October Step Stats

For your delight, here are my October stats! It's not very exciting, but it is always interesting to see the trends and variations that occur throughout a month. What I'm seeing this time around is the way coaching affects my step count. You'd think that spending several hours on court on a given day would mean a fairly high count, but that doesn't always follow. If I'm not hitting with a client, I don't actually move around a lot. So it turns out that my lowest day this month was actually a busy coaching day, but I was working mainly with my beginner kids with whom I do a lot of hand-fed drills.

Here are the numbers.

Total steps: 434453

Aver: 14015

Approx. miles: 217

Highest day: 22021

Lowest day: 10189

So my average was up but my maximum was down! I had 8 days when I did fewer that 11k steps compared to 9 in September, and 3 days over 20k compared to 2. Not a lot of difference there. The shift was clearly in the mid-range days where I had more days between 15k-20k (7 compared to 3).

The point here is that a few big days are great, but you want the consistency of regularly getting to and doing the stuff that will keep you healthy. Trends are more important than peaks and troughs in many ways because they tell you that you are building habits.

September 2017 Step Stats

I managed to hit the target every day for the whole month. Not too surprising given the coaching, training and playing that goes into a typical week. There some days when I wouldn't have made 10k had I not gone for a walk, and under other circumstances I probably wouldn't have done so had it not been for setting myself the challenge. I even walked from Kings Cross to Fenchurch Street one day to make sure I made my 10k steps when otherwise I would have taken the tube to Bank at the very least and walked from there.

This, for me, is what makes the challenge interesting. Not so much the target, but the commitment to doing to do it. Anyway, just for the record (and with some comparisons to come) here are my September stats.

Steps: 395643
 Aver: 13188
 Max: 24537
 Min: 10064
Miles: 198

Given that I started in August, I've managed 44 consecutive days of 10k or more. I've also passed 500k steps already.

My A360 has been recording too, and the data is as I'd expect with the exception of the "pushchair day" I blogged about recently! Heavy coaching days and days when I either play or train show up really clearly in any comparison. What was interesting was the day I pushed Tobias in his buggy. Because my arm wasn't moving very little data was recorded as activity. I wonder what would happen if you went running on a treadmill but held onto the bars. Would it record any data then?

Overall I'm pleased I've completed a whole month and especially pleased that on those days when I might have chosen to sit on the sofa and do nothing, I actually got out and did something. Let's see what October brings.

Pedometer update!

So, I had a quick look at new pedometers and discovered that many now have a reset button on the front. Why? Why would you want to reset it? I have a feeling that mine would continually be resetting itself as it bumped around in my pocket.

Anyway, I got out my screwdrivers and dismantled my old pedometer and cleaned up the contacts and now, with a bit of fiddling, I've been able to set the time and other parameters and I'm all set to get recording.

As a matter of interest, I did a quick check. It was 2014/15 that I last did the challenge. I managed 183 consecutive before a calf injury ended the run. That was in March 2015 and for some reason I stopped recording the data too afterwards. I think it might be because I got my new Polar A360. That and the battery might have run out!

I think my plan will be the record the data over the next couple of weeks to see what's currently normal/typical and then plan to get out walking in September. I haven't yet decided whether I'll use tennis as part of the 10k or not. It would be interesting but possibly impractical to try and do 10k walking steps in addition to all the stuff I do on court. I will have to think about that carefully.

One solution would be to set a minimum walking target, say 6.5k steps. At a guess that's around 3 miles or 5Km and might be achievable even on heavy tennis days. I could work out a simple route that would hit that goal.

If I start on September 1st, 100 days takes me to December 9th, but I might be a bit later starting this year because of other commitments. Still, it would be nice to hit the target by Christmas. In 2014 I even did my 10k on Christmas Day.

Get up, get out, get moving!

It's never a bad time to take on a challenge to get a little more active. I'm probably the most active I've ever been, what with all the coaching I now do. But I still feel the need to "do something". Quite what that is, I don't know.

So it could be time to hit the walking challenge yet again. It's simple, 10,000 steps a day for 100 days. I've blogged about it each time I've done it, and somewhere on my computer are the spreadsheets with all the data of my previous cycles. I've even put a new battery in my old pedometer. Sadly it doesn't seem to want to allow me to set the time etc, but maybe it's just sulking a bit having not been used for 3 years!

If I'm really honest, the thought of doing this again does not fill me with excitement or anticipation. Instead I feel a certain about of something between doom and lethargy about the whole idea. But I know how good it is to set a challenge and actually hit the target. I also know that once I get started it's a lot easier to keep gong than it is to take the first step. 

