Each year, the Saskatoon Council on Aging (SCOA) hosts a Globe Walk adventure where adults ages 50+ can participate and challenge themselves to be more active during the winter months. This year marks the third year that the City of Martensville will be offering local residents a chance to join the local team at the Martensville Athletic Pavilion (MAP). “The goal is to get older adults more active and to challenge each other,” Angie Reddekopp, City of Martensville Program Coordinator, said.
A new theme is created annually, with this year’s being ‘Walk the Wonders of the World’, which kicked off on Tuesday, January 7th and will run until April 30th. Each Tuesday, seniors are invited to come to the MAP and walk for free from 1pm to 2pm.
Those interested in participating in the Globe Walk can register at the MAP for free. When registering they will be required to provide their name, age, address, email and phone number. From there, they keep track of all activity they do whether it be walking, vacuuming at home, shoveling the driveway and more. At the end of each month, they turn in their totals and it gets calculated into how many kilometers they contributed. A total of 1300 steps counts as 1 kilometer, and for those who prefer activities that cannot be measured in steps or distance, you can log 2 kilometers for every 30 minutes of physical activity. SCOA encourages the use of fitness tracking devices, pedometers or cell phone apps to help keep track of your efforts as well as motivate you to reach your goals.
In January, the Globe Walk will begin in Saskatoon, with their first goal to reach the Mayan Ruins of Chichen Itza, located on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, which is 5577 kms away. “Every team submits their kilometers to SCOA and the goal is that together, we can walk all of the Wonders of the World, which would be a total of 56677 kilometers,” Reddekopp explained. “Our goal, as a team is to walk at least one of the Wonders of the World.”
In 2017, a total of 70 older adults participated in Martensville and in 2018 that number grew to over 100. Reddekopp hopes that this year, they will see an even larger number of people join. “We are really excited to be involved again this year and hope that we can increase our numbers and check out some Wonders of the World!”
For more information about the Senior Globe Walk, or to register, stop by the MAP or contact them at (306) 683-5576.
