Amy and I have signed up to do the GCC 100 day, 10,000 step challenge along with some of our colleagues from Event Durham. The GCC challenge aims to take you on a 100 day virtual tour around the globe, with a daily target of 10,000 steps per team member. Teams are made up of 7 members who have all been provided with a cutting edge accelerometer, which tracks daily activity.
The University has a total of 16 teams made up of individuals from different departments. Amy and I are part of “Event Durham Dynamos”.
The 100 day journey began on the 28th May, filled with lots of enthusiasm! We went on a team walk at lunch time and lots of us managed to clock up 10,000 steps by the time we had left the office. After day 1 I think the reality of the challenge dawned on us.. 100 days is a long time, it takes us up until September, and 10,000 daily steps is actually really challenging some days.
We have both been doing all we can to bump up our steps each day. I’ve been getting off the bus 4 stops early and walking half way to work and doing the same on the way home, Amy has been getting up earlier in the morning to take her doggies out and has been taking part in lots of tennis matches. She even managed to clock up an impressive 23,000 steps on a day trip to Alton Towers!!
We’re doing really well so far, and our team has an average of 12,300 daily steps. As a team we’ve walked a total of 249 miles, which has taken us from Versailles to Bruges on our virtual tour of the globe and we’re only on day 8! We’re not going to lie though.. some days are really hard! When you work in an office you can easily get to the end of the day with only 3000 steps and the thought of going for a run or getting off the bus half way home isn’t that appealing, especially when it’s raining.
That said we’re definitely enjoying it. Our team is very encouraging and competitive and we’re all taking those steps to become more active in our daily lives! We’re having lots of fun and would definitely recommend getting a pedometer and challenging yourself to walk 10,000 steps a day!
Pia