After a successful first go-around, ASI is opening up the Be Active CPP Step Challenge for a second time. Like the initial event, students will be encouraged to step up in a competition of physical activity and exercises such as walking, running, hiking and cycling.
The second session, announced on Oct. 27, follows the initial six-week challenge that started in the beginning of September and saw about 125 coordinators and students participate.
Kaycee Tanioka, competitive sport coordinator for ASI, discussed changes for the upcoming challenge.
“This second session for the fall semester will run pretty similarly but we’re doing some things a little bit different,” Tanioka said. “We have these different milestones so we’re changing those so people would hit new milestones in the second session of the step challenge.” Participants of the second session can expect to earn virtual badges and congratulatory images when they hit “mileage markers” for walking a certain number of steps and other achievements.
ASI Fitness Coordinator Ivan Serrano talked about the planning and organization aspect of the challenge.
“For the most part, getting this program up off the ground was pretty smooth because we already had a lot of the logistical pieces in place,” Serrano said. “We’ve had one semester of virtual programming under our belts already so we know what forms we can use; we have our waivers intact and our online registration was ready to go.”
Henrik Masa, a fourth-year kinesiology student and intramurals assistant supervisor for ASI, described his motivation for participating in the first step challenge.
“I would run every now and then but mostly just walking with my parents… I just wanted to track my steps since I’ve never really done that before,” Masa said. “I thought it was a really good experience because during COVID and everything, most people are inside, and this made me want to go outside for a walk at least and do something active every day.”
Masa is also participating in the second session of the step challenge.
“I’ll probably do more of the same thing, maybe more running just because I want to increase my cardiovascular endurance in general,” Masa said. “But since it’s going to be colder now and it’s supposed to rain soon, I might just go to the gym and get on a treadmill.”
Katrina Flores, a fourth-year chemical engineering student and intramurals sports assistant supervisor at ASI, also shared her experiences with the event and her strategy for completing her fitness goals.
“It was actually mostly walking,” Flores said. “I made it a habit of going with my mom every day… it was an opportunity for us to get outside.”
Flores, who amassed a total of 237,668 steps during the six-week challenge while averaging 39,611 steps a week, will join the challenge again with a similar mindset to Masa.
“For this second season I’m doing a lot more running, so I’ll probably get more steps out of it too,” Flores said.
While ASI saw decent numbers in registration, they hope to improve on student participation this time around.
“I feel like it was just mostly faculty and staff that had the biggest participation,” Masa said. “There was a lot of students that signed up but some of them just never sent their steps every week.”
With the conclusion of the first session of the step challenge, ASI tallied steps for the full six weeks and found that all students who participated contributed a total of more than 9 million steps while faculty contributed a whopping 27.77 million steps.
With all of this in mind, ASI plans to continue the step challenge well into the future while they make adjustments that can improve the experience. With more time to collect feedback, promote, market and reach out to the campus community, Tanioka estimates a higher registration for the challenge in the spring.
For more information regarding the Be Active CPP Step Challenge, visit https://asi.cpp.edu/campusrec/programs/intramural-sports/leagues/be-active-cpp-step-challenge/
