I have walked and jogged and ran quite a bit since the pandemic began some 87 years ago, but this summer I decided to step it up (unfortunate pun intended).
100,000 steps per week, every week, for twenty weeks. Two million steps. Sounded like a reasonable goal. I didn’t think about my Fitbit dying, being sick, being injured, plans, writing, just not wanting to fucking go outside. Making up for those days though, really pushing myself to get to 100,000k, those days truly made it worth it and the experience and the accomplishment all the more rewarding. I ended up taking 2,038,018 steps, which ended up a bit under 1,000 miles. Which in retrospect, that should have been the goal. (I dumped the data on Facebook if you really wanna see/really just wanna be my friend).
“Every walk is a sort of crusade,” so said Thoreau.
“I would walk for six or eight hours a day, composing thoughts that I would later jot down on paper,” wrote Nietzsche, who by his thirties would walk closer to ten hours a day and write much of which he is known for. “Sit as little as possible; do not believe any idea that was not born in the open air and of free movement — in which the muscles do not also revel… Sitting still… is the real sin against the Holy Ghost.”
This summer on my walks, I also listened to Atomic Habits, a book that is billed as “an easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones.” Lots of great stuff in there: we imitate the people we envy. Only turn the TV on if you know what you want to watch. Never make a single aspect of your identity an overwhelming portion of who you are. Until you work as hard as those you admire or envy, don’t explain away their success as luck. And so on.
A big one was making habits more attractive by rewarding oneself or combining habits. “Doing the thing you need to do means doing the thing(s) you get to.”
So usually if I want to read the news, check my personal Instagram, I do it while walking. If I want to listen to a particular podcast, I do so by walking. I make work calls in the middle of a two hour hike.
I walk more than I run, but by combining habits I feel like I am getting more done, even when large chunks of time are dedicated to clearing my head, or thinking about my writing, or brainstorming for the printing company I co-own. Not all of these tasks are rewarding, but it allows me to multitask and often breaks up my walks into nice chunks, which itself is rewarding.
I much prefer the outdoors to the gym. Now that it’s winter in Michigan I imagine running through snow and chopping wood and basically just living my best Rocky 4.
I would recommend doing the same. Maybe listen to Atomic Habits while you do. If you happen to live in Michigan, Joseph Beyer just wrote about some great places to have a winter walk. And regardless, good luck and happy trails. Keep on truckin’.
