110,689 steps

I'm not going to talk today about writing or the new anthology or interesting characters or books I like or music I play while writing. And I'm not going to talk about the upcoming presidential election.

Boring.

No. Today I'm going to talk a little about walking.

For the first time today (Friday), I walked 10,000 steps on 10 consecutive days. Now that may not seem like a lot, and perhaps it's not. But for me it was a goal a long time in coming.

I started keeping track of the number of steps I take everyday back in early April, about three months after I got a new iPhone that counts them. Without trying, I only averaged about 2,600 steps a day before April 6. For me, that's about a mile. But when I noticed that my phone counts my steps, I decided a mile every day wasn't nearly enough.

It was spring and often chilly outside but I started walking longer and longer distances every day. It took about two weeks for me to reach 10,000 one day but time and weather conspired to keep me from doing it more than a couple of times a week. That is until May 19. From then until May 27 -- nine straight days -- I walked at least 10,000 steps a day, for a total of 98,396 steps.

But then, summer intervened.

Although I have a gym membership, I love walking outside, generally alone and listening to music or just daydreaming. But I hate walking in the heat. Eighty degrees or higher is too much for me, unless absolutely necessary. And since I easily succumb to sloth earlier in the day when it's cooler, it was hard to put a string together of more than four consecutive 10,000-step days. And then there's also the issue of rain. I will walk in the rain but not a lot.

It is September now and it's cooler, although I generally still don't walk until later in the day. And so now I have managed it. In the last 10 days, my iPhone has counted 110,689 steps, meaning I walk around four miles a day.

In fact, I have walked at least 10,000 steps a day on 16 of the last 17 days and on 17 of the last 19.
Hooray for me. And I have lost weight. I'm down about seven pounds from what I weighed last March, although I haven't much changed my eating habits. (That's next, actually.)

But sadly, the streak is about to end.

I have a book signing out of town tomorrow (Saturday) and will be gone most of the day. And  on Sunday, we plan to visit our daughter in college after we leave church. By the time I get home, I'll be too tired on both those days to walk much.

But Monday starts a new week and with it will come a new challenge. For the year, I now have averaged 6,200 steps a day and I want to keep it at that level through the fall and winter. That means when it gets cold in a couple of months -- anything below about 35 -- I'll have to walk at the gym. But, like I said, I have a membership and I can use the other weight equipment to improve the rest of my body.

So I'm happy -- thrilled, really. You may not care and in the general scheme of things it probably doesn't rate much. But I've told you anyway.

So sue me.

But thanks for reading.