If you decide to do something similar, you need to know upfront that there will be days when you don't feel like do anything. Days when you will literally have to drag yourself out of bed and out of the house. If you could get fitter just by sitting on the sofa, we'd all opt for that. But the other day I was chatting to someone at the gym and they asked how I felt when I did the challenge. I couldn't quantify my response, it's been 3 years, but I know that there was something special about the experience, even on the hard days. 

Maybe that's it. Maybe it's having done something that wasn't easy, maybe it was persevering when you really wanted to stop. So maybe I need a new challenge, or the same challenge but done in a new way. I don't imagine there are many days when I don't do the equivalent of 10k steps. I might need to think more in terms of simply making sure I do a certain amount of walking each day. Set a percentage of total steps to have to come from walking alone. I don't know. I think I'll need to experiment a bit to find out what an achievable target might be. 

I'll also plot a few routes. I found it really useful to know that if I wanted/needed to do a certain number of steps then this or that route would give me that number.

Well, time to stop thinking and time to start planning and more importantly time to start walking. September will soon be here, and that's a good month to start a new plan.

Tis the end of January

Another month, another set of stats to reflect upon. Of course this month has been different because I've not only carried my trusty pedometer, but I've also had my Polar Loop too.

I've already blogged about the Loop and the way it measures "body movements" which are converted into steps compared to the pedometer that simply measures steps as best it can. Anyway, here are the stats as recorded by the pedometer.

Total steps: 369, 313

Approximate mileage: 185

Despite my calf injury sustained in the last couple of days I actually managed to make my daily target, so that means I've now reached 153 consecutive days of 10k steps a day. On the other hand, January has been my lowest overall total since September.

The Loop recorded the equivalent of 527, 122 steps, which I assume means I swing my arms a lot when I play tennis! Oh, and there's a bit of swimming in there too. Overall, the Loop recorded 7 days 13 hours of activity. This breaks down into 4 days 5 hours standing, 1 day 21 hours walking and 1 day 10 hours running. If I could do 4 miles an hour walking and say 6 running, then I could have travelled 384 miles. That's nearly all the way to Leeds and back!

Of course this is mostly idle speculation and a bit of fun with numbers. Both the pedometer and Loop serve to keep me motivated to get out and be active and I'll take every motivation I can get. I know that it only takes a day to break a habit, no matter how good a habit it is. In fact the better the habit, the easier it is to break it. Bad habits come naturally and are easy to keep, good habits are much hater work.

The calf muscle is responding well to rehab. I can't run, but walking is easier and I'm pleased to have managed to keep going even with the injury.

December 2014 walking stats

I'm not planning on going far in the next couple of hours, in fact staying awake will be enough of a challenge! I'm not big on seeing in the new year.

Anyway, as December ends, it's time to look at the numbers once again. The bear facts are as follows:

Steps taken: 398898
Approx. mileage: 199.45

With no missed days that makes it 122 consecutive days over 10k and a grand total since 1st September of 1592575 steps. My biggest day was 18971, and there were several days over 15k.

So I quite pleased with the effort but now I need to up the intensity of I going to get any fitness benefit. 10k walking will always help keep my heart healthy, but I'm interested in improving my fitness too. Interestingly I set out today to run/walk to the gym for a swim. I actually ran almost all the way. That's about 3 miles, 4.5Km. Knee problems have stopped me running for a long time, but today it just felt okay to run. I'm not planning any long distances, but if I can begin to run 5k on a regular basis that would be great.

The only problem is that the more running I do the fewer steps I take over a given distance. At the moment I estimate I take 20% fewer steps per Km when I run compared to walking. Consequently I'd have to run about 10Km a day to do the 10k steps I do walking 8Km. Given that I ran 4.5Km is 30 minutes, 10Km would take about 66 minutes, which is still faster than I reckon it takes to walk 8Km, but that's all academic given that I can't yet run 10Km!!

What I'll probably do is continue to do my favoured interval training and then do some additional walking.

November Walking Stats

It's the end of another months and time to review the walking stats so far. I've now completed 91 days of my 100-day challenge. I'm beginning to wonder what to do on day 101. I'm thinking of keeping going to the end of the year if possible, but we shall see.

The numbers for November are:

Total steps: 390873

Approximate distance: 195 miles

Best day: 18374

Total steps from day 1: 1193677

Total distance from day 1: 597 miles

Countdown to 100

The walking challenge is going well enough and barring some major interruption I should make my 100 day target on December 9th. Do I feel fitter? No. Do I feel healthier? Again, the answer is no. Odd really, but there you have it. If feeling either fitter or healthier were the goals, then I'd be somewhat disappointed at this stage, but given that neither were of great importance when I set out, I'm not underwhelmed by the outcomes!

