For those of you who just started tuning into my blog and don’t know what’s going on, I am going to give you a quick run down of those Mindful Monday posts that I started just a few weeks ago, and why you may see them bi-weekly until the end of the year.

Some time in the middle of June, a company-wide sponsored walking challenge presented itself with a chance for us (the employees) to walk for better health and for our company’s foundation to give out x amount to a worthy local cause with cap at x amount. Each week that we (the entire company) hit our steps goal, the company donates x amount until it reaches the cap and it did hit. In fact, it went over by a lot so the winning location gets to pick the charity out of a list. Since I am part of the winning location, I voted for the American Liver Foundation, but we don’t know what the final voting result is until everyone’s done voting for their choices, so I am hoping that charity will win. 🙂

So that was the good news!

Back to the beginning of the madness: During the time this started, my boss and the other departments’ boss decided to have a little “friendly” wager and up the challenge, so they decided that the losing departments will wash the other department members’ cars. Well, three departments joined together for this and thus the reason we were tasked with doing the cheer squad. I also did the number tracking on spreadsheets besides cheering and of course, doing my part to up my walks/runs. My coworkers did the reminders and the lovely shoe charts. 🙂

Now, for those of you who thought we won, I have some sad news to report.

The sad news:  Today, the 3 departments finally had their meetings armed with spreadsheets and whatnot and we………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Lost by average of  just 30,000 steps!

Am I annoyed by this little fact? Yes! yes, and yes!

My first thought was, “Darn it! If I had started training on my runs a few weeks earlier, I would have gotten those pesky 30,000 steps in.” Believe it or not, I started out with only 56,000+ steps/week and by last week, I was doing 90,000+ steps/week. Plus, we had a lot of people on our team and the wining team only had 8 people and we did average which is not fair, etc. Well, I am not the only one who had this thought running through their head because I heard it from my coworkers, too. Grumble, grumble.

Anyway, some people in my department kicked a** because they did over a million steps by themselves. I am in the middle of the pack with just 550,000+ steps. The point is that we and another department lost to this one department that only had a few people. So we will have to wash their cars some time soon. Despite that I am a bit unhappy now, I am also thinking this will be one of those work memories that I will soon not forget. Hopefully it will turn out to be a hilarious and fun event. Can you tell that I am a bit optimistic? :0)

Now back to the good news. I signed up for the extended version of this challenge and continue to walk/run until September. I am also training for a 5K and another event that is taking place in September so the timing is good. Rather than just walk the 5K like I do almost every year, I will attempt to jog half of it or completely if I can manage this year. Of course, there’s also another event I am training for, but I am keeping that quiet for now.

For those of you wondering, she must be really fit!  Hm, actually…No.  I am not very athletic and not in the best shape now either. Sitting too much at work and eating too much. You get the point. Not the best shape. I can stand to lose a few pounds. Lots of them. Lol.

I can totally out run you…

Here’s my thought on this whole thing. I feel like no one is ever in shape or ready unless one takes the plunge so to speak. So I am here to end all the “What Ifs” and “It would be nice ifs…” because those will never happen until I take this first step and start taking charge and accepting that I will change and actually [cliché coming…] “Do it.”

Here’s a few lovely quotes to end this post. I hope you like them… Remember, slow and steady wins the race, but you will have to start! 🙂

Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it.

–Oprah Winfrey

The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start. –John Bingham

Ask yourself: ‘Can I give more?’. The answer is usually: ‘Yes’. –Paul Tergat, Kenyan professional marathoner