Sunday Night With John: I Would Walk 500 Miles

I have a work out app on my phone that tracks my workouts whether it is running, biking, hiking, or walking. I also can manually enter in any workout that I do when I’m without my phone. It’s nice to track progress, compare times, and get a rough estimate of how many calories I have burned. I diligently used during all of 2013 and came to find I enjoy seeing improvements in times and challenged myself to go to greater lengths.

As the calendar turned to 2014 I checked my stats for 2013 one last time. I noticed my total mileage for the year was 586.4 miles. By far the most miles I have covered in my life, in one year, by working out. I hiked foothills, I biked from town to town, and I ran all over including 2 half marathons. It was an accomplishment that came secondary to simply becoming a healthy person.

That’s the amazing thing that happens when you do healthy things.  Whether you attend a play, read more, spend more time with your family, see the world, or work out, it has effects on your physical, mental, social, and spiritual health that you didn’t know was coming.  We often forget just how many ways we improve ourselves by just doing.

Last year I introduced myself to the mental challenge of willing my body to go further than I felt it could and then wake up the next day and add more miles. I noticed my energy levels improve, my ability to focus increase, and my desire to accomplish things went way up. I found being lazy got boring really quick.  2013 was a constant reminder of when we do and accomplish we can gather momentum that carries and over flows into other parts of life. I’m such a better friend, worker, and significant other when I’m doing, thinking and accomplishing.

As I begin to move through 2014 I will continue to add to my to-do list.  I will not only add physical activities, but activities that will add to my passport, my family, my intelligence, my public speaking and my spiritual health.  Maybe I learn a new language, maybe I learn how to play another musical instrument, maybe learn how to drive a car that isn’t an automatic, and or maybe I try for 1,000 miles. No one has ever been sitting around at age 77 saying, you know what, I wish I did less with my life.