Fifteen of the 20ish pairs of shoes John has gone through during the last seven years. The current office holders are at top center.On November 30, 2011 our son John completed seven years of walking one full hour a day, without missing one day! When I think of all the things that come up (real or imagined) that keep me from my daily walking routine, it is unthinkable to me that I could ever reach such a goal.
I like to think about goals every year in January, and I write a few of them down, and I even manage to fulfill most of them. But my goals are for one year. And I follow the S-M-A-R-T program in choosing my goals, making them Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-targeted. Maybe John’s goal fit into this pattern for the most part, but I do wonder about the realistic part!
A Challenge from a Friend
In the beginning, a physician friend Tom challenged John to walk one hour every day for a month. I thought that was ambitious-I skip Sundays and sometimes even Saturdays in my own routine.
John did it perfectly, liked how he felt, and extended his goal to three months, then a year, and finally it was just part of his life. Now he says he has “just done this too long to want to quit.”
I was a skeptic at first but as I watched him plan his life around his walking schedule I was more and more impressed with the fact that we should all be doing likewise. John said it became second nature to think ahead to the next day and plan in advance when he was going to walk. For example, if he had something that would take up the entire evening he would have to be sure to walk in the morning, since on many occasions he had found himself having to walk very late at night. When planning trips he also has to think through all of the logistics of the trip to make sure he will have time during each day to get his walk in.
John works in an office in our home managing our music business, so I have been aware that he used to get strep throat three times a year-like clockwork-but since he started walking he has had it only three times in seven years. I’ve also seen some of the little injuries and other illnesses that might have kept him from his walking routine, but his commitment was total and he always found a way to walk for one hour a day in sunshine, rain and snow. Through these seven plus years I came to believe that he had fewer illnesses and injuries just because he was getting such regular exercise. He has inspired me to do better with my own exercise routines.
Interesting Statistics over Seven Years
John figures that averaging four miles a day for 2,556 days, he has walked 10,224 miles.
From his home in south Provo that means he would have reached:
Past the South Pole
or to Durban, South Africa
or to Inhambane, Mozambique
or to Juan de Nova Island, Madagascar
or several hundred miles off the coast of Perth Australia
Averaging 4 miles a day for seven years, John has walked 10,224 miles . . . or from Provo to the coastline of Juan de Nova Island situated about 3/4s of the way between Mozambique and Madagascar.
He notes that he has visited both South Africa and Perth Australia during this time, and that flying there was much more enjoyable than the 2,556 days of walking.
Through the years many friends and family members, both here at home and in different areas of the world, have joined him on his daily walks.
He has walked in the following states:
Alaska Nevada
Arizona New Mexico
California New York
Colorado Texas
Georgia Utah
Maryland Washington
John loves to travel and he has found a way to keep up his walking routine in the following countries during the past seven years:
Andorra (principality on Spanish/French border)
Australia (Perth, Uluru, Sydney)
Austria (Vienna)
Belize (Belize City, Caye Caulker, and Long Caye on Glover’s Reef)
Czech Republic (Prague)
France (Paris)
Gabon (Libreville and on the equator)
Portugal (Lisbon)
South Africa (Cape Town and Johannesburg)
Spain (Barcelona)
John in Belize.
He plans to add Argentina and other nearby South American countries during 2012. When I asked about his walking routine in other countries he made the following interesting comments:
“Not missing a day requires some planning, especially while traveling, even
more so when traveling internationally. The goal is one continual hour of walking
but occasionally I’ve had to break it up into two half-hour sessions, or three
twenty-minute sessions. Also I have had to walk in some interesting venues
because of travel and/or inclement weather. For instance, when traveling to
Australia we took off at 11 p.m. from Los Angeles on a Saturday night and
landed Monday morning in Brisbane, thus losing all of Sunday! So I walked two
hours on Monday when I finally got to Perth. I still came out an hour ahead though, because on the return trip I walked on Tuesday morning in Sydney, then flew home and walked Tuesday evening in Provo. So I was plus one hour for the Australia trip.”
