Walking Regimen Uptick

Spring brings flowers, and showers, hot days and cold days, but also a better-than-average chance Apollo and I will get our walking completed before the sun sets most days.  For the month of April, thus far, I’ve only missed three days, and two of those days were spent driving to and from North Texas for Easter.

I wear a pedometer everyday.  I record my steps at SparkPeople.com, where I can run nifty reports and generate interactive graphs.  Below is a snapshot of the graph of my step stats for April 2012 (up to Saturday the 28th):

My Steps Stats Graph (April 2012)
My Steps Stats Graph (April 2012)

At the beginning of the year, I set a personal goal of walking 7,000 steps per day, 3,000 shy of the ideal recommend daily step value of 10,000.  As you can see from the year-to-date weekly step total graph below, only in the last week of April have I finally reached my personal step goal.

Weekly Steps Total (Jan - Apr 2012)
Weekly Steps Total (Jan - Apr 2012)

I’m striving to exceed a minimum of 7,000 steps per day through the end of May.  Then I will reset my goal accordingly (depending on what my average looks like).

As posted earlier this week, I’ve joined a team sponsored by my employer to walk next month in the KC Heart Walk.  The event includes a one mile and a three mile route.  I am ‘in training’ for the longer route, although according to the route map I created this morning via SparkPeople.com, my trek to the end of West Mary Street exceeds that length by just a bit (3.17 Miles / 5.1 Kilometers), and includes a nice incline up to the halfway turnaround point at DeSoto Road.

Now, a look in more detail at the last seven days of walking, six of them with Apollo.

TypicalSunday, April 22nd, hour long walk with Apollo to Bittersweet Street on West Mary Street and back.  Very windy and cloudyPedometer: 9,859 steps

Monday, April 23rd, short half-hour walk with Apollo around neighborhood.  Pedometer: 6,328 steps

Tuesday, April 24th, short half-hour walk with Apollo to the Lansing Community Center and back.  Pedometer: 7,538 steps

National Walk at Lunch Day
National Walk at Lunch Day

Wednesday, April 25th, I participated in the National Walk @ Lunch Day sponsored by my employer and my health insurance company.  I joined several of my co-workers for a thirty minutes walk down the Trolley Track Trail along Brookside Boulevard in the South Plaza neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri.  Because Wednesday also broke temperature records in the area (for heat), Apollo and I lazed around the house with Terry Wednesday, catching up on some shows recorded recently on the DVR. Pedometer: 6,881 steps

Apollo close up while I tied my shoeThursday, April 26th, Apollo and I ventured around the Lansing Town Centre area for an hour.  Pedometer: 8,834 steps

Friday, April 27th, Apollo and I looped around the high school, down the hill on East Mary Street to Hillbrook and back west through neighborhood along Hithergreen.  Pedometer: 7,952 steps

Saturday morning, April 28th, Apollo and I set out to traverse all of West Mary Street, from one end to the other, a route of over three miles with some nice hills and sidewalks.  Pedometer: 7,869 steps 11,585 steps *

To summarize the past week, here’s another graph produced thanks to the reports feature at SparkPeople.com:

My Steps Stats for the Last Week of April 2012
My Steps Stats for the Last Week of April 2012

I plan to continue this pace, and increase it, over the next few weeks so that come Saturday, May 19th, I won’t be a straggler in my first ever Heart Walk.

* As of 4:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon, after shopping, my total steps reached a whopping 11,585.  And the day’s not over yet!