‘Don’t Wake the Dragon’ team wins Walktober 2017

How does a community motivate its residents to step up and step out? Make it a competition between teams for a month in an event called Walktober!

Walktober was started four years ago as a way to get people moving before the craziness of the holiday food, travel and merry get underway.

Kay County Healthy Living Coalition members, with a lot of help from the Kay County Health Department, started Walktober as a new event to foster positive communication between individuals, businesses and the wider community focusing on healthy physical activities.  The competition started as a 10-day period in 2013 and now encompasses the whole month of October.   In 2017,  50 teams participated around Ponca City.

Anyone can participate. Five-person teams can consist of workmates, friends and family.  Any exercise or activity will do and all activities are translated to steps to keep a level playing field.

Teams of five are asked to enter in each members individual, daily steps into an online program.  These daily steps are tabulated weekly and the Top 10 teams are posted.  At the end of the month, a “Champion” team is announced from the total steps entered by teams.

This year’s Walktober Champions are the team from the Ponca City Library, “Don’t Wake the Dragon.”

“This team continues to be the reigning champions of Walktober and have set the bar every year since Walktober began,” said Kat Long, one of the organizers on the Walktober Committee.  “This team runs, walks, bicycles, practices Karate and have added something new to their team as far as activities go every year.  They are the team to beat and it is very motivational to the other teams participating to have that goal.”

This year, a new component was added:  walking lunches.  Many teams get extra steps in at lunchtime and five local lunch locations offered fast, easy pickup lunches to help teams get those steps and still manage to grab food.  Special thanks to Food Pyramid on 14^th, Astoria Boulevard Bistro, Alliance Health Hospital Cafeteria, The Perk and Sacred Grounds for participating this year.

Four teams were drawn from the Top 10 Weekly Teams and each received a Team Lunch from one of these locations.  The teams drawn were:  “Are We There Yet?”,  “West Walkin’ Beauties”;  “Whole Hogs” and “2^nd Street Cruisers.”   Community Health Foundation sponsored a drawing for to-go mugs.  The team receiving these mugs are “Bobby’s Blister Sisters“.

Kay County Healthy Living Coalition partners include the City of Ponca City, Kay County Health Department, Ponca City Development Authority, United Way, Turning Point Oklahoma, Ponca City Public Schools, Pioneer Technology Center and United Community Action Program, Inc.  This group meets the first Monday of each month at the Kay County Health Department at 11 a.m.  The next meeting is Jan. 3, 2018.