Well I probably need to rename this ....
In late August Bella came to join my household. Bella is a 7yr old Llhaso Apso from a local rescue (due to ill health of previous owner). (Not to be confused with Belle the horse !)
Years ago when I left home to go to Uni, I had every expectation that as soon as I was in a stable job/house, I would get my own dog. It's taken rather longer due to decades of commuting while living alone. But I'd been lurking on various dog rescues since about middle of lockdown, including my local rescue. And then along came Bella. 😁
Just after she arrived I spotted a Dog Walking Challenge for Dementia UK in October. It seemed like a nice way to get her and me into the swing of dog walking. So I signed up.
(the bit below this was first posted on LinkedIn and I've adapted it for here)
The October Dementia UK Dog Walk challenge is about raising awareness and funds.... and it's ended up being more personal than I had realised when I signed up because it seemed like a nice bonding (team building) thing to do with my new/rescue 4 legged companion, and relevant as my father was recently diagnosed (which makes me a carer). I'll maybe come back to that in another post.
But there are a bunch of work related things also.
Let's start with things like requirements, plans and measurement.
The definition from the charity is quite broad - the "vision" is 100km in October, but we have people doing more, less, starting early or late because of their personal situation. As long as the key stakeholders (the people sponsoring us) know - that variation is ok.
Which takes us to goals - I used September as a "benchmark". We hit around 70km over the month. So 100km for us is a genuine challenge. Where do I get the extra km from ? longer walks ? more frequent walks ?
For other people, 100km is a doddle - well, given the flexibility, set a stretch goal and just let your sponsors know.
There are also people for whom 100km is just not feasible, and some people have younger dogs where there is advice about limiting their exercise. So there the goal will be less than 100km.
All of these people are still part of the challenge, even with their different goals.
Prior preparation: (prevents p!ss poor performance). I know from the last month and a bit that I can't just do longer walks; my 4 legged companion has her limits. So the plan is for 3 shorter walks a day, and just looking to edge those up by a small amount - a few hundred metres - to increase our average. And if we have the opportunity (Scottish weather allowing) - push the distance on one walk a day at the weekend. (Tactics - measure right from the door and back. With the app security set so that I'm not exposing personal data I don't want to. Those extra metres count !)
Measurement: lots of discussion on the facebook group about this. And again lots of options. Apps for some (a number to choose from), pedometers & step counters for others. I'm using a well known app set to measure in km.
And I know what my daily and weekly average need to be.
I need to account for things like
- office days, when there won't be a lunchtime walk
- Scottish weather (one day this week had high winds that made it risky to go out, with trees down on roads, flooding etc )
and of course, the plan needs a spreadsheet 🤣
(and actuals will be tracked there too)
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