This weekend, my ongoing efforts to maximize my fun and my current specific efforts to increase my fitness levels* overlapped nicely when I saw that the Conqueror Virtual Challenges had a walking challenge related to the Salem Witch Trials.
Is this kind of a weird and tenuous connection? Yes.**
Am I heavily influenced by themed activities? Also, yes.
The challenge involves walking around 48kms over a self-determined period of time and in the course of the challenge I’ll ‘unlock’ historical information and locations relevant to the trials.
The connection to a real place and to historical events and the fact that I will ‘earn’ interesting facts by reaching certain checkpoints does add to my fun and it gives me an extra reason to keep moving.
Once I signed up, I received my ‘race bib’ which was pretty fun since I have never had one before – digital or otherwise.
I mean, I’m not racing anyone in any real sense of the word. I set my own timeline, I’ve given myself tons of time to complete the challenge, and I’m not part of a challenge group.
Really, my only competitor is me.
Yet, immediately after signing up for this, I was inclined to go for an extra walk because it was part of a bigger project.
Yes, I know that all of my fitness efforts are related to a bigger project – a happier me – but this challenge has predefined goals, obvious milestones, and there’s a definite end point. And I didn’t even have to put in the work to figure all of those things out.
Also, at the end of the challenge, the company will mail me a medal*** which will be a really cool bonus for doing something that already has inherent benefits.
*Yes, increasing my fitness levels has also been an ongoing project for me but after the necessary slow-down to recover from my injuries last year, I have been finding it hard to get back into a good fitness rhythm.
**In case you are wondering, I have, indeed, already done some overthinking about this. After considering it for some time, I felt that since it is focusing on mapping distances/locations and it gives contextual information, this challenge wasn’t particularly exploitative and it wasn’t dismissive of the situation or of the people involved.
**My husband did one of the Conqueror challenges last year and the medals – longer challenges have more than one – were delightful so I am looking forward to receiving mine.