The Brutal Math Of Garmin’s Step Challenges

Last Saturday’s 7.2-mile walk on the Ice Age Trail took 15,713 steps over 2.5 hours.

As I continue to use Garmin Connect for fitness motivation, I am trying to earn as many badges and points as I can within the activities I am willing to do. Garmin has challenges for all sorts of things, including swimming, scuba diving, and a few other sports in which I have zero interest. Most of my badges and points are coming from cycling and walking. Some of the walking challenges are quite easy. For example, I can earn the September Weekend Walking badge (1 point) by completing a single 3-mile walk on September 27, 28, or 29. The challenges based on steps, not on miles, are much harder.

When I’m walking for fitness, my stride is about 32 inches. That makes each mile an average effort of 1,980 steps. My average speed is about 3.5 mph. So, here’s the effort required to hit Garmin’s biggest one-day step challenges:

Can you imagine devoting 7:13 to walking in a single day? Even 3:37 would be an ordeal unless it were in some impossibly beautiful setting. I hiked the Bright Angel Trail at the Grand Canyon in 1983 and I would love to know how long it took to cover those 7.8 miles with a heavy pack on my back, but that was long before the days of GPS-enabled fitness trackers. I’m sure I didn’t average 3.5 mph or take such long strides … not with 4,460 feet of elevation change to accommodate. I don’t know if I can commit to any of those challenges if I have to complete them on the treadmill or the Eisenbahn State Trail or even the Ice Age Trail.

Getting 10,000 steps per day is a commonly recommended goal for general health and fitness, but here again the math is daunting. At 1,980 steps per mile, I would need to walk nearly 5.1 miles to get 10,000 steps, and at 3.5 mph, that’s almost 1.5 hours. Garmin’s “30-Day Goal Getter” (4 points) and “60-Day Goal Getter” (8 points, repeatable) look attractive because of their high point values, but just try to find 1.5 hours every day.

The people who are successful with these 10,000-step challenges probably are breaking them into smaller chunks. A 45-minute morning walk before work plus a 45-minute evening walk after dinner gets you to 1.5 hours without too much trouble. But there’s no way to break up the 25,000- to 50,000-step challenges that diminishes the effort. Credit to you if you have completed one of these. I’m not sure I ever will.