The goal was simply a matter of being active. I'm already pretty active, playing and coaching tennis, but I wanted to make sure I was being active everyday as far as that was possible. For me, tracking the level of that activity is a great motivator to keep going. Setting a goal like my 100 consecutive day challenge means that I can't start tomorrow or miss a few days and pick it up again. It means I can't get to 8 o'clock in the evening and think I'll do the missing steps the next day. It all helps to get me in the trainers and out the door.

I guess the obvious point is that you need not only a goal but also to know what will help you achieve that goal. If, having completed my challenge, I decide the next step is to improve my fitness, I will need to do two or three things. First, I'll need to measure my current fitness somehow. This can't be some subjective thing alone like how I feel after playing tennis or walking to the gym. It will need something a little more objective than that. There are some basic fitness tests you can do that measure things like strength, flexibility and endurance. Whatever you choose as your baseline criteria probably depends on what you're trying to improve.

From a tennis playing perspective for example, you might want to try and measure explosive power by using a jump test or endurance by doing short shuttle sprints. One test I used when I first did the 100-day walking challenge was to see if I could maintain 6.5Km/hour for an hour. I'm sure you get the point.

Once you've got your goal, and you've made it realistic and achievable (remember the SMART principle), you'll need a simple plan and a way of testing your change over the period of the plan. Simply repeating whatever you did to measure your starting point is the obvious way to do that. Thirdly, to get an improvement you will need to make a change to some aspect of what you are doing. The training principle is called progressive overload. In training terms you do this through changing one or more of the FITT principles. These stand for:

• Frequency
• Intensity
• Type
• Time

To get an improvement you need to vary one or more of these aspects of your routine. If you only ever do the same thing over and over again, you won't get any training benefit. You won't get fitter or healthier. Some are easier to do that others. If you walk 3 times a week you can increase the frequency by walking 5 times a week. If it's 30 minutes, you can increase the time by making it 40. Intensity goes up by walking faster or uphill, and changing type might mean running rather than walking.

My favourite approach is to use intervals. Intervals are simply alternating periods of high and low intensity activity. These can be evenly spaced, 2 minutes fast walking, 1 minute slower walking, or randomly spaced, 5-3-4-2-6-1. Each of the FITT principles are covered doing this type of training.

With the New Year fast approaching, don't just make some bland resolution to get a bit fitter or become a bit healthier, make a definite plan. You could even start right now and beat the New Year rush. Be the person who goes out on New Year's day for your mooring walk with a smug look on your face as you pass all the folk who've just started out!

You could even put in a request for an activity monitor for Christmas as I have done! That way you'l be able to track your activity everyday!!

Passing the three-quarter mark

So, I've made it past day 75 of my walking challenge and one could almost say the end is in sight. But I'm not sure that's the best way to look at it! The thing is, if you only ever do a challenge in order to complete it, then isn't that only half a job, especially when it comes to health.

Here's my point: unless it produces a change in habit or establishes a new habit, it's only achieved part of the bigger goal. Take yesterday for example. I didn't feel much like going for a walk after I'd finessed coaching in the morning. It started to rain and the only thing that got me out of the house was knowing that it would mean mission my target. So the 100-day challenge did it's job of motivating me to hit the footpaths and pavements. But once I've reached the 100th day, what happens after that? Will I still put on the trainers and waterproofs, gloves and base layers? The answer to that question lies in whether I've formed a new habit or not.

I remember reading somewhere that it takes something like 3 months to form a new habit, but my experience is that a new habit lasts only until you break it. It's at that point that you discover how committed you are to your newly broken habit. Do you get up the next day and start again, or do you give up?

Not all habits are the same of course. Bad habits seem far easier to maintain than good ones! Establishing a good habit takes self-discipline. It's about making disciplined choices, and when you miss a day or make a poor choice, it's about getting back into the routine and not beating yourself up over it.

Even now, 77 days into my 100-day challenge I still have to drag myself out of the house some days. Once I get going it's not too bad, but there are days when even as I stride my way around my chosen route for the day that each step is a drudge. Some days I look at my pedometer and think , "Wow, I've already done 5000 steps," other days I look and think, "What? I'm only half way there!"

So even though I'm into the last 25 days (23 actually) I know how hard it is to stay motivated and to see it through and to move beyond the challenge into a new settled habit of daily exercise. After all, that's what the walking is about.

