Steps Milestone

By Drew Hanson

Last spring, I decided to up my pedestrian game. I set a goal of getting a minimum of 10,000 steps each day. I missed a day here and there for the first few months but not again since July 5th. That means I have been able to get over 10k steps for 187 consecutive days—every day for over six months. That’s not an average. It’s a minimum that equates to at least four miles per day.

My neighborhood rail-trail

Some days I drive to a trailhead for a hike. Some days I add a walk to a driving errand. Other days my work in outdoor recreation gets me steps. About half of days, though, my steps come from within my home neighborhood. Having a rail-trail nearby is helpful and is one of the reasons I chose our house.

In spite of WalkScore.com’s surprisingly low walk score of 45 for my home, in various directions within a comfortable 0.7 mile walk of my home are a grade school, middle school, hardware store, public library, parks, playgrounds, and a few restaurants. My family and I frequently walk to these and other destinations. (I first wrote about walk scores in 2014 in Move Reveals Walk Score Flaws.)

Attaining at least #10kStepsPerDay satisfies something I was seeking for a decade. I wrote about it in 2012 in A Daily Walk. Goal accomplished!

The #10kStepsPerDay routine has me feeling more energized, more positive, and I lost a few pounds. Give it a try and follow #10kStepsPerDay.

How long can I can keep this streak going?