Step To It

It's not often I write about my sporting endeavours on this blog. And there's a very good reason for that. I tend not to undertake any.

When Prince Harry was slogging his way to the North Pole he did it without my help. Sure he asked me to come along but, you know, I only do white and ginger when it's Karen Gillan or Nicole Kidman so the thought of 3 weeks in the snow with the half-blood ginger Prince didn't do much for me. And really, the arctic circle is no place for strip billiards (balls tend to ice up when left outside the pockets for too long).

And the amount of times Ray Mears has telephoned or emailed me and asked me to be his wingman on some jaunt around the Amazon or the American Rockies... well, to employ the old saying, I haven't had as many hot dinners. And as tempting as it is to hunt Bear Grylls "Deliverance" style through the American back-country while he squeals like a pig it doesn't compare with killing Falmer in Skyrim from the comfort of my own office chair surrounded by the vast Lego world I have built around myself to protect me from the ravages of the real world outside.

And don't even get me started on the Olympics. I thought it only fair to give Mo Farah a fighting chance at a medal, OK? Such trinkets of idolatry mean absolutely nothing to me.

So it came as a complete surprise when I found myself lured into the competitive world of team walking. For the first time ever I have joined with some work mates from the corporate world that I inhabit in my daylight hours to undertake the GCC Get The World Moving Challenge.

Basically, for the next 100 days I will be living in one-sided symbiosis with a digital pedometer (not paedo-meter as my eldest son insists on pronouncing it) that will record my regular 24 hourly attempts to walk at least 10,000 steps a day in tandem with my team mates. Those steps are then input into the web site above and translated to miles that are plotted onto a satellite map. The goal is to virtually walk around the earth and, dependent on your competitive bent, thrash the Americans who are currently top of the leaderboard.

No donations from you are needed though your verbal support would be appreciated.

At the moment the pedometer is proving to be an almost hypnotic distraction. I find myself checking my step total so often I am beginning to walk like Riff Raff from the Rocky Horror Show. Possibly the hump on my back and my odd, stilted way of talking had already placed that image in people's minds but I like to think my penchant for singing the Time Warp is a new development in an already damaged psyche.

I'm also becoming more annoying and inane in my interactions with those around me than normal. For instance did you know that it takes me 100 steps to get up in the morning, get dressed and feed the cats? Or that an average bout of meal preparation in the kitchen takes me approximately 500? Next week I hope to be able to tell you how many steps it takes me to walk to work and how many I clock up stamping my feet in the office when Skyrim crashes on me.

10,000 steps a day?

Effing easy.