How did you/would you walk 1000 miles in a year?

[MariaWaria]

I'm noticing threads appearing where posters mention their achievements in 2018 with some mentioning they set themselves a challenge of walking 1000 miles in a year and plan to do it again.

I've become lazy, hardly walk at all except around the house and the shops. Obviously, this is not good for my fitness, weight or sense of wellbeing.

I'd like to challenge myself to walk 1000 miles in 2019 - I tend to respond to this sort of thing rather than just decide to walk to the shops occasionally.

Has anyone done the 1000 miles challenge or similar? How did you set about it? How did you record your progress? Guidance and ideas appreciated.

The easiest way would be to build it into your daily routine. If your work is 2 miles away or the shops are half a mile away you're sorted. Obviously if you have a dog that needs walking you'll need to walk about that far on dog walks...

I used to walk that much when I lived in London, but now it's a 20 mile drive to work with free parking there, and a 6 mile drive to the shops walking has to be "going for a walk" which is far less appealing because I like to be walking to somewhere, not wandering around aimlessly...

Work out how it would work best for you. You could walk daily for 3km or do 4 walks a week for 5km.
I love walking so will get up early and head off to somewhere nice for a walk. I try to walk to the shops if I only need a couple of things.
I take my kids out for walks regularly and I’ve turned walking into a social thing too so I often arrange to meet friends for a long walk.
I’ve done more than 1000km this year.

You need to aim to walk for about 3 miles every day (that allows 2 weeks off for illness etc, and will bring you in somewhat over, so there is a bit of wiggle room)

That's around an hour, less if you walk fast.

Do you already use a tracker, that tells you how far you walk in a typical day?

You can use that info to see if you're on course or how much you may need to add. That could be by finding ways to incorporate walking into ordinary life, or deliberately going for a longer walk once or twice a week (easier if you have nicce places to walk nearby)

You can also walk Parkrun (despite the name it's a movement that's not all about running) or see if there's a Walk4Life near you at a time that works for you

I got a fitbit last year. 10000 steps a day is my minimum target. It has really improved my fitness, weight and gets me out of the house. I also aim for a minimum of 30 mins at pace which I manage most days.

It helps that my kids are teens and can be left though.

Such a timely thread as I've just been for a run and decided I'm going to challenge myself to run 1000km in 2019. That's pretty much 3km every day or 5km 4x a week. My question is, how to record it so I can keep track.

A few of us have been logging on the 2018 thread our exercise kms and I’ve just set up a 2019 one. Do come join us, set your own target. I use a GPS TomTom watch but also use Strava (free ap) to log running totals. I also use a free colour in trainer stuck on my fridge as my kids like seeing my progress and encourage me when I’m flagging try here for different ones www.eagl-s.co.uk/free-download

Great ideas - thanks. Especially love the downloadable 1000 miles colour in trainer from SkiMum99

I love those colouring in sheets!

I'm doing both RED January and a 100mile January challenge, so will be sharpening my crayons!

For tracking, the free versions of both Strava and Runkeeper will log what you cover (when you have your phone with you), and the 'pocket track' function will add times you've been walking for more than 10mins (? I can't remember exactly how long) without interruption even if you've not set it going. Useful for keeping the total up!

It's only 2.7miles a day or 6,500 steps (for me...) I can usually do that taking the dog for a walk, general housework. I have a pretty sedentary job.