October stats

Just realised that I hadn't reset the time on my pedometer so it's clicked over tomorrow already. mind you it's 11:20pm and I'm not likely to do anymore walking today anyway! Which brings me nicely to my October stats.

I've had quite a busy final day of the month, what with 3 hours of tennis training and shopping in Tescos. Together that's made today the best day of the month with a total of over 18k steps. My lowest day was 10191. For the month I managed:

Total steps: 415496

Approx miles: 208

I've managed everyday for 61 days now and done 802804 steps since the start of September. That comes to an amazing 401 miles. No wonder my trainers are looking worn. I'm not sure how this compares with the first time I took the challenge, but it's probably fairly similar. Over the 100 days the figures were as follows:

Total steps: 1,260,290

Estimated distance: 630 miles

That puts me about 34000 steps ahead at the moment and would suggest that if I keep going at the same rate I'll do over 1.3M steps by day 100. We shall have to wait and see.

Walk, walk, walk, walk!

With only three days of October left I'm well on my way to completing my 100 day walking challenge. I've already done 58 days, so by the time I hit the mid-way point of November I'll be three quarters of the way through and maybe even past the 1 million step goal. I've had a couple of injuries in October that could have set me back, but they were fairly minor things and with a little careful rehab I managed to keep going.

It has to be said that four years on and without the incentive I had that time, It's a more difficult thing to keep going. By talking about it and blogging about it I feel somehow more accountable and therefore more committed to seeing it through. After two months it certainly doesn't feel like a habit yet, and everyday I have to motivate myself to get out and put one foot in front of the other. Some days are easy because I play tennis. Take Friday for example. This week I'll have 3 hours on court which should mean more than enough steps. But then there's today. apart from the sheer determination to do it, I have no real reason to get out the house and walk anywhere. I might take my book, walk to Lakeside and sit in a coffee shop to do some reading, but that's about it.

I find the best thing to do is to get out as early as I can and do at least 45 minutes. That usually takes me past 6k steps and I feel well on the way to achieving my daily goal. If you only think about do 10k at a time, it's a lot of steps and would typically take me 75 minutes to do. Not many people have 75 minutes a day to set aside simply to walk. But maybe two lots of 30 minutes and then the odd stroll to the shop or round the block can easily push you past the target. You'd be surprised how many steps it takes just to get to the post box and back!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you jut have to get out and do it. Stay determined, set realistic goals, push yourself ocassionally and make it a discipline not an option. So I'm going to get my trainers on, get my stuff together and head out.

Well, maybe in a little while....

Chipping Away at my target

Well, today marks day 40 of the 100-day challenge. Having made it through September, we're now well on the way to the halfway point. I've even been looking a little further ahead to Christmas as the next target.

This last week I've had a companion for most of the walking. Anne's been on holiday and we've walked together. Sometimes it's just been around the village, but we've also had a couple of walk along the river. On Tuesday we visited the Thames Barrier and then walked through the Woolwich foot tunnel under the river. As far as I know there are only the two foot tunnels on this side of the city, and we've used both of them now! I don't know what it is about walking under the river, but I quite enjoy it.

The Greenwich tunnel is 1,215 feet (370.2 m) long and 50 feet (15.2 m) deep. It's cast iron, lined with concrete and tiled. At Woolwich the tunnel is 504m long. Quite how deep it is and how it's constructed I don't know, but it's very similar to the Greenwich tunnel from the inside. The Woolwich tunnel is the less well used of the two, probably because of the ferry service that's available. As a pedestrian it's possibly quicker to cross by foot than by ferry, but I'd have to go and try it to be sure! It would certainly be true when there's only one ferry working! I believe there are around 110 steps at either end of both tunnels, and if you want to test your fitness you can race the lift up. I managed to make it to the top just as the lift arrived. Impressive for a man of my advancing years!

Anyway, what with tunnels and wandering along the river, we managed to make our 10000 target each day and with some tennis thrown in on Monday I think I had my best day with over 27600 steps taken.

Some days are obviously easier than others, but overall, just by walking a bit farther, taking the stairs rather than the lift or escalator, or leaving the car at home, it's possible to get those healthy steps into your schedule.

September Walking Stats

So, the first month of my walking challenge is completed. A back injury threatened to scupper my attempt to complete 100 days just at the end of the month, but I got through that and hit my 10k steps a day target every day.

The bare numbers for September are:

Total steps: 387303

Approx. miles: 194

Average per day: 12910

Last time I did the challenge my average by the end of September was around 12500, but that wasn't just September. I'd have to open up the old spreadsheet to do a direct comparison, and that's not something I'm going to do right now, maybe later.

