Walker Tracker Blog

I just happened to be driving back from the Oregon Coast on Highway 6, out of Tillamook, and saw Matt Green on the side of the road pushing a cart. I had no idea it was Matt Green at the time. I admit we shared a quick chuckle in the car because it appeared to be someone who had quite possibly chosen the worst possible place to vend something in recorded history (on the accelerating side of a hair pin turn, with a sign too small to read at our velocity). (update: Apparently the sign says ‘we may never meet again’)

I wish I’d known – he’s had an impressive adventure.

Check out imjustwalkin.com to read about his 152 day walk across N. America. From New York to Rockaway Beach, Oregon.

I especially enjoyed his ‘long version’ of why he’s doing it, which quotes from Steinbeck’s Cannery Row:

Once when Doc was at the University of Chicago he had love trouble and he had worked too hard. He thought it would be nice to take a very long walk. He put on a little knapsack and he walked through Indiana and Kentucky and North Carolina and Georgia clear to Florida. He walked among farmers and mountain people, among the swamp people and fishermen. And everywhere people asked him why he was walking through the country.

And then he goes on to say some lovely things, such as:

But perhaps the thing I find most important about walking is how connected it makes me feel to the space I’m passing through. I think it’s because walking is the way we experience our homes. We walk to the fridge, we walk to bed, we walk around the yard. We walk to the copy machine, we walk to the coffee machine, we walk around the grocery store. So this is that same familiar stride, that most basic form of locomotion we know so well, but through vast, immense, unknown places. It’s a way to live a continuous line across the country as if it were my home.

I’ve got two quick announcements – the first is we’ve been using the excellent help desk software at ZenDesk to power support and ticketing for our program administrators and we’ve really liked it (sometime I’ll write a list of all the great web software companies we use to help run Walker Tracker).

As of this week support.walkertracker.com is open to all walkers in our custom walking programs.

Or you can access it under ‘Help’ in the navigation.

(The community program already has its own forum, so support.walkertracker.com is not linked from their menus)

Introducing: Footpath

We’ve had a number of requests for a smaller-sized, inexpensive plan in our Walking Programs to fit small businesses and families. As of today we have one! Introducing the Footpath plan – for up to 20 walkers at $29/month.

Footpath has all the features of our larger plans, but we ask that you rely on our support site support.walkertracker.com (hey! Introduced above) for support.

Let us know what you think.

Good Magazine has a fantastic graphic comparing state ranking in walking / biking / public transportation / car usage versus obesity rates. It doesn’t pull any punches. Entitled: Driving Is Why You’re Fat, I think it’s pretty easy to guess the outcome of their analysis. Here’s a sample (lower numbers on cars means less driving, lower numbers on others means more of that activity):

Go District of Columbia! Have a look at the chart to check out your state. Meanwhile, I’ll be here re-assessing my transportation options…

Oregon seems to do OK – we have a great bike community. As for walking, we’re 13th in the nation.

I’m very thrilled to announce that Walker Tracker is a sponsor of:  Get Going Oregon! Get Going Oregon is a 30 Day  challenge and  fundraiser to benefit the Harold Schnitzer Diabetes Health Center at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU).

Participants will use Walker Tracker from July 24th through August 31st on a Highway 101 challenge map to race down the coast of Oregon. It’s going to be a tremendously good challenge and it couldn’t be for a better cause.

You’ll get a free pedometer (Oregon Scientific with a 7 day memory and calorie counter), health screening (if you’re local) and will have the chance to win prizes along the way.

Join the fundraiser – it’s a $20 donation – at Get Going Oregon – www.getgoingoregon.org

Speaking of grants that have crossed our desks lately, if you have 501c3 status and operate in the Portland metro area, this is a fantastic, yearly grant.

Nike and The Oregon Community Foundation are seeking proposals (deadline Nov 15th) for $500,000 in funds.

The program’s four funding priorities are environment, education, inclusion, and health. Within each funding priority are goals that include physical activity as a key element and goals that do not include physical activity. Program resources will be spent roughly as follows: 80 percent for projects that respond to community problems through the lens of sport/physical activity and 20 percent for projects with the potential for a broader, long-term impact on the health and well-being of children and families.

Read more about the grant here (pdf)

How about a walking program for your middle school, run by a fellow Portland company?

