The Tangrens

A couple of weeks ago Adobe began participation in the Global Corporate Challenge which is a program aimed at getting desk sitters moving. They are grouped in to teams of seven and each given a pedometer ( and a back pack and a hat- which Hyrum loves for some reason) to track their daily steps. If the group averages 10 thousand steps per person through the 16 week challenge it's the equivalence of walking around the world. You can even go onto the website and see your groups progress around the world. As Derek tracked his steps he found that a lot of times at work he would only have around 3 to 4 thousand steps. But on weekends he'd easily get up to 17 thousand. So he tried to walk around during calls with clients that didn't require him being in front of his computer and we tried to take walks when he got home from work. He started to get to where he would average around 10 thousand a day. On his biggest day he had 27 thousand steps. Then came last Friday.

A couple of months ago he'd been talking to the guys he takes a van pool with about if there was an emergency ( earthquake or some other kind of natural disaster ) how they would be able to get back to their families. They decided to try to walk it once to see if they could do it and get a better idea of what to they would need and should keep on hand if there were an emergency. (That would be at least 15 miles and more like 16 or 17 at the end of the day). They'd talked about doing it on April 16th but that fell through and they instead decided to do it on the 17th of June, this last Friday.

They left work at 12:06pm and headed south taking back roads with slower speeds or busier roads with sidewalks. When I heard from him at 2:06 they had already made it to downtown Provo which was about half way. We went to get him Father's day gifts and when we left the store I was afraid that we'd missed his homecoming. We rushed home with a mind to make big signs to welcome him home from his long trek. When we got home at around 4pm, he hadn't made it yet. I asked him where he was and he'd made it to Springville right by where he would catch the van pool, about 3 and a half miles away. We hurried and made signs and I told him to let me know when he was close. I kept vigil over the computer. I expected him any moment but the last few miles were the hardest. I went out to water the garden and when I came there was a message from three minutes ago that said he was at the head of the street. I hurried and grabbed the signs and hurried the boys outside to see him walking up to the house at around 5:15. We cheered and showed him our signs. I'd hoped that we'd be cheering him down the street to our open arms but at least he'd gotten a welcome.

The first thing he said is "I've got to sit down." We hurried him inside and had him sit on the couch. One of the first things he realized about what he would need was better shoes. He got gigantic blisters on the entirety of two of his five toes on each foot as well as a blister on each of the balls of his feet.

Poor kid. But he did it! He shuffled like an old man the rest of the day but he did it! And that night when he went to enter his steps for the day which was over 40 thousand they gave him a speeding ticket and he had to explain why his step count was so high. There were at least two other guys getting speeding tickets on the Global Corporate Challenge for that day too!