The real reward for physical activity is improved health, right? Or is it the chance to win an iPod Shuffle?

At the Million Step March site, it's both. We've brought back the weekly drawing – a sought-after reward as Kathy Higgins and Gary Marino crossed the state on foot from April 1 through June 12. Log your steps each week at our "Challenge" link, and you'll be eligible.

Each week for a dozen weeks, we'll draw a random number associated with participants who have logged their physical activity. We'll ship a new iPod Shuffle to each winner.

So, keep logging your steps as you reap the rewards of better health, and maybe a prize too.

Posted by Kyle Marshall on July 15, 2008

Since Angela started walking in April, she has no intention of stopping. Here's the story she shared with the Million Step March community:

"I started walking back in April. I woke up one Saturday morning and thought to myself, I need to start walking. So off I went and I have not stopped! I felt like Forrest Gump!

"My new year resolution, of course, was to lose weight (ha) and eat healthy, so that is what I have been doing since the first of the year. I have felt so much better since I started walking. I have MS and when the ability to walk is suddenly taken away, the days you can walk feel great. Since I started my walks, which are about three miles with the last half uphill, I have been steadily dropping the pounds. As of Monday 7/7/08, I have dropped 28 pounds. I am losing the fat and gaining muscle (the scale I use figures it all for me).

"Now, every day I look forward to getting off work and hurrying home and getting dinner fixed so I can hit the pavement. What a great feeling!"

Shared on July 9, 2008 Share your story

Even though the Million Step March has ended, we're still hearing about your efforts to live healthy lifestyles. For example, Shannon wants to let everyone know about the benefits she's seeing from walking regularly:

"After joining the challenge, I promised myself that I would increase the miles I walked per week and have found that I am now walking four to five miles per day. After logging my steps for 12 weeks, I have lost 12 pounds, firmed up many muscles and my total cholesterol has dropped 22 points. I am hooked on walking now!"

Shared on June 26, 2008 Share your story

Soon, the Million Step March will take its final twists and turns toward its inevitable conclusion in Wilmington, N.C. One day very soon, after I’ve hung up my walking sneakers and road warrior hat for yet another campaign, I’ll lie in the sand during a late afternoon on Wrightsville Beach and reflect on the entire 600-mile, 75-day campaign from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina.

And I’m sure while I’m lying there I’ll think about the people I’ve met and the places I’ve seen over the course of this journey, and I’ll ask myself one very important question: Will the inspiration and education of the Million Step March keep people in this area motivated long after Kathy Higgins and I have written our last blog posts and returned to a more structured, normal existence? I sure hope it will. Keeping the fire and staying in the fight – for your health – is an important part of an unfinished struggle.

You meet America when you do walks like this – you honestly do. What’s more is that you end up having a front row seat to the obesity epidemic in our country. You spend a lot of time walking through farm country, past the cattle industries, through the agricultural heartlands. Eventually, and in time, you find yourself walking down Main Street USA, past the staggering amounts of fast food and barbecue places, the restaurant rows and the grocery stores where most of the processed food ends up.

And finally, you end up at the campaign events like the 50 or so that Kathy and I have been to over these past three months. You meet the people, see the faces and look into the eyes of people struggling with obesity every day – and the 51 associated diseases such as diabetes, stroke, sleep apnea and others.

Finally, and not to get too deep here, it touches your soul. So where did our “land of plenty” take such a wrong turn? Well, that can be debated all day long. But in the end it’s up to us as individuals to take control of our health. It’s our responsibility to stay in the fight, to be vigilant about getting and staying healthy in a world of hectic schedules and toxic food environments. And no one knows better than yours truly.

The fight didn’t end for me when I lost 110 pounds with the help of a nutritionist and therapist. It didn’t end for me when I lost 40 more walking from Florida to Boston a few years ago. It wasn’t finished when I completed the Boston Marathon back in 2005. And it won’t be over when I hit the finish line of the Million Step March in Wilmington in just a few days. You take it day by day. You wake up and try to walk a healthy path every day. Some days you succeed and some days you don’t. But here’s the rub: You’ve got to make an honest effort of it every day. You know the future if you just give up.

The good news is, if someone like me can achieve health, then you can do it too. And remember, as I’ve said a million times at every event we’ve done on this march, it’s about the long-term fix versus the short-term fix. It’s about being around for your kids and grandkids. It’s about living long and productive lives – and about living life the way it was meant to be lived.

I know you can do it North Carolina. I have faith in you.

See you in Wilmington this Thursday!

Posted by Gary Marino on June 10, 2008