Nevada walkers take four million steps

Nevada Daily Mail

In just four weeks time, walkers who joined the U.S. Bank, University of Missouri Extension "Fit For Life" walking campaign logged 4,729,221 steps. It may be hard to believe but this group has managed to walk 2,365 miles.

The people of Nevada were challenged to have their steps be the equivalent of walking to Memphis, Tenn. They took this challenge seriously, according to an e-mail from University Extension specialist Tammy Roberts, who helped to coordinate the event.

In fact, they accumulated enough steps to make the trip to Memphis and back not just once, not twice, but three times! And what if these Nevada, Mo., walkers wanted to travel to the state of Nevada? No problem! Their steps would have been enough to make a single trek all the way out to the city of lights, Las Vegas and then on to Reno. Even San Francisco wouldn't have been far enough to stop these motivated walkers. If they had been so inclined, their steps would have taken them beyond San Francisco 400 miles out into the Pacific Ocean.

Nevada has been one of 10 U.S. Bank sites where walkers received pedometers and recorded steps for four weeks. All sites together had 656 walkers who took a total of 37,268,278 steps or 18,633 miles. As a group, these walkers have stepped three quarters of the way around the world. Persons who turned in step counts for each of the four weeks were entered in a drawing for a Silver Elite trip or one of two captain's chairs. The winner of the Silver Elite trip was Margie Bowman of Lamar. Don Stark of Nevada won a captain's chair. Another lucky winner of a captain's chair is from Neosho.

When asked if she enjoyed participating in the campaign one walker said "I lost 10 pounds!" Losing weight was not her original goal when she started participating but she did admit it was a nice surprise. She actually joined the campaign to get herself walking again after winter. She made it a family affair by having the children go on walks with her. Weight maintenance is one of the benefits of walking but there are plenty of others. According to the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research, walking for 30 minutes six days a week can cut mortality from heart disease in half. Walking can boost brain power. In a study of 18,000 women over the age of 70, those who walked the most scored higher on general thinking ability, verbal memory and attention.