We have literally traveled many roads since we launched EverWalk five years ago. And we have many visions of new adventures, starting with our upcoming OceansCommit.com walks, dancing in our heads. But from Day One, always, the underlying fabric of EverWalk has been woven from a concept of a Nation of walkers.

Bonnie and I are crazy about our EPICS, 134 miles in 7 days. We’ve hosted four of them now:

            2016    Los Angeles to San Diego                    coastal beach towns, ocean vistas

            2017    Boston to Cape Elizabeth, Maine       picture post card eye candy all the way

            2018    Canadian border to Seattle                the majestic Pacific Northwest

            2019    Philadelphia to DC                              monuments to early American history

And we WILL walk shoulder to shoulder down long EPIC roads again. We promise.

But, along with our Ambassador First Saturdays and our annual Key West Service EverWalk and our new Book Club and Photo Snapshot programs on the site here, the 2020 push for us revolves around The EverWalk Mile.

The timing is perfect, with millions around the country walking a bit every day, as in some cases our only source of both exercise and emotional relief during this Covid era, to hook into the current collective joy and safety of walking. Again, from Day One, Bonnie and I have for a long time now imagined an American culture that makes daily walking as natural, as automatic, as brushing one’s teeth.

As a matter of fact, when we were searching for a name for our movement, we chose EverWalk because the word “ever” connotes Everybody, Everywhere, Forever. A lifetime daily activity. A habit.

Mahatma Gandhi has a longer quote, one line of which is: “Your actions become your habits.”

That is what we are envisioning for The EverWalk Mile. After walking your Mile consistently, you won’t need to remind yourself when to get it in. It will be your healthy, positive, freeing, inspiring habit.

Every day—early morning, lunchtime at work, after dinner in the neighborhood—we walk The EverWalk mile. Yes, we realize for many of you a mile wouldn’t be enough. So you continue on and put in a few more miles. But just think of it. What if walking a mile every day (EVERY DAY) became a grooved habit. No matter what, every one of us gets out the door, we mark one-milers all over town, we get to know our newsstand happens to be ½ mile away so the round trip each day is our perfect mile. On average, that mile will take 15-20 minutes. That’s it. We can’t live without it. We’re not happy without it.  We walk The EverWalk Mile every single day.

July 1, we will send out an EverWalk virtual calendar. The EverWalk Mile will appear as a box on each day, ready to be checked. By July 31, you’ll take a look at your calendar and see how many days you’ve red-checked. If you walked, let’s say, your mile 22 days that month, that’s pretty darn terrific. We all lead busy lives. Obligations enter the picture. But you’re motivated now. A day seems lacking without your mile. So for your August calendar, you are focused on getting in your mile on 25 of the days. By September, you’re not even planning your daily mile any more.

You JUST DO IT!

Hopefully, by July, our streets and neighborhoods will be safe again. Rioting and curfews over. Covid under better control. Walking a mile a day, alone or together, just might turn out to be the collective national movement that helps us through these historically unprecedented times.

Peace be with you, each one of you.

Let us move, let us EverWalk, ever ONWARD!

Diana

About Diana Nyad: 

 A prominent sports journalist, filing for National Public Radio, ABC’s Wide World of Sports, The New York Times and others, Diana has carved her place as one of our compelling storytellers and sought-after public speakers. .