My Steps Story

Let me take you back to Jan 2021 when on the phone my friend casually mentioned some of her colleagues had set themselves a challenge of walking 5,000,000 steps this year and was I up for it??
– Sure I said, in the back of my mind thinking that will be weekends up the 3 Peaks, across the Brecon Beacons and over the Yorkshire Moors.
After I laid down in a dark room and cried a bit, I had a word with myself, shook it off and consulted my head and assistant coach — Google and Excel spreadsheet.
During 2020 I had started walking like most people during lockdown and already aimed to hit a minimum of 10k steps, initially just tracking in my phone. In June 2020 I purchased a second hand
Fitbit (£10) to see if I got in with it and the app and tracking that way — it’s still serving me well!! Lol

Google helps me work out an average daily step target — 20k. On the spreadsheet I was noting the date, steps achieved that day, a running total, weekly total, monthly total and remaining steps to hit 5 million and a lot of formulas!! Haha
20k steps per day meant I would hit 5million on 07/09/21 and would be the 250th day off walking 20k per day.

I marked days 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 to have as my target markers to keep on track.
I developed a number of “hacks” — taking steps both feet at a time, leaving the food shop in the hall and unpacking it 1 item at a time, moving whilst brushing my teeth, in a queue, waiting for the kettle to boil. To be honest once I got into it, achieving 20k a day just fitted into daily life. I developed my mantra ‘standing still is wasted steps’ lol
I did have some days where the motivation was hiding, but I just had to tell myself, don’t let today be the day I didn’t hit 20k.
Soon with an extra hundred or thousand steps a day soon added up I was a day or so ahead of my target days already.
Slowly but surely D Day was no longer day 250 and over time was creeping closer and closer.

So here it was staring me in the face, highlighted neon green on the spreadsheet 29th Aug 2021 would be the day I reach 5 million steps. However it didn’t quite work out like that or go according to plan.
As I woke up on Saturday 28th Aug and entered my steps from Friday it showed what my remaining steps were. It was over 20k and for some reason hitting that 5 million mark ¾ of the way through the day just didn’t feel right — so that was decided 5 million would be reached by COP TODAY!! So I pulled a PB out the bag and received 2 Fitbit badges in one day.
Saturday 28th Aug 2021 saw me complete 35,351 steps and hit 5 MILLON STEPS!!