#walkthewalk
Updated: February 11, 2019 at 12pm
And we are back for another year of Walk the Walk, aka finding new ways to squeeze steps in whenever possible! It’s only the end of week 1 and I have heard some interesting ways folks are upping their step game (especially in the rain). Drinking more water so there are more walking trips to the bathroom, parking cars at the far-end of parking lots, walking in place while watching movies at home…ya’ll are creative! I’m excited to see what happens as we get through this month.
BTW if you haven’t already, join our Facebook group to hear about the latest updates, events to get some steps, encouragement, and of course…smack talk!
Now…let’s do the numbers!
Individual League
Of 20 total participants in our individual league, 18 turned in their step count in for week 1. Of those 18 who turned their steps in, 15 reached at least 50,000 steps for the week. Combined step total this week was 1,140,802!
If we say roughly 2,000 steps is a mile, that’s a total of 570 miles…or about the distance of walking from Los Angeles, California to Salt Lake City, Utah!
Top 5 Ranking – Steps for Week 1
| Name | Steps | |
| 1. | Bhavika P. | 96,962 |
| 2. | Cassy H. | 93,110 |
| 3. | Jaysn X. | 91,746 |
| 4. | Ron M. | 87,324 |
| 5. | Avani P. | 73,000 |
- Cheers to Cassy H. who returns to Walk the Walk from her stellar 2018 performance. Adding in her steps from this week with last year’s numbers, she is averagine 94,303 steps!
- Jeers to rain for making it hard to get steps in this past week.
- Jeers to forgetting to wear fitness trackers.
Team League
So last year was our first time trying a “Team League.” 15 teams entered, and the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center dominated for 4 straight weeks and took home the legendary GOLDEN WOK. Their team of 6 averaged 106,543 steps over the entire month, 20,000 steps ahead of last year’s 2nd place winner Investing in Place.
Well…2019 is a new year and the game has changed folks. 106,543 steps isn’t going to get you a first place finish. In fact, it’ll get you only a THIRD place finish by this year’s step count so far.
What are you babbling about Scott?!?
Basically what I’m saying is that JACCC has been dethroned!! A few teams showed up big time to prevent them from taking the top spot for a 5th week in a row (when combined with the 4 weeks of 2018). What happened JACCC…WHAT HAPPENED?!?!
Team Rankings – Average Steps for Week 1
| Team | Average Steps | |
| 1. | LURN | 128,415 |
| 2. | ActiveSGV | 122,150 |
| 3. | Investing in Place | 98,446 |
| 4. | JACCC | 94,280 |
| 5. | Visual Communications | 85,775 |
| 6. | First 5 LA | 83,261 |
| 7. | Friends of the LA River | 76,310 |
| 8. | Los Angeles Walks | 75,152 |
| 9. | LTSC | 72,763 |
| 10. | Advancing Justice – LA | 66,552 |
| 11. | So Cal Edison | 65,650 |
| 12. | API Equality – LA | 65,029 |
| 13. | Kounkuey Design Initiative | 58,342 |
| 14. | LEAP | 56,782 |
| 15. | Thai CDC | 52,698 |
| 16. | American Heart Association | 49,562 |
| 17. | KIWA | 48,672 |
| 18. | CA Dept. of Real Estate | 46,269 |
| 19. | CA Walks | 45,430 |
| 20. | The Wilderness Society | 44,967 |
| 21. | Trust South LA | 43,110 |
| 22. | KYCC | 41,431 |
| 23. | CHC | 39,751 |
| 24. | LA Neighborhood Land Trust | 26,623 |
| 25. | Senator Ben Allen | 15,627 |
Congrats to the dope folks at LURN for taking the top spot. Folks may not know this, but last year their fitness trackers did not come in until week 2. If they had their fitness trackers for week 1…could they have possibly taken the 2nd place spot from Investing in Place??
When I asked LURN what their secret was for this explosion in steps…the response I received was:
We’re just living our best lives! We didn’t even have treadmill desks or anything! Keepin’ it old school.
Rudy Espinoza
128k team average in steps is no joke my friends. Big props to them for stepping their game up and taking that number one spot. To our friends at ActiveSGV…dang that was close. This is their first year in our challenge, and they came ready. Long walks IN the rain, museum trips together…they had a game plan. But alas, they just weren’t active enough to take 1st place. LURN, I’d watch out for this group; they’re hungry for it.
A few notes on week 1 results:
- Amongst our 26 teams, only 24 teams submitted steps this week.
- Of the 24 teams who submitted, the teams combined for a total of 197 team members who contribued 11,901,688 steps! If you count 2,000 steps to roughly be 1 mile, our combined steps would take us from Los Angeles to Seoul, South Korea!
- Of our 24 teams, our average step count was 60,415.
- Did you know we have both LA Walks and California Walks in this competition? As of this week, LA Walks has a higher step average (75,152) than California Walks (45,430).
- There are quite a few environmental groups involved this year, including Friends of the LA River, The Wilderness Society, LA Neighborhood Land Trust, Trust South LA. Let’s keep an eye to see which group can up their step count above the others. 🙂
- Senator Ben Allen’s team. Where you at?? The 26th District has some really lovely places to walk!
- Also I just want to put this out there…can First 5 LA finish in the first 5 spots? You’re so close at 6th right now!
Yes, the Team League is a competition. BUT I do want to remind everyone this is for fun, and it’s meant as a way to encourage us to be more mindful of how active we may be in a day. Many of the groups here are nonprofits or government agencies, and it may not always be built in for us to focus on our health. Let’s do our best to use this challenge to think of how we can incorporate health into our daily schedules!
That’s it for this week folks. Remember to turn in your Week 2 steps by 12pm on February 15th!
