Residents embrace walking during COVID-19 Restrictions

Published on 01 July 2020

A number of Council Ageing Well Committee members have swapped gentle exercise and embraced walking during the COVID -19 physical distancing regulations.

Liz Seeliger and Jenny Enever usually take gentle exercise classes in Mulwala & Savernake, and Howlong respectively, however with community halls and health regulations their regular classes were cancelled.

Murrumbidgee Local Health District instead organised the 5000 Step Challenge for its Gentle Exercise leaders to do with their participants.  The challenge went for 28 days and encourage people to walk 5000 steps a day.

Liz Seeliger’s team registered 24 people with 15 completing it. The team did 2,261,046 steps. This averages out to 5,383 steps daily per participant.  However, some averaged over 10,000 daily and some less than 3000.

“It was a fabulous challenge to do during the lockdown as we walked around the outside of our houses and up and down hallways. Gardening was also included”, said Liz. “It gave people a reason to get up and move. And great for mental health too.”

Jenny Enever’s team “Howlong to Howlong” won the overall challenge with their record sheet from eleven team members totalling 2,828,164 steps. 

Jenny said, “Once we were allowed to exercise in a group each day a number of us have walked at least 4 km each day. It's been fantastic!” 

Mike Gardiner did his bit for the Howlong team by walking to the top of the Rock near Wagga Wagga, racking up 15,271 steps. 

While an 89 (nearly 90) year old Mulwala woman walked around the Mulwala pool and she averaged 8,751 steps a day. 

This fabulous MLHD initiative has meant that more fitness was happening in our communities than these people would normally have done. Well done Jenny, Liz and all the participants.