Local man walks 1 million steps

Jim Akers reaches a “milestone,” taking more than 1 million steps in a month.

Seal Beach resident Jim Akers stepped his way into his personal history book by walking more than 1 million steps from March 1 to March 29. He actually reached 1 million steps in 29 days and finished out the month with a grand total of 1,030,990 steps.

Akers said it was almost a year ago on April 7 last year that he completed 100,000 in a single day. At the time, he called it an Everest moment. Akers said it can be done if planned properly. He explained that he analyzed the 24 hours in a day and found for his personal situation he had roughly 16 hours of “awake” time. He figured out he would need approximately five to six hours a day to accomplish his goal.

It would be a matter of planning, organizing and sticking to the plan. From the get go, rule number one was don’t skip a day. Rule two get an early start and rule three enjoy the moment.

Asked what’s next, he said that at one month shy of his 75th, he was done with stepping and will spend a lot of time with his wife RV traveling and just walk for his health. When asked what is the one thing that made it possible, Akers replied without hesitation, and said, discipline as well as mental toughness and an understanding wife.