Unusual Walking Places
John’s usual walking places in Provo are in his own neighborhood or on his treadmill while watching the morning or evening news, but he has had to do a lot of improvising while on his world travels.
These are a few of the unusual places he has walked:
Shopping mall in Los Angeles
Deserted beach on the equator in Gabon (west coast of Africa)
Walked around the base of Uluru in central Australia, largest rock on earth
Lowe’s in Anchorage (it was raining-walked the aisles for an hour)
13-acre island off the coast of Belize (walking in the sand at 5 a.m. before the
sun came up-ten trips up and down the length of the island)
Johannesburg airport (traveling alone, had to haul his heavy carry-on bag with
him the whole time)
Lisbon airport parking garage
Atlanta airport terminal (conveniently, the terminals are 1,000 feet apart, meaning
from main terminal to int’l terminal is 6,000 ft.-easy to track distance)
Central Park, New York
Catalina Island
Trails surrounding the Washington, D.C. temple
Upper deck of the Queen Mary (a dozen loops around the top deck)
Various hotel treadmills
Hallway of the Venetian Hotel in Vegas (60 lengths of tower hallways made
one hour)
Least favorite places to walk: island sand and the cobbled streets and walks
of Europe-very hard on the feet
John walking along a desereted beach on the equator in Gabon on the west coast of Africa.
Unusual Things Encountered While Walking
In seven years of walking one hour every day, John has encountered some very interesting things to add to the interest of his walks. A few he could recall are:
One urinating skateboarder (at midnight on the skateboarder hill near his home
in Provo-he was doing both at the same time, didn’t see John on the sidewalk)
One prostitute negotiating business and hopping into a car (Johannesburg, S. Africa)
One wallet found-he tracked down the owner and returned it (Johannesburg)
One skunk (Provo)-fortunately he saw it in time to stop and wait for it to leave
Multiple times he has been startled by deer while walking in Provo
A Few More Interesting Statistics
During his seven years of walking John has used five different iPods, two treadmills, 20ish pairs of shoes, and too many pairs of socks to count. He has walked in temperatures ranging from
8 to 110 degrees.
He said that his most embarrassing moment was arriving at the Venetian Hotel fitness center in
Las Vegas and handing what he thought was his room key to the attendant, then realizing he had grabbed an In-N-Out Burger gift card someone had given him-it was black and looked much like the room key card.
John’s brother Robb made him a certificate after he completed his first five years without missing, the “Circumambulator of the Year” award.
Conclusion
An article on goals which I recently read in Wikipedia said this about goals: 1) Goals focus attention towards goal-relevant activities and away from goal-irrelevant activities, and 2) Goals serve as an energizer; higher goals induce greater effort while low goals induce less effort.
For myself, I know that setting Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-targeted goals is very important. I make my goals each year, write them down, post them where I will see them often, and this exercise seems to give me the focus to accomplish most of them during the year. When I don’t quite make all of my goals I give myself credit for the ones I did complete and move the others forward to the next year. One of m y favorite quotes on goals is very meaningful to me: “In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia.” (author unknown)
John set the bar incredibly high in the area of daily exercise. For years I’ve been half-expecting the injury or illness that would keep him from being perfect in his quest to walk one hour a day.
I tip my hat to him for seven-plus years of incredible consistency-he inspires me!
I tried to think of some music I could include with this article but, as you can imagine, I have not written many songs about daily exercise! However, this morning I remembered something John had done years ago when the “Hooked on Aerobics” craze was in full sway. He and arranger Greg Hansen produced an instrumental medley of several of my songs which they called “Hooked on Janice Kapp Perry” and added it as a bonus track at the end of the album “Best of Janice Kapp Perry, Vol. 2.” Maybe you can put it on, get the blood stirring, and feel a bit of inspiration as you work on your fitness goals for 2012.
Click to play
Janice Kapp Perry: Composer, author, lecturer
