From distance teachers to distance runners

Silvia, Maree, Meredith
on a coastal walk 

Every year Navitas sponsors teams from its employees to enter a fitness challenge called the Global Corporate Challenge.  The aim is to motivate staff to get fitter.  Teaching in DL is a sedentary activity, which means it requires a lot of sitting down, so the challenge to be active was very welcome.  This year two teams from DL participated in the challenge. Each team had 7 enthusiastic teachers who took up the challenge to complete 10,000 steps a day for a 100 days.  They chose team names that represented what they do in DL:

The Skypettes - Silvia (Captain), Meredith, Karen, Carol, Erika, Maree, Nadia
Distance Runners - Linda (Captain), George, Julian, Johanna, Hena, Christine, Victoria

Karen, Maree, Nadia
finishing the 11 km
Sutherland to Surf race

Congratulations to both teams who tried very hard and completed the challenge finishing 3rd and 5th in their Navitas division in Australia.  The Skypettes completed 5,957 km and Distance Runners 5,695 km collectively while getting fitter in the process and having fun walking together. We asked the captains about their experience.

Silvia said "It was a very motivating experience specially doing it with a team. We bonded together as we organised a few walking events on weekends. As the captain of my team I started to become more competitive towards the end, regularly checking the leaderboard online and encouraging my team to stay in the top 10 which we succeeded in doing. Well done team!"  Silvia led by example.  Her PB reached a soaring 36,000 steps in one day!

According to Linda, participating in the challenge helped her change habits. She said "My job requires me to sit for most of the day so it's important I make an effort to move.  I now walk whenever I can instead of driving to places.  Walking is a great exercise, you can do it by yourself or with a group and it's free."  Linda is proud of her team who participated enthusiastically and enjoyed the benefits of the exercise.

Well done to both teams and to staff members who 'unofficially' joined in and increased their steps.

• How do you keep active? What was the greatest fitness challenge you've ever taken up?
• What stops people from being more active?
• How can you change habits and build healthy routines in your week?
• 22nd September is World Car Free Day which encourages people to give up cars for a day. Is that an easy challenge?  Why/why not?  Share your comments below ...