Evansville, IN July 1 -- If you walk to get exercise, you know how frustrating it is to keep track of the miles you've walked. Unless you keep a diary, it's tough to keep track of whether you're walking more now than you did when you first began a walking program. Well a local family has just made it easy for you.
The Gleneski's have set up an Internet walking organization to help walkers log the miles they've walked, and it encourages them to keep it up!
Nancy Gleneski gained 62 pounds when she was pregnant with twins Meggan and Donnie. That was four years ago, and Nancy has invested a lot of time trying to get her body back in shape.
"I wanted to lose the extra weight," she said. "I tried aerobics and it just wasn't working right, so once I started walking, the pounds are coming off faster."
To help Nancy reach her fitness goal, her husband created a web site called Health Walkers.com.
"It's basically a walking club on the internet," Don Gleneski said. "It's used to help people track their progress."
Nancy quickly realized the site challenged her and kept her motivated. The Gleneski's decided to see if other walkers would feel the same. They began publicizing the site.
"It's growing every day, it's pretty exciting," Nancy said. "We have walkers from Wyoming all the way to Baltimore and all over the country. Right now we have 10 members from Canada! I have had nothing but positive comments---they love the site."
The site allows walkers all over the world to log their daily miles, set personal goals, challenge each other and monitor their progress.
"That's what's fun about the site," Nancy added. "Even though I'm walking on my own time, I can walk at my own pace, and I can go on the site and see all these people who walked with me today."
The web site encourages walkers to set small goals, and then hopefully, all miles logged will eventually add up to 3,328 miles---the equivalent of walking across America.
One walker in particular is helping the site to reach that goal quickly!
Ellie McRae is the web site's top-notch walker!
"Yesterday, I walked 18.4 miles," she said. "But generally, I go about 12 to 14. But I was down at the park and had nothing else to do, so I was able to catch up."
She is going the distance! Ellie's now walked over 1,300 miles since January!
The friendly web site competitions encourage her to stay on pace, and logging her miles daily holds her accountable.
"It's wonderful," Ellie said. "If I didn't do that, there would be days that I would chicken out, but the whole world knows I'm not doing it, so I gotta keep going!"
When the weather's good, Ellie walks an average of over 300 miles per month, and Nancy is closer to her goal of losing the baby weight.
She's now walked over 940 miles since January.
The Health Walkers web site also allows people from different parts of the country to log on and keep track of each other's progress.
Participating in Healthwalkers.com is free. So far, over 100 people use the site on a regular basis.
For more information, click on to the site: www.healthwalkers.com
