Stepping Up to the Challenge

Eighteen years ago, I became a grandmother, opening depths of emotion I had never experienced before. A year later, when I saw the announcement of a 10,000-step-a-day challenge in the Portland [Maine] Press Herald, I decided to apply, writing an essay explaining that I wanted to extend my life so that I could see my grandson grow up. I was chosen to participate, and after strapping on my free pedometer, I started to walk. A month later, I had met the goal of walking 10,000 steps a day. Three years later, I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer.

Blessed with amazing support and a ferocious determination to survive, I was healthy and alive in 2020 when I heard about Wellesley’s Walktober challenge. For the same reason I wanted to walk in 2006, I signed up. I didn’t understand all the ins and outs of the program and wasn’t able to join a team, but I walked a lot, although not 10,000 a day. The next year, I decided to form a team, which made a big difference. We were enthusiastic, but not what you would call competitive.

The following year, I urged my teammates to try even harder to walk the full 10,000 steps a day. Three of us almost did it; the others did their best, but life got in the way. I had achieved a perfect record until I was injured aboard a cruise ship while on an Alumnae Association trip to Greece. Before my accident, I had been walking every day with two members of our class who were not on my team, but who were equally determined. We walked on the deck every night and sometimes back and forth on the dock while waiting to board the ship. My injuries prevented me from getting 10,000 steps for a couple of days, but not for long.

The next year, we added two new teammates and discovered all the different ways we could get steps. No longer did we have to walk long distances; we could get steps by gardening, swimming, lifting weights, attending a yoga or exercise class, and even doing housework. We learned how to use the step counter on the Walktober website and quickly became competitive walkers. We were proud when we ended up 16th on the leaderboard at the end of the challenge.

In May 2024, our team gathered at our 55th reunion to walk together and make plans for the upcoming Walktober season. We added a new classmate, Susan Alexander, a novelist, who had distinguished herself the year before by walking 10,000 steps every day for the full six weeks of the challenge. The other members of our team included Bunny Furne Simmons, a poet; Ann Yonemura, an art historian/curator; Nancy Decker, a Wellesley College tutor; Dede Berle Hearey, an attorney; and me, a law professor. We walked in neighborhoods in California, Idaho, Massachusetts, Maine, Washington, D.C., and Luxembourg. We walked in airports, swam in motel swimming pools, and lifted weights while riding in cars. The opportunities were endless. Although we were all 76 or 77 years old, we pledged to end up at the very top of the leaderboard, both individually and as a team.

We had something to prove, especially to ourselves. None of us are athletes, but we all had graduated at the dawn of the second wave of the women’s movement. Over the years, we had learned to achieve seemingly impossible goals despite adversity and doubt. With few female role models or mentors, we had managed to reach our goals as women in a male-dominated world.

As the weeks unfurled, several teammates experienced medical events that might have sidelined them had they been less determined. One learned she had a heart condition for which walking was excellent therapy. Every night, I wrote emails of congratulations and encouragement, and we stayed in touch regularly. We were becoming much more than a Walktober team. We were a force, fueled by friendship and support.

When the final day of Walktober arrived, we were in first place among 537 teams, along with eight other, younger teams. Out of 2,917 alumnae, 159 staff, and 419 students, we all came in first individually. We had done it! Best of all, we had done it together.

Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu taught, “A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step.” Eight hundred years later, six members of the class of 1969 proved that a journey of a lifetime can begin with 10,000 steps.