I'm not sure my schedule is any more of a help or hindrance to achieving my goal. I may not have the walk to the station and back that made hitting 10k easier on the days I didn't get set to go walking, but then again I have more opportunities to include walking and running in my daily activities. So it's back to that simple principle of making disciplined choices day to day. And that's key. The pedometer resets everyday, so you can't just accumulate steps on good days and offset them against the bad days. Everyday you have to go out and reach your goal.

What will be interesting is seeing what sort of impact doing the challenge has on my health and fitness this time around. Last time I was starting from a fairly low point with a lot of weight to lose and distinct lack of fitness. This time I'm much fitter and healthier, so maybe the impact will be less obvious and in turn less motivating. We shall have to see.

By the end of October, if everything goes to plan, I'll be 61 days into the challenge, well over half way and possibly considering how far past 100 days I might go. Will I break the 104 day record from the first time around, will I decided to have a day off to avoid becoming overly obsessed with it all? Who knows? As far as Anne's concerned I'm already obsessed anyway, so why not just keep going!!

Cracking on!

Well, so far I've managed 18 consecutive days of my 10k steps a day challenge. And all without resorting to wandering around the house late at night in a desperate bid to pass the target! It's very interesting both physically and mentally to engage in a challenge. There's the obsessive side of things where you find yourself checking your pedometer every so often through the day to see how you're doing, and the frustration of discovering you haven't gone nearly as far as you thought. Then there's the knowledge phase where you've figured out how many steps it take to do the weekly supermarket shop and factored that into you Friday plan (we shop on Fridays). You also get to know that it's 750 steps to the postbox or that an hour on the tennis court might give you 7k or even 8k if you have to run a lot. You might even become familiar with how many steps there to the bottom of the garden and back.

One of the biggest factors in any challenge is the motivation to keep going. There are ups and downs, highs and lows that catch you unaware from time to time. Just when you think you've got it cracked and that getting up, slipping into your trainers and pounding the streets has become part of your routine an injury or illness looks to stop in your tracks. Then you realise just how hard it is to motivate yourself to either keep going or get going once your back to fitness or health.

I remember the first time I did the challenge I suffered an injury to my calf. Determined not to miss a day, I iced it, elevated it, compressed it and fortunately got back out the very next day with no significant ill effects. I don't recall how far through the 100 days I was at that point, I just remember thinking I needed to keep going. Then we had the snow and the ice that followed, making walking quite difficult. But by then I was well into the challenge and I persevered.

Any of these things could have set me back and caused me to give up, but they didn't. I think that was because the walking challenge was part of a health and fitness programme I was committed to at the time. Both Anne and I wanted to lose some weight and get healthier for our daughter's wedding the following year, so that in itself was a motivating factor.

This time around it's mostly about doing the challenge. Hopefully I'll improve my fitness too, but I want to see if I can achieve the goal just for the sake of the goal. It's a bit like walking coast to coast just because you can. Maybe one day we'll do that too.

I don't know if anyone else has taken up the challenge to do 100 days that I suggested at the beginning of September, but you can start anytime, and even if you have to make two or three restarts it doesn't really matter.

2000 to go!

I know it's only been a week and a day, but I'm beginning to get back into a routine of doing my 10k steps each day. Getting through the weekend was a key this time around because of my new weekend routine of tennis and rugby. If I were simply playing tennis, then I'd probably notch up 10k quite easily, but because I'm coaching it's not quite so easy. And rugby takes up the whole afternoon but doesn't involve me in a lot of exercise. So I was quite pleased to have managed to hit my target both days.

Today I have about 2,000 steps left to do and that shouldn't be a problem. In fact I might go out for a stroll when I've finished this post. Tomorrow marks day 10 of the challenge, which was the initial target set to get me into a routine. My next target will be 25 consecutive days.

I had a quick look at the first time I did this 10k challenge. The statistics ares till quite impressive. Over the course of the year I kept a record I managed a total of 4,565,972 steps, which is about 2,283 miles. That's  about the length of Britain twice or the equivalent of walking from Seattle to Chicago by the looks of it on the map. Given it was only just over 6 miles a day, that suggests a coast to coast walk across America could be done in maybe 100 days? An interesting thought!

In the September of my challenge back in 2010 I managed to do 10k everyday, averaging 12,510. So far I'm ahead of that figure, but it is only the 9th! Still, it will be interesting to see how it goes.

