Thoughts

3 min read

Walk like an EVORian

Thoughts

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    EVORA

The Health & Wellness team have done it again!

May was all about getting into teams and walking as much as we could, for the WALK THIS MAY challenge. We were inspired by the UK national walking month and felt that, after the success of the Race the Thames charity event in January, this would be a great way to get EVORians active, help them unwind, and bring people from different teams and locations together.

There are several benefits we can gain from walking, such as muscle strength, weight loss and circulation improvement. Walking can also massively benefit our mental health, lightening our mood as it releases natural endorphins. A good walk can also help improve our sleep.

We were stunned to receive over 40 volunteers for this challenge, which allowed us to create 8 teams in total. We have to say, EVORians are brilliant at coming up with team names! Some of the favourites include Scrambled Legs, Red Hot Chili Steppers, and my personal favourite, Walky McWalk Face.

Every team did brilliantly, getting their steps in come rain or shine. It was amazing how quickly the teams got into the million steps bracket, putting their best foot forward in racking up the steps.

Huge congratulations go to the winning team ‘Walk like an EVORian’. They absolutely smashed the challenge, coming in at 1,865,784 steps.

We are so proud of everyone, and have had great feedback on how this encouraged colleagues to talk to one another regularly; especially, those of us who don’t usually interact, as we are in different teams with different duties and we are located in several countries. Each team had a private chat on Teams so everyone could write about their walks and share photos, so no one was restricted based on where they are located in the world.

In our team, we had 3 people based in London, one in Edinburgh in Scotland, and one in Berlin. It was wonderful when we shared photos of things we’d seen on our walks, and has definitely made me want to visit Edinburgh and Berlin this year. Everyone agreed that unless walking with a partner or friends, you had to have some form of audio as company and several EVORians shared podcast recommendations, audiobook suggestions and music playlists.

As well as private team chats, there was also one Teams chat for every participant to join in. Our colleagues in more rural parts of the UK wowed us city folk with pictures of rolling green hills and it goes without saying that we had several pictures of dogs and other amazing animals… even a selfie with a herd of cows!

Now that the challenge has ended, we definitely feel like we’ve incorporated walking more into our daily lives, making it more of a habit rather than a chore. Our team will be keeping up the steps, choosing walking over public transport when we can. This might all change in the winter, but with the sun shining and a list of podcasts to get through, for now, we will take it one step at a time.