Faithful Clicker

December 13, 2016

I began my "morning walks" on July 5, 2016, a few days into my retirement.  I walked throughout the neighborhood until mid-December when I became concerned about safety while walking on potentially snow-packed and hazardous sidewalks and streets.  I then purchased a membership at the local park district recreation center.

I mostly walked the track for about an hour.  I saw a sign that said 10 laps equals a mile so I attempted to count my laps.  I primarily counted on my fingers.  One of the morning walkers saw that I was using my fingers to keep track of my laps, and she gave me one of her extra lap counters, a clicker.  I was grateful for that and used it faithfully.  I still walked for about an hour, and that equaled roughly 26-27 laps.  I keep a log of my time, and I usually just wrote in 60.


Sometime around June 2018 it occurred to me that I could use my Fitbit to monitor my time.  Around about then I increased my laps to 30 which measures 3 miles.  I was now recording a slightly more accurate time that generally ranged in the low to mid 70 minutes.

A couple weeks ago I noticed that my Fitbit data was a little bit higher than usual for my 30 laps: time, steps, and distance were all somewhat more than usual.  I just thought maybe I'd forgotten to click the counter and that I may have walked an extra lap or two.  That happened a second day, and on the third day, as I neared the end of my walking time, I saw that the clicker recorded lap 28 three times.  For the next couple days I viewed the clicker from time to time, and it became clear that it was not advancing correctly ... it was broken.

I left the clicker at home and used time on the clock and Fitbit steps to gauge my laps.  I also counted on my fingers again.

I purchased a new counter, and I'm back in business: 30 laps, 70-75 minutes, of morning walking.

the old clicker, now "gone to the railroad"