Here’s a doozy: 1.5 million for “Building Evidence to Prevent Childhood Obesity” from the Robert Wood Johnson foundation. Multiple recipients will be awarded.

“…call for proposals will support opportunistic, time-sensitive studies on emerging or anticipated changes in physical activity-related policies or environments. Rapid-response grants are expected to accelerate progress toward policy and environmental strategies to prevent and reduce childhood obesity.”

Link to grant opportunity

Want to collaborate? Let us know

Family-oriented grants from the Coca-Cola foundation for programs in Texas, California and New York:

The Coca-Cola Foundation is accepting proposals for the Active Healthy Living Program. Programs must address nutrition and physical activity for the whole family in the states of Texas, California, and New York. Grants will range from $10,000 to $25,000. Nonprofits are eligible to apply. Deadline: July 15, 2010

As always, drop us a line if you want to integrate Walker Tracker into your community, physical-activity related program.

Link to Grant Details and Application

Great article in the NY Times about the real, physiological effects of exercise on your body  which, while everybody knows exercise is good for you, has been poorly understood by science.

During the experiment, scientists actually saw how much being fit changes your ability to incinerate fat, moderate blood sugar and otherwise function well. They also uncovered proof, at once inspiring and cautionary, of just how complicated and pervasive exercise’s consequences are.

Even ten minutes of exercise can have a significant effect on the ‘metabolites’, in your bloodstream (metabolites, regulators of your metabolism, drive changes in your body):

What they found was that after 10 minutes of treadmill jogging or stationary-bicycle riding, the healthy adults showed enormous changes in the metabolites within their bloodstream, as did the less-fit group, although to a lesser degree. In particular, certain metabolites associated with fat burning were elevated. The fit adults showed increases of almost 100 percent in many of these molecules. The less-fit group had increases in those same metabolites of about 50 percent. As for the marathoners, their blood contained up to 10 times more of the fat-burning markers.

Read the full article here: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/phys-ed-a-workout-for-your-bloodstream/

This has been an oft-asked-for feature: Convert your other activities to steps.

Say you rode your bike for 5 miles and your pedometer only registered 18 steps: You want credit for that!

Now our custom programs can do just that.

If you’re a program administrator, turn this feature on under Features in your administration panel.

Let us know what you think!

Is this coming to the Walker Tracker community program for individuals?

Short answer: Maybe…

I’m guessing it’s going to be a controversial issue among the  pedometer-purists. And if it does come, since we offer really a lot of features for free, it would likely be a pro-only feature.

Do you think we should we enable it in the community program? Let us know.

Corporate HR Administrators often ask us about the Return on Investment (ROI) on walking programs. Here are a few great links that we send them. Calculating ROI can be challenging, since you’re measuring program participation and costs, absenteeism, improved productivity, fewer insurance claims, stress reduction and a variety of other factors, including many non-quantitative benefits to a walking program (less gas consumed!). We are happy to work with you to determine the ROI on your program over time.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has some great data:

Reducing the Risk of Heart Disease and Stroke

http://www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/library/toolkit/pdfs/sixstepguide.pdf

“worksite health programs focused on lifestyle behavior change have been shown to yield a $3 to $6 return on investment (ROI) for each dollar invested.”

CDC’s Leanworks ROI page: http://www.cdc.gov/leanworks/why/roi.html

“It is estimated that employers spend $13 billion annually on the total cost of obesity. Approximately 9.1% of all health care costs in the United States are related to obesity and overweight. Workplace obesity prevention and control programs can be an effective way for employers to reduce obesity. They can produce a direct financial return on investment (ROI) by lowering health care costs, lowering absenteeism, and increasing employee productivity.”

They also have an obesity cost calculator which is an excellent tool for determining how much obesity might be costing your company.

WalkBC is a fantastic website put together by Heart & Stroke Foundation of BC & Yukon and the BC Recreation & Parks Association.
Business Case for Workplace Walking Programs
http://walkbc.ca/business-case-workplace-walking-programs

“Return on investment – Canada Life in Toronto showed a return of $6.85 for every $1 invested in its Workplace Wellness program; while the Canadian government realized $1.95-$3.75 per employee per $1 spent.”

Benefits of Physical Activity in the Workplace

http://walkbc.ca/benefits-physical-activity-workplace