walkin'

[clickie]

Apple's Health and Fitness Center has cunningly come up with a brilliant fitness plot for employees: 10K-a-day. We're supposed to sign up and get these cheap little pedometers, and then try to achieve 10,000 steps per day. This is brilliant on a few levels: 1) nerds really like numbers and quantification. A lot of people got pedometers because they just wanted to quantify the number of steps they walked here and there, and how many steps they walked versus other people. 2) the program was for January and February. These are the gloomy, rainy months. Most people who would otherwise be outside doing stuff are sad and indoors because it's too wet and muddy to do stuff. Perfect time for us all to go walking!

Anyway, this has been going on since Jan 13. I have found out that I actually really enjoy walking a lot. I have stopped taking the elevator at work, which adds quite a bit of walking to my day, since I have a fourth-floor office. I've been walking around the vicinity of Apple a bit more, like out to the store and stuff. I've started trying to walk in our local regional park on weekends more, since it's so nice there and it's too muddy to bike anyway.

I am not a big fan of painful working out, because while I understand its merits, I am too much of a pain-averse lazy person to really want to go to the gym more than twice a week. I do still try to do what I can in terms of painful working out, but realistically speaking, that means gym once or twice a week, and a bike ride once or twice a week when it gets nice. Walking, though, is something I can do every day. I always get antsy in my office in the afternoon, which is an ideal time to go for a stroll outside. You get to see the plants and stuff, too. The campus flowering plum trees are about to bloom any day now.

So, yay for walking! I will probably continue to pursue walking as an activity even after this silly program is over. Good job, Apple Health and Fitness!

Comments

something about feb?

[asd109.livejournal.com]

Our work just started something like this too. Ours is an 8 week walking program--and you buddy up with someone to give you incentive to go walk at least 3 times a week for 8 weeks. They check your stats before and after the 8 weeks to see if you've improved. It's also nice because they've mapped out 1, 2, and 3 mile loops starting from our office which is very handy.