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Resolves yes due to @AlQuinn!

Anecdata: My lifetime longest step day was October 8th, 2017 when I ran/hiked the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim (round trip) in one day. It was about 45 miles. I didn't count steps, but estimate that it was approximately 100,000 steps. If there are any ultramarathoners on here they should exceed the 120k threshold (a 50-mile event likely wouldn't be enough though).

@WilliamKiely adjusting for elevation gain, R2R2R would energetically be slightly more than walking 120K flat steps. On my market, I am estimating 60 miles as the approximate distance to cover

@AlQuinn Agreed, flat is significantly easier. (Also note I'm 6'4 and have long legs, taking longer steps than average.)

@AlQuinn The problem with walking steps as opposed to running though is that your cadence is lower. How many steps per minute are you planning on doing for your 60 miles? That's a lot of hours on your feet. At 100 steps/minute it's 20 hours to go 120k steps. At 130 steps/min it's still 15.38 (much more doable).

@WilliamKiely I'm currently targeting 6,300-6,500 steps/hour, so 18.5-19 hours of walking time at 3.2-3.4mph. I can increase cadence by walking faster, but it would significantly add to the distance I would need to go, since my stride also increases at greater speed (have some data on this in the google sheet on my market). My extrapolation is such that at 4.4mph walking, I would hit 130 steps/min, which is not a comfortable long-term walking speed for me.

Questions:

1) What constitutes "reasonably documented evidence"?

2) Is doing it on a treadmill ok?

3) would calculating step length and walking a measured distance equal to step length x120k qualify? In my case, that would be 64-65 miles (step length of ~2.85ft, though I may need to further verify)

^ @dominic

@AlQuinn

Reasonably documented evidence means that you track it with some sort of step counting device, and are able to provide some sort of graph or chart of steps throughout the day. Treadmill seems fine, I’m skeptical of the calculating step length method because I think that is a different thing than taking the steps so I’ll say no on that for now.

@dominic Thanks. I'm still collecting data since I just got a treadmill, but so far I'm measuring the following based on varying walking speed:

4mph: step length = 2.89ft, steps/hr = 7,308

3.6mph: step length= 2.60ft, steps/hr = 7,311

So I can actually (slightly!) get more steps per hour by going slower and exerting myself less.

I've never used a step counter and instead used a treadmill readout or a gps in the mountains to calc actual distance travelled (+altitude change), since I'm interested in measuring the actual exertion associated with an activity rather than just a proxy. Is the main purpose of step-counting as hard requirement partially due to it being perceived harder to falsify than other accounting methods? Want to know if this is a trust issue or just a strictly literal interpretation of a step challenge.

@AlQuinn Mostly I think just because it’s a metric that everyone knows and so makes a good challenge. Saying “someone walked 100k steps” sounds more impressive and is more clearly relatable than “someone performed the equivalent exertion to walking 100k steps”. I think it is to an extent harder to falsify as well, but of course not impossible, and that’s not the main reason for using it as a metric

@dominic thanks again. I think counting steps actually makes it easier (in my case, given that my body seems to want to maintain a constant walking cadence) since I can go slower/fewer miles than I was initially thinking. I guess I'll have to find a step counter to make this resolve YES!

@ahalekelly Do you have enough time to finish this before the 24 hour period where you started walking?

I'm going to do it when I get the time.