The end of the journey

So…  7 library staff; 100 days; 3,532 miles; 8,880,969 steps; Tokyo to Andorra.

It’s the end of a 100 day journey for the Library Stampers who, with people from all round the world, have counted their steps, swimming and cycling and attempted to improve their activity. As an office based team we feel we have done well to keep our step average just above that of NHFT as a whole. For some of us it has been a reassuring confirmation that we already lead a healthy lifestyle, that can be built on just by doing extra steps on quiet days or choosing to walk rather than drive sometimes. Others have embraced the challenge of pushing themselves to improve their health and fitness, by taking up running or building walks into their daily routine.

We’ve been made more aware of our nutrition too and several people have made changes that, like those with our exercise,  are ones that hopefully will continue well beyond the GCC 100 days.

Although sometimes fitting the steps in has been a chore the discipline of entering your steps each day and not wanting to let the team down has helped us persevere. It has also been fun, watching the leaderboard, seeing new locations opening up and winning trophies along the way and most of us would like to repeat the experience next year.

Bring on GCC 2016!

Global Corporate Challenge - the half way point

Last week the Library Stampers, reached half way in the GCC walking challenge, 50 days of recording our steps and challenging ourselves to do that little bit better. We have ‘walked’ from Tokyo, through South East Asia, Australia and the western coast of the US and are now in the lap of luxury that is the Hamptons. As a team we have done 4,780,072 steps, the equivalent of 1901 miles.

East Hampton Beach, courtesy of Michael McDonough on Flickr

The stage 2 mini challenge was to see if the team could register more than 100,000 steps in a day and we managed a magnificent 147,352. More importantly our daily average has risen from 12,042 in the first week to 13,411 at half way point.

Team members can be seen arriving early at work to fit a walk in, nipping out at lunchtime to walk round the hospital, and even jogging round the park having undertaken the NHS Couch to 5k during the challenge. Sadly one team member has had to be substituted due to injury so we welcome her replacement who has already discovered how many steps you clock up in a 2 year old’s dance class! 

It’s best foot forward for the next 50 days to see if we can keep improving

Global Corporate Challenge week 1

And they're off...

The Global Corporate Challenge finally started last week and the Library Stampers donned their pedometers and started stamping. 

Our pre-walk estimates of how many steps we did each day proved to be way too low (or were we all scuttling here and there, worried about letting the team down?).

At the end of the first week we’ve averaged 12,042 steps each a day, covering 262 miles. Our virtual journey has taken us from Tokyo to Yokohama and Mount Fuji, on the Bullet train to Kyoto and Osaka and finally by plane to Seoul.

Seoul by night

There are a few aching joints and possibly too much time is being spent on checking our position on the leaderboard but it’s certainly making us think about how active we are. Gardening, looking after grandchildren and of course shelving books are all providing us with more exercise than we realised.

Library Stampers enter the Global Corporate Challenge

Our Trust is taking part in the Global Corporate Challenge and an intrepid group of seven library staff have decided to enter a team.

For the next 100 days every team member will be wearing a pedometer that will count how many steps they take. The recommended level of activity is 10,000 steps per day (about 5 miles), although in reality most people do 3000 -  4 000 (and some librarians less than that).

Each step will be entered as distance travelled in a virtual world tour.

The Library Stampers will be starting their virtual journey from the Shibuya Pedestrian Crossing (possibly the busiest in the world!) in Tokyo. How far we get will be entirely dependent on how many steps the team takes during the challenge (but we are hoping to at least get out of the city!).

The Global Corporate Challenge is all about increasing levels of physical activity over a sustained period of time and the positive effects it has on health, wellbeing, sleep and stress levels.

So if you see us walking around the library a little more frequently than we might have, or notice any tracks worn into the carpet, you'll know why. Our team Captain has also had to complete an oath which includes a ban on using tasers as "encouragement" so we are all quite relieved.

We will keep you posted with updates throughout our 100 day journey.