How
about ten thousand?
Twenty?
Twenty
thousand steps. Are you ready for twenty thousand steps?
Earlier
today I went out for a short walk. Very hot day. Only wanted to
add something different to some exercise I did in the house and
switch things up a bit. (Treadmills and ankle weights are fine,
but switching it up once in a while and getting outside is a great
thing.) Still… managed to bring about two-thousand steps to the
rest of my work for the day.
Didn’t
take long. Like I said, it was hot out. But it did get me wondering.
The
estimates place two thousand steps as the number most people will
take to walk a mile. Other averages say people visiting a Disney
theme park will hit about fourteen to eighteen thousand steps
during the day.
Now,
I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been to Disney parks. Different smartphones
and even pedometers used by friends have said I’ve turned in well
over 15,000 steps and covered several miles on those days.
It
did not feel like I turned in enough steps during that short walk
today where doing the same seven or eight more times would match
a day at the Magic Kingdom or Hollywood Studios.
For
me, I think a lot of it comes down to motivation. Kind of a personal
reward system. Eight hundred steps to the Haunted Mansion? No
problem. Thirty steps to get to the end of the driveway with the
trash? Exhausting.
There
are plenty of sayings—many cliches—that are based on the concept
of momentum. Doesn’t matter the destination and doesn’t matter
how far. To get there, you still need to begin moving. You have
to cover the first mile. You have to take the first step. Wise
advice in those thoughts.
And
yet I often wonder about the journey.
Is
it hot out? Cold? Sunshine, rain or snow? I can definitely cover
more ground at around sixty-eight degrees, partly cloudy, wearing
shorts and sneakers than I ever will if its ninety-five and full
sun or twenty-five while wearing boots and trudging through fourteen
inches of snow.
(Since
I’m not walking to school or talking to my kids, I do recognize
that walk in the snow isn’t uphill both ways.)
And
what’s the end of the journey? Haunted Mansion is all well and
good, but maybe we need something a little more everyday in place.
Am I walking to work? The post office? Just out for an evening
stroll to get some fresh air?
I
accept that getting started can be the hardest part. It’s not
just a concession to momentum, it’s a recognition that inertia
can be a pain in the backside.
What
I also realize from watching my smartphone apps is that a thousand
steps is, on its own, not as far as you might think.