Kootenai County employees walk more than 17,000 miles

From mid-November through the first of January, more 200 Kootenai County employees signed up to participate in the county's seven-week walking program called "Walking Your Way." Employees participated as individuals and on teams to help one another achieve their best. In the end, based upon reports sent each week by individuals, the combined total distance walked was equivalent to 17,011 miles.

Team participation held strong with 24 teams signing up and 18 of those teams completing the challenge.

Individual participation wavered a bit with 239 enrolling, but only a max of 149 as the most number of individuals reporting in a given week. By the final week, only about a third of enrollees (82) were reporting individual numbers.

Many held strong and reported improvement in their health, increased energy, and better motivation to keep going.

To give an idea of how far 17,011 miles is...

* With the Earth's circumference at 24, 901 miles, Kootenai County employees walked more than 2/3 of the way around the Earth (68.3 percent).

* From coast to coast, the United States is about 3,000 miles across. Kootenai County employees walked back and forth across the U.S. 5.7 times.

* To be more exact, if we were to go from corner to corner (the furthest point NNW to the furthest point SSE), the distance is 2,848 miles. Kootenai County employees walked that distance six times.

* While many walk much more than this, the average person walks about 5 miles per day. Combined, Kootenai County employees walked the equivalent of 3,402 days, more than nine years.

Wade Larson's company, Wellness Your Way, LLC, administers the county's workplace wellness program.