Pinnacol Employees Walking their way to Wellness

What better time of the year to set some positive and healthy resolutions? More than one hundred Pinnacol employees have signed up thus far for our new "Walking to Wellness" program. Participants will accumulate miles as they walk that will be tracked towards the company goal of reaching (virtually!) the Baseball All-Star Game in Phoenix, Arizona in July and then on to Super Bowl XLVI to be held in Indianapolis, Indiana in February 2012. I don't have a crystal ball, but with Mr. Elway now officially back with the Broncos, I predict our employees will arrive just in time to celebrate in blue and orange!

As recently reported on NPR, studies have shown that walking has all sorts of advantages, and that brisk walking is even better than taking a leisurely stroll. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health evaluated the health of more than 13,000 women who had reached the age of 70. They found that women who regularly walked at a moderate pace had much higher odds of staving off disease and aging successfully than their counterparts who didn't exert themselves beyond leisurely, easy walking.

We've got maps of local walking routes to make it easier for employees to find their way, and of course, there will be rewards as employees reach major milestones in their wellness journeys.

And, just for the record, Phoenix is 751 and Indianapolis is 1,061 miles from Denver. That's about 3.6 million steps our intrepid walkers will have to total.

I just hope they have comfortable shoes!