.
For the last two weeks my office has been participating in the local transit company's Walk&Ride challenge. We've split into two teams, comprising most of the office, and have been gamely taking more public transit and/or walking more often.
There are a few elements to the competition. Only steps logged Mon-Fri count - but any steps you may incur jogging or dancing or whatever count as well. They gave us pedometers, but they're dismal, and have a tendency to reset. After the first week I've started using mine for short distances only (such as what I walk around the office) while figuring out averages for my longer walks. There are three categories in which individuals and teams can win prizes. Individuals who walk more than 25,000 steps in a week are entered into a raffle for gift cards and the like. Individuals who walk more than 50,000 steps in a week are entered for bigger drawings. And then at the end of the three weeks (Sept 25), the team with the highest average number of steps will win a whole bunch of swag.
My team has been doing middling well; there are five of us and three of the five walk a lot more than the other two. And one of our competitors is a team consisting of ONE person. Grumble. Don't get me started on that. Anyway. My personal goal was to walk 50,000 steps a week. The first week I got off to a bit of a rocky start, because I hadn't yet figured out how much my pedometer was screwing me over. I had to catch on quickly. So, week one I walked 38,186. Week two I hit my stride (literally?) and did 54,845. This week I'm aiming for a similar number - I particularly want to surpass the fellow who walks the most on my team, just for a sense of self-satisfaction.
Prior to this contest, my normal routine, if I caught the bus, consisted of about 3,600 steps per day. I'm certainly capable of a lot more, but work makes me tired, and I don't often enjoy working out... so there you go. This is why I was in such bad shape at the end of last summer. (And part of the reason I'm going along with this contest.) My pattern for this contest has been that I walk to work (two miles, or ~4400 steps), walk around during work (whatever my pedometer tells me; I check it frequently to ensure I have a reasonably accurate count at the end of the day), walk home from work (~4400 steps). If I even walk a measly 1,200 steps during my work day, I'm already at my goal of 10,000 a day.
Of course, there are some days I do more than others - I allow myself to "cheat" on my first day of the week, and take the Metro to or from work. I make up for it later in the week by working out, generally. My workout has switched, for the purposes of this contest, to include a lot more walking and running than it usually does. Today I'll be walking around the Hill, so that will up my total as well, by about 3,000 steps, as near as I can figure.
I'm sure that I'm supposed to feel enlightened, doing so much walking. A sort of "by Jove! this is easy. And so much better for myself and the environment!" But the truth is, I don't enjoy it. My commute is ugly, and most of it is along busy roads, so I face a lot of pollution and rudeness. The bane of my existence is this damn intersection that was a mess even before they started construction. But I deal. It's been workable, except for the last day or so where Maryland decided that humidity was awesome again. I do not appreciate getting into work already sweaty.
And the thing is, I don't really enjoy walking. Especially not first thing in the morning. First thing in the morning all I want to do is a zombie-walk into my cubicle and sit down. Even when my brain's awake, my body takes a while. Erica says that her morning walk wakes her up, but it just makes me feel exhausted and puts me in a bad mood for the day. Mom suggests that I'd enjoy myself a lot more if my walk was more scenic. Entirely possible; I do enjoy hiking and walking in the woods. But, you know, I choose to do that because it seems like fun. And I don't do it often. And I certainly don't do it at 6:40 a.m.
Anyway, this contest will be wrapping up with tomorrow's totals. I've walked 28,206 so far this week (I got off to a lazy start). I intend to walk about 11,880 today, which should get me even for tomorrow. And then tomorrow... hell, maybe I'll end things with a bang and do some running.
--
Got a call this morning. Which... was surprising, as nobody really calls me at work. Which I prefer. Sometimes I cover for the secretaries and it's pretty wretched. Phones + Beth = :(
I recognized the name the secretary gave me, but couldn't place it immediately. It turned out to be the woman who's been coordinating this whole project. She called to say that I won the 50,000+ drawing last week, and I'll be receiving an iPod Nano.
This is pretty cool, mainly because I've never won anything of this sort before. Granted, I don't normally enter, but still.
I've already got a Nano, but mine is a few generations old at this point. A quick look at the Apple website tells me that the Nano has had a pretty big overhaul since Maximus was made. They now apparently do a lot of things that... well, I really don't need my music player to do. But whatever. Storage size for the current generation is double what mine holds, which is incentive enough for a girl with 30 gigs of music.
So now what? Maximus works fine, though every now and then he's a bit finicky, like all electronics. There are some electronics recycling websites that I know of, or I could donate him somewhere. Alternatively, if someone I knew was interested in Max, I'd probably be happy to give him away. Here I'm thinking MJ - the parentals both recently got iPhones, but last I remember, Melissa, you were using a generic mp3 player with no real display or anything. Do you have any interest in an iPod? I could include it with your "Christmas" presents.
