So, last Saturday I did attempt to break my previous high steps in a single day of 152,419. I started running loops around the top of my driveway at midnight Friday and continuously ran and mostly walked until 11:30 pm Saturday night (23 1/2 hours) - I stopped 30 minutes before midnight because I knew at that point I wouldn't be able to break my previous PR and my feet were absolutely KILLING me! I ended up with 145,043 steps, falling a little more than 7,000 behind my best. Distance-wise the FitBit recorded 70 miles that I traveled.
I setup a small aid station next to my garage and my wife came out regularly to lend support. The first 6 hours I made steady progress but it was a little tough at night - even though I had lights on. As it wore on though my feet became steadily more and more painful because I was wearing an old pair of running shoes that didn't have enough cushion. That slowed me down, as did a lack of training.
I'm still recovering somewhat today and feel drained physically but my legs aren't too bad.
It's interesting that under controlled conditions I wasn't able to break the step totals I had achieved previously in a grueling mountain race. So what I think is that on a technical trail you accumulate more steps per a given distance because you are constantly stepping over and around rocks, roots, etc. And shoes matter! If I had a pair of better cushioned shoes I would have certainly done better because I spent too much time adjusting them, socks, then no socks, taking them off for a few minutes every hour, etc. I bet I lost 20,000 steps due to having poor shoes.
I still think 200,000 is doable but extremely difficult and everything would have to go perfectly, including the weather (I lost a little more time when a thunderstorm came over and I had to scramble to move my stuff inside my garage and do about 7,000 steps in the house!). Not sure I'll ever attempt this again but it was a hell of an experience! Oh, also, sometime today I'll hit over 1 million steps this month!
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