This month’s Employee Story is featuring the Walk Around the Clock Challenge winners, the PEDestrians. Their story is an example of how peer support along with a challenge can provide much motivation to continue.
The PEDestrians are made up of five employees from, of course, PED. It includes Beth Ulrich, Dave Gontarek, Penny McMahon, Michele Swanson and Dan Bayers. At the end of the challenge, team members averaged an amazing 123 hours for the six weeks. The PEdestrians range in age from the mid-40’s to early 60’s and have varying levels of fitness. While they all had been physically active prior to the challenge, this gave them an opportunity to kick it up a notch. Whether they were participating in a Jazzercize class or training for a marathon, they came together as a team to support each other. Beth said it was like having a “full team of cheerleaders”.
A common consensus was that it was fun participating with co-workers.
They entered the challenge without the thought of winning; they were just looking for motivation and to have fun. Three of the members already were walking together during lunch. As the challenge progressed, they were surprised to see themselves near the top. That provided inspiration to kick it up a notch as a team and individually. No one wanted to let fellow team mates down! In addition to the lunchtime walks, Beth added evening activity to her day; Penny was not generally activity on the weekends but participated in two 5K’s walked on Saturdays while up at the cabin; in addition to her lunch hour walks, Michele added evening Jazzercize classes.
Now that the challenge is over? Two of the team members have started running on their lunch breaks. The additional weekend workouts will continue. They will continue to motivate each other, and the Fitbits they won will provide the feedback to motivate themselves to stick with it.