Walk Trip Forums: What is the Million Mile Challenge ?

What is "The Million Mile Challenge"?

A fun and exciting way to address the problems of obesity, sky-rocketing health costs and lack of physical activity. By having folks log their walking, running or biking miles they can see where they rank in the world and get motivated by some friendly competition!

We all know that normal exercise and good nutrition are the two most basic and important components of a healthy lifestyle. Rather than tricky diets and unused ab-crunchers, why not cultivate something that is not only tried and true but also exciting. Lets get the world into a friendly fitness competition.

By going to www.millionmilechallenge.com (or www.fitnessrace.com) you can sign up and start logging your miles in no time. Its free, its easy to do, and its very exciting. Check out the flash "front-end" that is soon to be released by clicking here to see how rankings will really catch your eye and motivate you! Once you start logging those miles you can see how you rank in hundreds of ways, here are just a few examples.

How am I ranked as a walker in my company this month?
How about as a runner in my city this year?
How does my state stack up against other states for bikers?
I logged some exceptional walking miles yesterday, how did I rank in the whole world?
How many miles do I need to log today to put my city in the top 10 of my state?
Within my company my team only needs 40 running miles to be on top, can I help make that happen?

There are hundreds of ways to view not only your ranking, but your companies, school or even families ranking. When you log your miles you're also contributing to your city, state and even country! Teams are a great way to foster some friendly competition and added health benefits.

Once you're logging those miles and starting feeling healthier and happier, you will naturally be more alert and productive.

The Million Mile Challenge is now working to implement fitness programs for home school coop's, various clubs, schools and companies. With a focus on Anoka County, Minnesota, we held 18 days of events and event participation to get the word out on the Million Mile Challenge. By racing in two triathlons and two 5k runs, we we're able to let folks know about the web site and how they can log their miles and get into the challenge. We spoke at one private school and at REI, sharing exciting and encouraging experiences that motivated youth and adults to get out there and enjoy some fun exercise. Our feature event took place on Sept 12th at Bunker Hills Park in Coon Rapids, Minnesota and the team offered walking, running and biking at the top of each hour all day, with great adventure stories and a web site presentation at the bottom half of the hour. The event drew well over 200 people and was a big success.

Now that the program has been presented to many folks in and around Anoka County, we are working with various groups to help them implement a whole fitness program. Our first assignment is with a home-school coop, where we will set up all the families with suggestions on how they can create or find local outings like a walk or hike, then encourage their children to log their miles each day and enter them at the web site. At the end they will give prizes for making their goals while at the same time instilling a great memory for all involved on the power of normal exercise. After our first two week "challenge" we will begin to implement the program in other groups using all of the tools of the web site.

By the end of the year our goal is to have every city in Anoka County participating in the challenge, having folks logging their miles and see which cities can rack up the most. The flash web site makes the challenge fun as folks see interactive pictures of how they rank, how their city ranks, how their company or team ranks, in many different ways. Our goal this year is to get Anoka County residents to log one million miles!

The next phase of the web site is to incorporate a "nutrition tracker" designed to let folks see how they eat and exercise work together. By joining fun challenges that encourage a reasonable diet, mixed with their normal exercise, folks will begin to feel better and thus want to find out how to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

The web site offers users to find local events, trails, group outings, fun discussion forums, chat rooms and more. What we desire more than anything is for folks to get hooked on healthy living. Lets get the basics back into our lives, communities of people who want to enjoy healthy living!