Not long ago, I received a jauntily designed email informing me that I’d “won” another Fitbit badge. This time, I’ve walked the length of the Serengeti–500 miles since I started wearing the rubbery black “watch” (which, since it follows me wherever I go, turns out to be double entendre, doesn’t it?) I’d  sworn I’d never own.

The older one grows, it seems, the more one eat’s one’s words.

More than six months into the Fitbit shtick, I grudgingly confess that I’ve grown to like it. Yes, it’s a good motivator. Yes, I am definitely walking more and have lost a bit of weight. Yes, I feel more energetic. Yes, achieving little goals, one after the other, gives me satisfaction. And yes, I get mad on days when something, however, legitimate, interferes with my steps.

I have a long way to catch up with Hubby, who started a few months before me and has, per his Fitbit badge,  “walked” the entire Italian coast. Or with my other Fitbit friends. My belle soeur* invited me to join her Fitbit workweek challenge as soon as she learned I was stepping it up. There are four to six participants, and whoever logs the most steps in the Monday-to-Friday race wins.

I don’t always manage 10,000 steps. If I do, it’s often on the weekends, which doesn’t count in the challenge. I haven’t won this competition once. I’m a morning person; morning is the best time for me to do just about anything. I get my first few thousand steps doing the morning chores and walking Miss Puppy,  hopefully reaching my admittedly modest goal in the early afternoon. Then, depending on the length of our late afternoon constitutional, and whether I’ve done the grocery store (always good for a couple of thousand steps), I fill in during the evening hours. This often involves a kind of pacing from one end of the first floor to the other that makes Miss Pup, like the dogs in a James Thurber cartoon, regard me with utter disdain.**

This “morning person” almost never makes major progress, with steps or anything else, after 7 PM—especially with darkness arriving earlier each day. Whereas I am entirely diurnal, at nightfall, my belle soeur is just getting started. If I go to bed at 11, comfortably in second place, I will inevitably awaken the next morning to find that she has surged past me, like the near magical horse who flies into the lead in the last few furlongs of the derby.  I have affectionately referred to her as my “night stalker.” Still, I’m glad to be a part of this friendly competition, and I’m actually pretty happy with my overall performance. Every 10,000-step day is especially satisfying.

As I write this, early on a Wednesday morning, my belle soeur is about 1,000 steps behind me. Then again, it’s not even 9 AM.

*I refuse to use the phrase “in-law” for anyone I care about, much preferring the gentler French expression for the relationship.

**If Miss Pup could talk as I pace, she’d surely be saying, “Have you gone totally bonkers, and, if so, why are you taking me with you?”