Fifteen years ago, I started a program through work that “encourages you to track your steps and help you to focus on your fitness in a simple and accessible way.” They gave us a tracker, which attached to your shoe and used “an accelerometer to accurately calculate the number of steps, distance walked, calories burned and time of activity.” I received that first tracker fifteen years ago today. After a little more than three and a half years, the program shut down and I finished with a little more than 6.5 million steps.
That same week, I ordered my first Fitbit, looking to continue tracking my steps. Which worked out well, at least until March of 2020 when a global pandemic caused the world to shut down for a year or so and for me to become a remote worker.
I crossed the 10 million step plateau in 2016, 15 million in 2018, 20 million in 2020, 25 million in 2023, and 30 million earlier this year. To date, my total is 30,439,765 steps over 15 years, which averages out to a little over 2 million steps per year and 5600 steps per day. In the early days, this was well above my goals, but I’ve been hoping for more for quite some time now. I started looking to get 2,000,000 steps in those first few years, which I had a difficult time making. As I moved over to the Fitbit from the Global Fit tracker, I started meeting those goals and, subsequently, increasing them each year. These last six years have seen incredible backslides, but I’ve started to inch back upwards this year thanks to some weight loss and increased energy and stamina.
Along the way, I participated in some 5Ks, hiked up a mountain, traveled the world, and endured a global pandemic, racking up steps along the way. Now that my world is opening back up again, here’s hoping the next 15 years are even better.
The good times keep rolling as I surpassed my daily goal twice and finished above 40,000 steps for the twelfth straight week. Things got off to a nice start on Sunday thanks to a morning walk and a trip to Wrigley Field to pick up a Harry Caray bobblehead, leaving me 16 steps shy of 8800. Thanks to an early morning eye doctor appointment on Monday, I fell back a bit, ending up 23 steps away from 5600. A quiet Tuesday left me a mere 6 steps short of 6500. Colonoscopy prep, and the requisite trips to the facilities, on Wednesday pushed me back over my daily goal, ending with 7900 steps. Said colonoscopy limited me to 4400 steps on Thursday. Friday bounced back in a big way, finishing with 7000 steps on the nose. A return to Rate Field for my first game of September on Saturday wrapped up the week with 7200 steps.
