Step On

For those of you that don’t know, I’ve always been a bit of a collector… Actually, wait…. that’s not quite right. Let me try that again….

For those of you that don’t know, I’ve always been a bit obsessive. Yes, much better. This was recognised from an early age when I would happily pour my pocket money into collecting whatever thing that was my currently focus of attention; badges, stickers, key-rings, novelty rubbers. The latter of which I must hastily clarify where erasers! What the object de jour was didn't really matter. I was a collector and therefore I shall collect. To the ill informed outsider, this might look like hoarding but it was serious business. Every chance that came along, I would seek out new objects to add to my collection and then, suddenly and without warning, I would stop and move onto something else. 

The arrival of the digital age hasn’t really stopped me, and instead has instead presented even more ways to obsess over things. It is sad to think that the joy of browsing though secondhand shops for a much sought after record may has been taken away by the digitisation of music. I just can’t quite see anyone in the future getting misty-eyed about the first time they streamed an album or purchased a download. But with the increased digitisation of things, comes an abundance of data. And that, my friends, is a rich seam of obsessiveness that just has to be plundered. 

And of all of the digital data currently at my fingertips, my latest obsession has been steps. And by that I mean the act of movement and not the late 90s pop sensations. 

I fear that it is the sign of the times that counting daily steps should be a target of any kind. Isn’t that something that we should just do? But somewhere down the line, someone decided that 10,000 steps a day would be a suitable goal for modern times. And it is no less applicable in New Zealand than anywhere else in the world. 

Quite how New Zealand, with its abundance of sunshine, warm climate outdoor opportunities, became such a car-centred society is partly geographic but also because construction of the required infrastructure just hasn't kept pace with modern life. 

When we arrived, and colleagues found out that we hadn’t bought a car yet, they were all too quick to point out that we’d made a mistake by not going to a car sales yard immediately after disembarking from the airplane. Jet lagged or not. Apparently a car should’ve been a higher priority than finding accommodation. After all, you can’t drive to the beach in an apartment but you can sleep in the car.  Eventually, after about four weeks of constant reminding, we caved and bought a car. I’d be the first to admit that it was useful for helping us get around all of the viewings of rental properties and for getting emergency furniture whilst we waited for our house contents to arrive, but as time went on and we settled into our new surroundings it became used less and less.

These days, outings in our car are limited to a short trip on Saturday morning to the local parkrun. This, our only concession to a car based lifestyle, could be replaced by a bus trip or even running to the start line. But that would require us to get out of bed even earlier on a Saturday morning. Unlikely to happen anytime soon. If we were allowed a do-over, the car would’ve remained in the sales yard and we would simply hire a vehicle when there was no other option. Which is rare, especially as we live in the centre of Auckland.

So, recognising that I was probably a little unusual - hey I heard that! - I started to track how many steps I was taking and like most obsessions, it sort of crept up on me. At first it was a sort of casual interest, occasionally checking an app on my phone to see what I had done. But this didn’t last long as once I noticed that the app gave out badges for particular achievements and in doing so you were allocated points. Yes, I had suddenly found my new obsession. Digital badges for physical achievements. Nirvana! The 7-day badge was a breeze. As was the 14 day award. A month? No worries. The three month badge was obtained without any real problem and before long I was on my way to getting the final achievement - a 365 day streak. 

You would be excused for thinking that as I walk to work, clocking up the steps wouldn’t be a problem - surely my commute in itself would let me get the required number of steps? The problem is that I am only a seven minute walk from the office which is just too close - in many ways. In fact, if you’re interested, it’s 826 steps too close. So I had to devise an alternative. Instead of taking the shortest route to my place of work, I headed in the opposition direction and did loops around the local park. I was spotted by colleagues on some occasions who later queried why I was walking in the opposite direction to the office. Did I not want to be in work? There are some questions that don’t need to be answered.

As the days counted down, the goal seemed to get father from my reach, especially during the last few weeks when as the day of reckoning approached, I became convinced that I would come down with the flu or twist my ankle.

Thankfully, I never injured myself to point of incapacitation, or succumbed to a virus - apparently there was one going around - but that's not to say that there weren’t some close shaves. On those occasions, when my daily obligations didn't allow much freedom of movement, I had to resort to walking in loops around the living room in my PJs until the display on my watch ticked over to the magic number. Crazy? Perhaps. But there was a digital badge at stake.

Soon, the final day was here and before sunset I needed one final effort. It just happened to be a Saturday and with the weekly 5k run usually being competed in the morning, getting sufficient steps shouldn’t be a problem. But I wanted to make sure. I wasn’t going to fall at the last hurdle so I got out of bed extra early and went for a walk around the park. By the time I lined-up at the start of the run at 0800am I already had 6,500 steps in the bag.

Thankfully I completed the run without any problems and somewhere out on the course, I clocked up 10,000 steps for the day. I was done. 

With the year that we've all had, I was quite pleased with my achievement even if there wasn’t anything physical to show for it. But in reality there was. Okay, call me Muttley, a finishers medal would’ve been nice, but I got something much more valuable. Not only had my daily walking  helped me keep physically fit, but was also all the encouragement I needed to get out of the house, get some fresh air and unwind. Lock-down would’ve been much tougher without it.

There was one negative side effect. I couldn't stop. Even though there are no more badges to collect, I still felt compelled to clock up 10,000 steps each and every day. I had tried deliberately not getting the steps I needed, only to find myself once again late at night, doing loops around the living room. I needed to take drastic action. So, with just a few days to go before I broke the 400 day streak barrier, I deleted the app and all of the data*. It's time to move on. But before I do that, I’ll leave you with some of the statistics from the past 12 months;

Total steps taken = 6,020,567

Total distance covered = 4,695km

Average steps per day = 14,649

Average distance per day = 11km

So what now? Good question but I’m not entirely sure. Something will present itself in due course. There's a cycling challenge coming up in February so maybe that. In the meantime, I have been meaning to properly index my record collection. And I really should so something about the organisation of photographs on the computer…..

*but not before emailing myself a copy first of course! I'm not that crazy!