It's not too late to join the challenge. It's good to have company, even if it's only virtual, and we can encourage one another to keep going when the rain and wind and cold and dark closes in on us. I remember days when I watched the rain and in the end had to pull on the waterproofs and just get out there. Then there were the days when the snow had come and then refrozen to create an ice-rink, but somehow I managed to stay upright most of the time and hit my stride each day.

So although you might have missed out on 10 consecutive days by the 14th (I think that's what I suggested), there's still plenty of time to get out and get moving. Of course you might want to include a bit of running now we know we actually does burn more calories, or maybe you could just breathe a bit harder when you walk!

Taking up the walking challenge again!

I can't believe that it's 4 years since I set myself the challenge to walk a million steps in one hundred days. It all started with a challenge to walk 200,000 steps in August 2010. From there I started walking every day and kept a record of steps for the next year. I remember purposely choosing not to walk my daily target of 10k steps around day 105 to try and avoid becoming overly obsessive about it all, but continuing to record and challenge myself over the course of the following year. In August 2011 I set myself the target of walking 500,000 steps in a single month.

Well I think it's high time I took up the challenge again, so I've started to load up my pocket with my trusty pedometer and hit the streets. When it comes to being achievable, targets have to realistic. I'd like to do the 100 days again, and I think I can do it but it's more challenging this time than it was 4 years ago. Back in 2010 I could easily hit my target by walking up to the station and back twice a day. I'd get up and walk with Anne, call in at the office or just walk home again and then later in the day walk back into town or wait until the evening and walk up to the station to accompany Anne home. Now the station is only 8 minutes away, about half a mile, and so I have to make a plan to go and walk each day rather than simply incorporating into my schedule.

We're back to the discipline thing again, something I discovered last time and often talked about when asked how I managed to keep to the plan. So discipline it is. Actually, the last couple of days have been interesting because I've had a cold and not really felt like exercising. So instead of seeing my walk as exercise, I've simply gone out to get some fresh air. I've wandered more than walked purposefully and the steps have accumulated. I find getting a good 30-40 minutes done in one hit is great. It makes a good dent in the numbers game and rather than looking at the pedometer in the afternoon to discover I've only done 1,000 steps I might look and see that I only have another 2,500 to go to hit the 10k marker.

So how about joining me in this challenge? Let's make the first target to achieve 10k steps on 10 consecutive days over the next 2 weeks. That give you 14 days to do it and the chance for a couple of restarts if something should get in the way. I might even offer prizes to those who are nearby enough to not need me to post them!! Or maybe you can offer yourself your own prize. It doesn't have to be extravagant, a water bottle for example might be all you need, or if I'm giving out prizes, all you will get!

The rules will be simple enough: I'll trust you to be honest about what you actually do and the only criteria is that you manage 10 consecutive days. If you don't have a pedometer then I'd recommend the one I use. It's an Omron Walking Style II. It's been replaced I think by the mark III version, but I've seen the MkII still available in a few places. I like it because it seems to work quite well and you can stick it in a pocket rather than having to strap it to your hip like you have to with some devices. You can of course get an app for it with some devices I'm sure.

If you don't have a pedometer or can't wait for delivery to get started, then why not use a mapping app to measure the distance of your walk to the station or the office. For the purposes of this challenge we'll assume that 5 miles (8Km) is equivalent to 10K steps. Or you could use something like Runkeeper or Map my Run on the iPhone to measure a walk.

So that's it. 10 days is the first marker. If you don't quite make it first time around, keep going. when I first started in August 2010 I spent the first month working out was normal for me. That's not a bad idea, there will be plenty of time for you to pick up the challenge, it's never too late to have a go. It might be that hitting 5K will be a big step up for you personally and that 10K is just a step too far (puns intended and apologised for too!)

I hope to get fitter and healthier as a result because in the end just being able to say I've done 100 days again isn't really the point.

Walking vicariously!

Maps are fascinating things. At least in our household! While we don't have a compete set of OS maps, we have quite a few. When you scan the collection, memories of weeks in the Lakes District and the nearly trip to the Peaks come flooding back. We'd not been married very long when we planned to explore camping in the Peak District, only to be summoned to Nottingham for a family crisis. Looking back perhaps we should have said no and stuck to plans to have a holiday, but we're not wired that way at least we weren't then, and we duly took the train to Nottingham and did what we could.

Wherever we've lived and holidayed since, we've always bought maps. Spread out across the dining table, we have searched out footpaths and measured routes for possible walks. When we've gone out to walk we've often got a little lost or followed paths that aren't paths (my lack of colour sight doesn't help distinguish county boundaries from footpaths occasionally). But you do end up discovering places and scenery you never expected to see. You turn a corner and emerge from a wooded area suddenly to discover an amazing panoramic view falling away from you down some valley, or you find yourself wandering through the industrial docklands along the south bank of a river or canal. All very interesting.

