PORT ANGELES — The steps taken by 13 groups in the Olympic Discovery Trail Virtual Challenge were enough to wrap around the world twice.
The challenge, which was from Sept. 20 to Nov. 1, asked participants to log their exercise to compete against other community groups and businesses to see who could virtually complete the 160-mile trail from LaPush to Port Townsend.
Twice around
Organizer Dan Maguire said he was proud of the results in which participants walked 99,971,016 steps — which equaled 49,985 miles.
The circumference of the Earth is 24,900 miles.
“This was a totally grass-roots movement to do this,” Maguire said.
“Everyone put a lot of effort into this, and the whole idea was to just get people moving more.”
Maguire said he hoped the Olympic Wellness Coalition would continue to do the program — with a few tweaks.
“I think next year we’ll set a larger goal for the teams,” he said.
“Maybe see if people can individually walk the trail, but maybe set the team goal at walking to Paris or something.”
Some teams made individual challenges within the larger challenge, Maguire said.
For example, Olympic Medical Center divided its 96 members into four teams to compete against each other.
“We had an overwhelmingly positive response,” he said.
“Everyone had a great time.”
Other teams — such as Peninsula College — combined the challenge with other events, such as the annual Governor’s Health Bowl, another online exercise contest that coincidently fell during the same time period.
In the Governor’s Health Bowl, Peninsula College beat out the other institutions of higher education who were also competing.
“I think it goes to show that everyone could really make this their own — and we purposely did it without too many rules or anything like that,” Maguire said.
The individual teams logged the following miles:
— Olympic Medical Center — 11,403 miles.
— Peninsula College — 9,639 miles.
— Clallam County — 7,274 miles.
— Clallam County Public Utility District — 7,132 miles.
— OlyCAP — 6,336 miles.
— Peninsula Mental Health — 2,880 miles.
— Olympic National Park — 1,954 miles.
— U.S. Coast Guard — 1,506 miles.
— Clallam County Family YMCA — 960 miles.
— Clallam County Housing Authority — 357 miles.
— Peninsula Daily News — 201 miles.
— TOPS — 57 miles.
— Individuals not with any group — 286.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
