Stepping up - beating my personal best.

A little while ago I mentioned my participation in the Global Corporate Challenge, a world wide event designed to develop and ingrain an active lifestyle.  This weekend we have our first mini challenge where our task is to beat our previous personal best.

It's clever to do this over a weekend as I've noticed that I'm not nearly as active on the weekends as I am during the week.  I've already been motivated to change this as my lack of activity last Sunday had a huge impact not only on my own daily average steps, but it also dragged my team down.  I felt terrible!

My current daily step average is 10,529 steps and my team average has rocketed up this week and now sits at 10,256!  We only broke the 10,000 average as a team a few days ago.

Yesterday my personal best was about 14 100 steps to beat.  As  I traipsed around the city doing various things yesterday, I actually established a new personal best a day early.  I now have to make more than 15,260 steps today or tomorrow.  I am actually wondering whether I did this with a subconscious awareness that this would mean I'd have a higher target to beat.

I know that it is unlikely to happen today as I'm off to see King Kong this afternoon and have some paperwork to do before that and then a dinner engagement.  That leaves tomorrow, unless King Kong himself chases me from the theatre...or picks me up and shakes me, as one of my team mates pointed out.

I continue to be impressed at the design and philosophy of the Global Corporate Challenge.  The smartphone app is easy to use and allows me to see at a glance how I'm going and enter my steps each morning before I get out of bed and reset my Pulse.  Weekly videos from the coach are personalised, clever and engaging.  They also clearly display the philosophy - it's about starting a habit so that behaviour is embedded and instinctive; striving to beat your best is part of what great winners do and so on.

The problem of the crowded tram stop has also been solved.  I now walk the six stops between Flinders Street and the office when I'm working there.  I had sometimes taken the walk in the afternoons but doing it both ways every time has made a big difference.  Not only am I more active, but I'm also in a happier frame of mind.  I've also noticed that choir nights add to my steps, especially when we sing African songs that are accompanied by walking and stomping.

What's your challenge this weekend?