Along with the maps are the many guidebooks we've collected. I suspect we could spend several years, if not decades, completing all the walks in all the books that occupy the maps box in the loft! This is when, if you're not careful, you walk vicariously! After all, reading the book is a lot less effort than actually lacing up your shoes and risking getting lost. We joked about this a little yesterday as set out to walk from Limehouse east towards the Thames Barrier.

Now, it's important to note that on Friday I went out for a walk around the village in a pair of trainers I thought were okay but that in fact were not. I ended up with two rather large and nasty blisters on my heels. Not unusual for me, I have awkward feet. But it did mean that they were still rather sore yesterday, and even with padding they were still a little painful at times. This meant that by the time we reached the O2 my feet had had enough, and although I'd have made it to the Barrier and back, it was better to head for home and leave that bit for another day.

So our walk began from Limehouse station via Canary Wharf. Anne was on call, so we had her laptop with us and we dropped it off at the office just in case she got a call. We figured that our intended route meant that she was always in reach of the office if needed. Having deposited the computer, we went off in search of maps and a drink while we decided the route. Two maps and two books purchased from Waterstones, we settled down on Pret a Manger to prepare ourselves.

The route is not complicated, and you don't really need the maps, but we like maps! We followed the Thames Path as is drifts to and from the river front passing all sorts of interesting little places. For example, there's an interesting little site where a large boat was launched broadside into the river and a little further east we discovered an old wharf, now redeveloped, that had the most stunning building, at least o my eyes. It looked rather mill-like with a chimney on one side, and although somewhat asymmetrical in design, it was just wonderful. Turns out it was a colour making factory.

We followed the path the Island Gardens where the Greenwich foot tunnel emerges on the north bank of the Thames (if I remember correctly this is the left bank by convention). Walking under the Thames is a nice cooling break from the hot sunshine we were enjoying above ground. Two idiots came past riding their bikes where they shouldn't be riding, but there are idiots everywhere and these were fine specimens of the species!

On the south side of the river we set off eastwards towards the O2 past the historic building of the Naval Academy. These opulent buildings eventually gave way to more modest architecture and industrialised areas the further east we went. Redevelopment was rife, with new and newish houses and apartments lining the riverside.

A few more twists and turns and we reached a sign that gave us two options. One offered us a mile long walk to the O2 via the riverside, the other a 3/4 mile walk to the same destination but cutting out the bend in the river. We were gong to go the shorter route, but when I saw the footbridge over the road at the entrance to the Blackwall tunnel, I opted for the the extra yards of the riverside path!

We were now in working wharf country as we passed Morden Wharf. Thames Clippers were powering up and down the river creating quite a wash as they did so, and the drone of large machinery at work among the graded sand piles of the wharf, reminded us that this was a working docklands still, no matter how much it has changed in the last 30 years.

Eventually we arrived at the O2 having walked a good 8 or 9 miles so far. Sitting in the restaurant we'd chosen for lunch, we decided that this was far enough for the day and after a lazy lunch we made it to the pier just in time to catch the clipper back to Canary Wharf to collect Anne's laptop and buy ice-cream. I convinced Anne to go for yoghurt instead and we took it out to Woods Wharf where we discovered a large screen and fan park for the Tour de France.

Suitably refreshed we set off home via the Jubilee Line and the C2C from West Ham, bumping into a couple we knew from Upminster. It's a small world!

Training for a challenge?

Training is always a challenge, I guess that's part of the reason we both do it and give up doing it. Whether it's training for a new career (like Sports Massage in my case), or training for an event or just for fitness, it has to be enough of a challenge to make it worth the effort.

In fitness terms, if you don't progressively overload, you won't actually achieve any improvements. In other words, if your exercise routine is always manageable and doesn't leave you out of breath and sweating, then you're probably not working hard enough.

I'm aware that I need a new challenge if I'm going to take the next step when it comes to maintaing and improving my fitness and health. Sadly, doing 30 minutes of moderate exercise 5-7 days a week just to keep my heart healthy doesn't seem to be enough of a motivation for me to get out and pound the streets. I need something else to make me want to lace up my trainers or my new Vibram Five Finger shoes.

