HEART BEAT: My Iditarod Trail

By Felicia Mitchell

I know it’s Steptember.  How could I forget?  Every day this month, since I signed up with American On the Move to walk the Iditarod Trail, I’ve received a reminder in my email box along with some tip on how to be a better walker.

Saturday, the perky email taunted me more than it inspired me:  “Don’t have time for a walk today?  Make sure to eat light and healthy meals, and get back to your exercise routine as soon as you can.”

Who told them?  It’s true.  I didn’t make time for a walk on Saturday.  I was too busy taking one nap after the other, waking up now and then to eat an oatmeal cookie, drink a cup of tea, or have another bowl of chicken soup.  After working all week with an awful cold, I was giving myself a day to do what I should have done days earlier.

Saturday, I logged 747 steps.  Maybe if I had left the house, it would have been a little more.  At least I went down the basement a few times, between naps, to do a little laundry. 

What a loser.  Hadn’t I signed up for Team Coomes?  Hadn’t I vowed to log approximately 7,000 steps a day between Steptember 8 and October 20 to help our team along?  I’d anticipated, of course, that I’d average 10,000 steps a day over the course of a week but wanted my goal to be lower so it would appear that I had achieved great things.

After the first week, though, it was obvious that I was letting the team down.  The average daily step count was 9,022 steps.  My average was 3312.  Pitiful.  I was pitiful.  Good thing I hadn’t picked the hardest trail for inspiration. 

The little reminder next to my online odometer made it seem as if I could catch up:  “To complete your trail by the end of the Challenge on October 20, you must take an average of 6,747 steps per day.” So what if I’d had a bad week, barely able to walk from the car to the office and back again? 

Sunday initiated the second week of the challenge.  It was a good day, with all the usual steps I take on a Sunday plus a vigorous walk on a stretch of the new Salt Trail built on an old rail bed between Glade Spring and Saltville.

While I did not walk all the way to Saltville with my friends, I did walk long enough to enjoy the beautiful Sunday afternoon.  Now and then, I’d check my odometer and smile, though mostly I tried to enjoy the last of the wildflowers and the occasional view.  And guess what?  I saw the glade where the original springs that bubbled up from the earth. 

I didn’t just log 11,090 steps Sunday.  I learned something new about the landscape of Glade Spring while walking the Idatorod Trail superimposed on the Salt Trail.  Maybe that’s another perk of Steptember:  adventure.