In a few hours, I will be getting up at midnight to start the 100,000 step challenge. I have been slowly ramping up with 20,000 steps. Then 40,000 steps, and last Friday, 70,000 steps. Here’s my journal courtesy of iHealth from my iPhone:
You feel like a kid inching a little further in the ocean, making sure you can stomach the cold sea water. With these last 70,000 steps, the water is up to my shoulders, and now I feel confident I can take the full dive.
Depending on your stride, 100,000 steps is somewhere between 40 and 50 miles. Since I am doing this challenge so late in the season, there isn’t much light for walking. The sun comes up at 6:30 am and sets at 4:30 am. This 100,000 steps could take the measure of twenty hours for me to accomplish so I’ll start in the dark on the treadmill and return to the dark on the treadmill.
I will give a full report on what to take for the walk, what to wear, and how to prepare yourself. People ask me why I am doing this. It is for three reasons.
- I am doing the walk because it is hard, because I am sixty-six years old and I need a challenge that pushes me big time but perhaps not to the extreme.
- This old guy is also walking for an exceptional eight-year-old, Andrei Marti. Andrei has raised over 20,000 dollars for Juvenile Diabetes Research before his eighth birthday. I thought is was time to play it forward and help raise money for Andrei’s Diabetic alert dog. You can learn more about it and donate here.
- Tomorrow is Black Friday. In honor of the big day, the sports concern, REI, of which I am a co-op member, is closing its one hundred and sixty-six stores and celebrating #optoutside by encouraging people to enjoy a day of outdoor activity.
In the synergistic confluence of the Internet, I am also hoping that REI will find my quest to raise money for Andrei’s dog by writing out a check that will change his life.
I have had the privilege of having dogs all my life, and know what power they can have in every day living. My Corgi, Arthur, has been in training, too. He’ll be joining me for part of the walk. So I will see you on the other side of this. Hopefully, I will be able to live and tell of it.
