In like a really sick lion…

No, I haven’t forgotten about my step challenge. I just haven’t had a chance to post yet. I write a lot of my blog posts on the go (in the airport, on the train, etc) but the step one requires a little more thought, because I have numbers to crunch.  So I’ve been trying to squeeze in the time and….

I’m not even fooling myself.

Look, that’s really bs. I didn’t write the post because I didn’t want to look at the numbers. When I set this goal, I thought that 3,000,000 steps was doable: enough of a challenge to motivate me, but not too much that I wouldn’t be successful. Now, three months down, and each month I’m falling further behind. I’m really not sure I’m going to make it.

March was supposed to be my bounce-back month. I had a new job, and I was breaking free of my old routines. But I started the month very, very, very (very) sick with this icky flu that kept me pretty much in bed, except when I was working, because how can you call in sick your first week at a new job??? Once I was feeling better, I thought I would jump back into my routine, but it didn’t really happen.

My current job is a lot more sedentary than my old job. In my old job, I could easily do 6,000-8,000 steps a day before I even got to exercise. So if I only ran two or three days a week, I was still good, most of the time. My new job is a lot more of sitting on the phone, working at a desk, for days at a time. I have to learn new habits. Like I really want to get up and move in the middle of the day. But so far, something always interferes and I end up working 12-13 hours straight.

OK, enough dilly-dallying. Here are the (pathetic) stats:

142,777 steps, or 64.32 miles

I walked 142,777 steps. That is just over 64 miles. I only ran 8 miles the whole month. The rest was walking, but to be fair, most of it was fast walking. As I was getting better, running wasn’t an option. I mean, my lungs were filled with fluid, so running would have been foolish.

March 19 was my best day, with 11,665 steps.  I met my 8,000 step goal 8 days and 3 days I had over 10,000 steps.

So lets look at the quarter. Here is a quick chart that shows my declining progression:

Month	Goal	Jan	Feb	Mar
Steps:	250,000	234,863	192,816	142,777
Miles:	115	107	87	64

In three months, I should have gone a total of 750,000 steps. I’m almost 180,000 steps behind. It seems like a very big deal. So now I have to decide what I’m going to do about it. Do I give up? Do I adjust my goal to something more reasonable. To I fight harder to make up the difference? I’m not sure what I’m going to do, other than try harder in April and see how it goes. I don’t know if I do have it in me, but I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet.

 

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