Since I first heard about the Oxfam Trailwalk, my interest was piqued. Could I walk 100Km in 30 hours? It doesn't seem too difficult, it's only just under 3.5Km an hour average (that's only just over 2mph), but it is 100Km! The furthest I've walked in a single day is around 24Km, but that was a while ago and I didn't do any training for that. So I reckon, with some proper fitness training I could manage significantly more, but could I get to 100Km.

This is where some short term and medium term goals might come in handy. So I thought I might set myself the goal of doing a 50Km walk sometime next year, maybe May. It's just a thought at the moment, but maybe this would be a good goal and a good stepping stone towards the 100Km trail! I'll need to work out a training schedule of course, but I can put all that PT training to good use.

Two years ago my 10k step challenge kept me motivated for a whole year as I played with various milestones (forgive the pun) along the way. If I'd have set out to do 4 million steps in a year, then that target would have seemed way to big to get anywhere near. Imagine how far away it would have looked after a couple of weeks! But I did it by setting a daily target. When I wanted to push the challenge a bit more, I went for 500,000 steps in a single month. I need to recapture some of that mentality for a new challenge.

So here's to the crazy idea of looking to walking to Southend and back in a single day! That's about 60Km from where I live, if you follow the main route. I wonder if there is a road to Southend that is the road less travelled?

Achieving something

There are days, weeks even, when the though of achieving anything is a somewhat utopian ideal. At least it feels like that! It's nice, then, to be able to report that I actually did achieve something in August, if only in the arena of counting steps.

At the beginning of the month I set myself the goal of taking 500,000 steps in a month. I'd never done this before. In fact I think I only broke the 400k barrier once or maybe twice last year. (I've just looked, it was three times!) So 500k was, to pardon the pun, quite a step up. It meant doing the equivalent of nearly 8.5 miles of walking a day, every day for a month. In a straight line, that would be about 250 miles. Imagine where you would be if you travelled 250 miles from home.

But I did it. It took quite an effort in the last three days because I had one day when I didn't walk at all, doing only 2000 steps. Now at the beginning of the month making up the difference over the course of a week would have been okay, but I had three days. That meant 10 miles a day, but I had a plan. On Tuesday we went to this event with Shane Claiborne and I made sure I walked everywhere I could. On that day I did 31k steps, which made it a whole lot easier to complete the job. So, yesterday afternoon as I set out to walk to church to do a small job, I passed the 500k mark. There were no balloons or major celebrations.

To be honest it has been far more difficult to hit a daily target of 16k than 10k for obvious reasons. It's further! But it's more than that. I can do 10k just walking to the station and back twice a day with Anne. That's a fairly steady, even distribution of steps. But the higher target relied more heavily on big days making up for low days. And by low I mean down around 12k! Anything below 10k was really low.

So, for example, I had 7 days over 20k and 1 day over 30k. I had 9 days where the cumulative average was below target, and overall I missed my target on 16 days. So it was a lot tougher than any previous challenge. But in the end I made it and I'm glad I did. To have missed out would probably have meant that I would have tried again, although probably in October because that's the next month with 31 days!

I guess I've learnt that I can do 8 miles a day, that 15 miles is still possible, and that it takes a large dose of disciple to sustain yourself to the end.

What's next? Well I will probably keep using the pedometer, but I'll stop keeping a daily record. I'll walk less, but I'll swim more. I haven't been in the water for a long time. I pulled a shoulder muscle or damaged a tendon of some sorts that kept me out of the water and I couldn't swim and do my 16k steps every day. So maybe this month I'll swim more if the shoulder is okay.

End of the year!

Having faithfully carried my pedometer since August 1st 2010, I've completed a whole year of recording my steps. The bare statistics paint one picture, but the whole is more than the sum of the parts. July saw the greatest number of steps taken in a single month since I started to keep a record (422766) compared the previous highest which turns out to be June! So the last two months were the most successful if you count success in terms of steps taken.

But what if you count days when more than 10k steps were taken (the daily target)? Well, that would make May the best because I didn't miss a day and I took the most steps in a month when I didn't miss a day.

The value of the pedometer is not just in the simple accumulation of steps, but also in the motivation to monitor activity. It's so easy to sit at the desk for a day and do nothing. The numbers, for me at least, got me out of the house and into my trainers.

So, for the last time in the past 12 months, here are the facts:

From August 1st I've walked a total of 4,565,972 steps, which is about 2283 miles at an average of 6.25 miles per day.

The pedometer will stay in the pocket as a reminder to get out and walk, but I think I might just stop keeping a long term record although I might set myself a new target, I'm not sure. I'm still wondering if I could hit 500, 000 steps in a single month. Given that August has 31 days, it might not be a bad month to try!