There are a few elements to the competition. Only steps logged Mon-Fri count - but any steps you may incur jogging or dancing or whatever count as well. They gave us pedometers, but they're dismal, and have a tendency to reset. After the first week I've started using mine for short distances only (such as what I walk around the office) while figuring out averages for my longer walks. There are three categories in which individuals and teams can win prizes. Individuals who walk more than 25,000 steps in a week are entered into a raffle for gift cards and the like. Individuals who walk more than 50,000 steps in a week are entered for bigger drawings. And then at the end of the three weeks (Sept 25), the team with the highest average number of steps will win a whole bunch of swag.
My team has been doing middling well; there are five of us and three of the five walk a lot more than the other two. And one of our competitors is a team consisting of ONE person. Grumble. Don't get me started on that. Anyway. My personal goal was to walk 50,000 steps a week. The first week I got off to a bit of a rocky start, because I hadn't yet figured out how much my pedometer was screwing me over. I had to catch on quickly. So, week one I walked 38,186. Week two I hit my stride (literally?) and did 54,845. This week I'm aiming for a similar number - I particularly want to surpass the fellow who walks the most on my team, just for a sense of self-satisfaction.
Prior to this contest, my normal routine, if I caught the bus, consisted of about 3,600 steps per day. I'm certainly capable of a lot more, but work makes me tired, and I don't often enjoy working out... so there you go. This is why I was in such bad shape at the end of last summer. (And part of the reason I'm going along with this contest.) My pattern for this contest has been that I walk to work (two miles, or ~4400 steps), walk around during work (whatever my pedometer tells me; I check it frequently to ensure I have a reasonably accurate count at the end of the day), walk home from work (~4400 steps). If I even walk a measly 1,200 steps during my work day, I'm already at my goal of 10,000 a day.
Of course, there are some days I do more than others - I allow myself to "cheat" on my first day of the week, and take the Metro to or from work. I make up for it later in the week by working out, generally. My workout has switched, for the purposes of this contest, to include a lot more walking and running than it usually does. Today I'll be walking around the Hill, so that will up my total as well, by about 3,000 steps, as near as I can figure.
I'm sure that I'm supposed to feel enlightened, doing so much walking. A sort of "by Jove! this is easy. And so much better for myself and the environment!" But the truth is, I don't enjoy it. My commute is ugly, and most of it is along busy roads, so I face a lot of pollution and rudeness. The bane of my existence is this damn intersection that was a mess even before they started construction. But I deal. It's been workable, except for the last day or so where Maryland decided that humidity was awesome again. I do not appreciate getting into work already sweaty.
And the thing is, I don't really enjoy walking. Especially not first thing in the morning. First thing in the morning all I want to do is a zombie-walk into my cubicle and sit down. Even when my brain's awake, my body takes a while. Erica says that her morning walk wakes her up, but it just makes me feel exhausted and puts me in a bad mood for the day. Mom suggests that I'd enjoy myself a lot more if my walk was more scenic. Entirely possible; I do enjoy hiking and walking in the woods. But, you know, I choose to do that because it seems like fun. And I don't do it often. And I certainly don't do it at 6:40 a.m.
Anyway, this contest will be wrapping up with tomorrow's totals. I've walked 28,206 so far this week (I got off to a lazy start). I intend to walk about 11,880 today, which should get me even for tomorrow. And then tomorrow... hell, maybe I'll end things with a bang and do some running.
--
Got a call this morning. Which... was surprising, as nobody really calls me at work. Which I prefer. Sometimes I cover for the secretaries and it's pretty wretched. Phones + Beth = :(
I recognized the name the secretary gave me, but couldn't place it immediately. It turned out to be the woman who's been coordinating this whole project. She called to say that I won the 50,000+ drawing last week, and I'll be receiving an iPod Nano.
This is pretty cool, mainly because I've never won anything of this sort before. Granted, I don't normally enter, but still.
I've already got a Nano, but mine is a few generations old at this point. A quick look at the Apple website tells me that the Nano has had a pretty big overhaul since Maximus was made. They now apparently do a lot of things that... well, I really don't need my music player to do. But whatever. Storage size for the current generation is double what mine holds, which is incentive enough for a girl with 30 gigs of music.
So now what? Maximus works fine, though every now and then he's a bit finicky, like all electronics. There are some electronics recycling websites that I know of, or I could donate him somewhere. Alternatively, if someone I knew was interested in Max, I'd probably be happy to give him away. Here I'm thinking MJ - the parentals both recently got iPhones, but last I remember, Melissa, you were using a generic mp3 player with no real display or anything. Do you have any interest in an iPod? I could include it with your "Christmas" presents.