Daily steps targets and goal streaks...

[WhitstableDave]

I have Strava, plus a Garmin fenix 6 Solar as well as a Fitbit which i only use for phone call alerts. My wife also has a fitbit type device and counts her steps. Personally I don't bother as they don't only count the actual steps you take but record other body too movements too as steps.

I accept that movements other than walking can get counted, and of course steps are sometimes not counted properly while walking - for example, when pushing a pushchair.

However, I think it's important to note that accuracy improves with the number of steps taken during walking activities. For example, a sedentary person who records an average of 2,000 steps per day is likely to include a much higher proportion of 'bogus' steps than a highly active person who records an average of 20,000 steps per day.

I don't find it any bother to allow my watch to record my steps or to glance at my totals occasionally... 

[WhitstableDave]

As I see it, the problem with always wanting to exceed a target number of steps every day is that the longer it goes on, the harder it is to stop.

Today I finally reached 500 consecutive days of exceeding my target of 10,000 steps. That in itself has been one of my targets for months!



Actually, my average daily steps total for the past 500 days has been almost exactly 20,000 steps - which comes to a very neat 10,000,000 steps in all.

I'm back to looking after grandchildren during the week and recently I've been getting up a bit earlier simply to get my steps in (usually on the treadmill) before they arrive. So instead of my daily target being motivating and fun, it's starting to look like a bit of a chore. I'm sure I won't be doing any less walking or running each week, but I'm not going to make sure I do at least 6 miles each and every day from now on. 

[ninthace]

What you have there is a rod for your own back.  I keep stats and last year for the first time I used it to set a target distance for the year,  By the end it was taking a lot of the fun out of it.  We were walking to meet the target, not because we wanted to.

[WhitstableDave]

What you have there is a rod for your own back.  I keep stats and last year for the first time I used it to set a target distance for the year,  By the end it was taking a lot of the fun out of it.  We were walking to meet the target, not because we wanted to.

Now that I've reached the steps target I set myself and don't intend to set a higher one, I suppose I no longer have that particular "rod for my own back". 

Of course, we're all different and targets have been important to me from the day in October 2016 that I decided to make walking 'my thing'. I've still got plenty of targets left for 2021 and if I achieve them, then I'll take tremendous pleasure from doing so! 

[DevonMaid]

Some of the wearables track crochet or knitting as steps, which I find quite amusing. Although my instinct seems much better than my old fitbit in that regard.

[BuzyG]

What you have there is a rod for your own back.  I keep stats and last year for the first time I used it to set a target distance for the year,  By the end it was taking a lot of the fun out of it.  We were walking to meet the target, not because we wanted to.

I almost fell for that one a few times.  I have quite quickly adjusted to flexible targets now.  As in, I have short term local targets based on other things I might be trying  to achieve.  So if I ever get to fit in my Scottish 4000s trip.  Then I will set a training plan for that.  As apposed to trying to stay fit enough for such a walk all the time.  I still have a baseline target of 1000 miles a year. but that is easily achieve able for now. Especially as I retire at the end of the month. (Just snuck that in

I found out the hard way a few months back.  I was chasing 100 miles for the month. I pulled my calf muscle at the end of the previous month. I didn't rest it enough, in large part dew to having set those targets.  I then pulled it again, but worse, on the last day of the month after ignoring the pain and hobbling along to 99.7 miles for the month. Pure stubborn stupidity, which meant another two weeks sat around doing very little exercise.  I won't do that again.

[WhitstableDave]

Some of the wearables track crochet or knitting as steps, which I find quite amusing. Although my instinct seems much better than my old fitbit in that regard.

Yes, I think it's well known that wearable step counters count various movements other than actual steps, and I certainly wouldn't dream of converting steps into miles in order to report distances.

I'm confident though that averaging 20,000 steps a day really does require doing a lot of miles on foot. In my case, in the past 500 days, I've recorded a total distance of 5,200 miles - that's 2,579 miles on the treadmill (courtesy of lockdown!) and 2,621 miles recorded outdoors by GPS. 

[ninthace]

Wow! When you get back to cruising, they will be able to couple the ship's gym treadmill to the shaft and you should travel for free!

[WhitstableDave]

Wow! When you get back to cruising, they will be able to couple the ship's gym treadmill to the shaft and you should travel for free!

When we were on a particularly long cruise in 2009, I would often spend a couple of hours in the ship's gym on sea day afternoons using a rowing machine. The captain was usually there at the same time and never tired of telling me that the rowing machine was connected to the ship's propeller... 

[ninthace]

When we were on a particularly long cruise in 2009, I would often spend a couple of hours in the ship's gym on sea day afternoons using a rowing machine. The captain was usually there at the same time and never tired of telling me that the rowing machine was connected to the ship's propeller... 

That just silly, a rowing machine would have been connected to a pair of oars!   Might have made docking difficult though.

Random thought.  How do you dock a trireme?

[GoneWest]

Random thought.  How do you dock a trireme?

Bow-to, perhaps? That seems to be the Mediterranean way. 

[ninthace]

Bows-to, perhaps? That seems to be the Mediterranean way. 

  The ram would make a big hole in the side of the dock and sink the country.

[GoneWest]

  The ram would make a big hole in the side of the dock and sink the country.

Stern-to, then. There's usually a better anchor at the front, anyway.

[ninthace]

Stern-to, then. There's usually a better anchor at the front, anyway.

Often referred to as a "Mediterranean moor".  Makes sense and you get more boats per foot of quay. In fact there is YouTube showing it.  Must have made loading slow but it doesn't look like they carried much anyway, very narrow and shallow draft.

[BuzyG]

Often referred to as a "Mediterranean moor".  Makes sense and you get more boats per foot of quay. In fact there is YouTube showing it.  Must have made loading slow but it doesn't look like they carried much anyway, very narrow and shallow draft.

You can take the sailor out of the navy, but you can't take the navy out of the sailor.