Where is he?

My husband disappears for hours at a time. This is a relatively new behavior and a noticeable one, as we both work at home and see one another all day long.

Where is he?

Out walking.

His company Kone, Inc., has issued pedometers to employees that wanted them. It is part of the Walkingspree USB Pedometer & Tracking program. Walkingspree is an innovative corporate wellness program that engages the participants, is fun and actually improves morale while promoting a little friendly competition.

He merely puts the pedometer on in the morning, removes it at night and downloads his steps online. Each walker has a name, some are aliases (like my husband's which I will not divulge). At first my husband was dogging it, trying to slip the pedometer to me when I go for my dog walk and my personal walk in the morning. I reneged, saying that was cheating and wasn't he interested to really see how he could do?

While in Texas recently, he even tried to give our granddaughter the device while she was running around a climbing park. We talked him out of it - an eight-year old cheating for you?

Suddenly even he became interested in the program. Especially when he realized that he could actually walk more than some guys who are younger than he is. That coupled with the fact that I was out of town for a couple of days got him really fired up and he started truly walking....and walking.

When a participant walks 300,000 steps, he or she is entered into a raffle. Prizes range from a day off with pay (nice) to a year's worth of health insurance - ! What incentive.

All employees have something in common: walking. Conversations include how many steps did you do? Is he a marathoner or what? Everyone that is participating is buzzing about it. One of the women discovered that even though the pedometer does not register immediately in her spinning class, it races to catch up to give her a proper reading after a few moments.

During the first serious week (i.e., no cheating) he was in the top 10. Last week, he was #6 - oops, maybe I gave up his identity.

Last Sunday, we took a little stroll: from our house through the Bethlehem Woods neighborhood, admired the Grotto, crossed Ogden Avenue, went to the entrance of Bemis Woods on the north side of Ogden, reminisced about the toboggan slide, walked the path back to our place. 9,000 steps = 4.2 miles.

Walk on!