20K

I double-summited and managed 20K steps Wednesday night, which brings my average back up to 14,000 steps per day. My brother David was curious as to how many miles I've walked up to now. This isn't too hard to calculate. First, how many steps in a mile?

Very roughly: 20,026 steps = 9.6 miles, so 1 mile = 2,086 steps.

November 2013 average = 3,142 steps = 1.5 miles a day x 30 days = 45 miles.
December 2013 = 4,157 steps = 1.99 miles/day x 31 days = 61.7 miles.
January 2014 = 1,661 steps = 0.8 miles/day x 31 days = 24.8 miles.
February 2014 = 2,668 steps = 1.28 miles/day x 28 days = 35.8 miles.
March 2014 = 5,092 steps = 2.44 miles/day x 31 days = 75.6 miles.
April 2014 = 5,940 steps = 2.85 miles/day x 30 days = 85.5 miles.
May 2014 = 6,049 steps = 2.9 miles/day x 31 days = 89.9 miles.
June 2014 = 6,197 steps = 2.97 miles/day x 30 days = 89.1 miles.

Mileage subtotal = approx. 507.4 miles walked since November 2013.

At this point, I got serious about walking.

July 2014 = 10,692 steps = 5.13 miles/day x 31 days = 159 miles.
August 2014 = 11,458 steps = 5.49 miles/day x 31 days = 170.2 miles.
September 2014 = 13,661 steps = 6.55 miles/day x 30 days = 196.5 miles.
October 2014 = 14,001 steps = 6.71 miles/day x 22 days = 147.6 miles.

Mileage subtotal: 673.3 miles.

Total miles from November 1, 2013 to October 22, 2014: 1,180.7 miles.

I've walked half the Appalachian Trail at this point. Granted, the AT is a much, much harder walk: I'd be lucky to average 1.5 miles per hour on that terrain, given the number of rest breaks I'd need. So let's say I've walked a fourth of the AT at this point. When I hit 4,400 miles on Namsan, then I'll say I've done the equivalent of walking the AT from end to end. If I can average about 200 miles per month, 4,400 miles will be doable in two years (22 months, to be exact). Since I haven't yet averaged a full 200 miles per month (October might be the first time I do so), it might take more than two years to reach that milestone.

If I do manage to average 200 miles per month, I'll be doing about the same amount of walking as I'd done in the Pacific Northwest in 2008 during Kevin's Walk: I hiked 600 miles in three calendar months.

NB: As I've mentioned a couple times before, I think my phone's pedometer shortchanges me when it comes to distance. According to my pedometer, I'm barely making three miles per hour, but based on my walks in northern Virginia, where I could time myself while walking along the George Washington Parkway's well-marked bike path, I used to average 3.2 miles per hour. What I need to do is test out whether my suspicion about my pedometer is correct. Dongguk has a soccer field with a track around it; if the track is a standard 400-meter length, I ought to be able to walk four laps and see, on my pedometer, that I've gone about a mile. (1,600 meters is just under 1760 yards, i.e., 1 mile. The difference is only about 30 yards.) I could get an even more accurate measurement by walking eight laps, I suppose...


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