1,000,000,000 lifetime steps ... is it possible??

jaminjamin wrote:

Why the fascination with meaningless random milestones?

not that meaningless. doing something that requires a conscious effort a billion times is highly nontrivial. can you give any other examples of unaided human performance where an action can be (at least theoretically) performed a billion times? I mean, most machines would completely break down after 10 million cycles

The Lark Ascending wrote:

Too early for this on a smartphone!

Corrected:

Walk 10,000 steps/day at work.

Run 7,392 steps/ day (7 miles w/5 ft stride).

= 17,382 steps/day

Do that 260 days/year (5 days/week)

17,382 × 260 = 4,519,320 steps/year

Takes 221yr 17wk.

Start there.

The Lark Ascending wrote:

Walk 10,000 steps/day at work.

Run 7 miles/day w/5 ft stride.

= 5,330,000 steps/day.

Do that 5 days/week, 260 days/year.

Takes 187 years.

Begin there.

yes, 10,000 steps per day (which is a doctor recommended minimum) would not cut it. but if you average 40,000, or, better 50,000 steps per day then 200 years becomes 40 or 50 years. still a long time, but not impossible

I cant feel my pace wrote:

jaminjamin wrote:

Why the fascination with meaningless random milestones?

not that meaningless. doing something that requires a conscious effort a billion times is highly nontrivial. can you give any other examples of unaided human performance where an action can be (at least theoretically) performed a billion times? I mean, most machines would completely break down after 10 million cycles

Lets hear it for the heart then!

If you average 60 bpm...

60x60x24x365 = 31,536,000 per year.

Average life say 75 years: 2,365,200,000 "cycles"

Of course runners will have quite a bit more than that.

oh please wrote:

Of course runners will have quite a bit more than that.

Actually, one theory for why runners might have better longevity is that they have *fewer* heartbeats by a given age. This is because although your HR is elevated while you are running, the better cardiovascular fitness you gain from running decreases your heart rate the rest of the time. And you spend a lot more time not running than running.

For example, Alice doesn't run at all. Her average HR throughout the day is 70 bpm. That's a total of 60*70*24 = 100,800 beats/day.

Brenda runs for 1 hour/day, during which her HR averages 150 bpm. Even if her average HR for the rest of the day only falls to 66 bpm, she is already doing slightly better than Alice! Because 60*150+23*60*66 = 100,080. If her average non-running HR falls to 60 bpm, she is down to 91,800 beats/day. If it falls to 50 bpm (which I don't think is unrealistic), she is down to 78,000 beats/day, a reduction of over 20%.

What these examples illustrate is that since you spend most of your time not running, the lower HR during non-running activities ends up having a bigger effect. If you were running like 5 hours per day or more, this dynamic may no longer hold (depending on the ratio of running to non-running HRs).

So runners probably experience less heart beats per year. In that sense, running might actually *save* some wear and tear on your heart, as counterintuitive as that is.

Even a centipede would have a hard time getting to 1,000,000,000 steps. A millipede might have a shot at it, barring injury of course.

@Richard Vonnegut: How many steps does your baby have now? I would like to celebrate the first person to reach a billion steps. I started tracking my steps at the age of 48, and I am 59 now. I have logged a total of 80,943, 541 steps, so I probably won't make it to 1,000,000,000 unless I can live another 120 years.