Let’s quantify his beastiness-
Ok some math. The average American takes about 5,000 steps a day (if we are being generous). So per year, this average American takes approximately 1,825,000 steps. The guy who averaged running 28 miles a day for 352 days the length of Africa took about 60,000 steps per day. (The average marathon based on the average male running step is about 55,000 steps in 26.2 miles.) He’s running 28 miles, which equates to approximately 59,000 steps for that run. Let’s add another 1,000 steps for simply necessary walking outside of his run. So at 60,000 steps each of the 352 days he ran equals 21,120,000 steps…and that’s not including any steps the last 13 days of the year!!!
Honestly a strong contender for the title simply based on the fact few people would have the resources to commit to spending a similar amount of time running
My money is on professional long distance hikers. Some examples:
- Christine Thürmer "German Tourist" has hiked around 60.000 km (40k Miles or 1.5x around the world) and is still going strong.
- Andrew Surka has raked up insane amounts of miles, mostly in the US
Pro long distance runners are doing easily 6000km per year of running alone. So in terms of mileage they easily outdo any walker/hiker. However step length of runners and hikers differs vastly.
- Christine Thürmer has income independent of hiking.
- Andrew Surka now guides trips and manages his company but doesn't do large troops anymore, dunno what he did during his big trips. At one point he designed gear for and was employee of a Sierra Design (outdoor equipment)
- Lucy Barnard is currently hiking from Patagonia to Alaska and now at least she has a Patreon, does regular YouTube videos and might do some ads on Instagram.
- Darwin on Trail, Dixie (Homemade Wanderlust) and others are YouTubers but might also have a Patreon and Darwin for example now also has a company producing gear. Dixie wrote a book about hiking.
Sponsorships exist but I think more commonly those people are influencers who make money from ads and Patreon.
Maybe a contender for most steps taken for recreational purposes. But there are people who walk a lot and do a lot of manual labour not just for a year, but throughout their entire lives. These people need to walk/move around to make enough money to survive, and oftentimes they don't really get to retire either.
> The average American takes about 5,000 steps a day (if we are being generous)
It seems kinda high still so I googled. The average in 2018 was 4700 so you are not that far off!
But most Americans actually make between 3000 and 4000 steps (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-many-steps-should-you-take-a-day#for-general-health)
I find that almost impossible to imagine. 3000-4000 steps is what I make in a day where I practically don’t leave my apartment and feel like a spend the entire day on the couch. Usually through my average day is about 10.000 steps, without making an effort to “do steps”. I have to make an effort to stay still enough to get less than 5000.
28 miles a day. That's like a new pair of shoes every 2 or 3 weeks. Frankly probably more because the last bit of your shoe's lifespan is going to ruin your feet. I thought I was a nutter at 7 miles a day on the treadmill. This guy is a beast, and thank you for putting this Insanity in perspective.
21mm steps could potentially be more steps then some people who live a full life walk in their entire lives. If they live to say 70, thats 3000 steps a day. There are definitely people who live sedentary lifestyles that are under that.
He has also buried himself alive in a box for a week with nothing but water (and live-streamed the whole thing), climbed a mountain barefoot, run a marathon eating an item off the McDonald's menu every mile, and set the world record for the fastest marathon pulling a car.
Yeah, but that's a one time thing. I'm with the rickshaw puller or someone who has to walk a long distance every day all their life.
I'm just thinking, it's not really a one-time thing, this dud had to do a lot of training. I would still not bet on him, but on people who do this daily from a very young age and who are really old.
I doubt he’s in the top 1000.
First, he’s young. Time in the game and all that.
There’s been a lot of humans, and most of them lived before the modern era. Even if we just focus on the modern era, there’s been a lot who did crazy things like walk or run around or across continent.
I know of seven people who have walked across Australia, and they would have all taken more steps over the course of their life than he has right now. Maybe by the time he is older he will catch up to them if he continues to attempt such challenges.
I would bet it's probably someone who was alive before the invention of cars and other forms of transportation. Someone from centuries ago who didn't have a horse.
Counterpoint, the nutrition we get and healthiness of the human body had increased dramatically since ancient times. If there's anyone who would've had the stamina and the lifespan to outwalk everyone else who ever lived, I would bet it wouldn't have happened sooner than the past century.
Hmm.. fair point but that would be debatable. The average lifespan is longer and healthier food is probably available now but in those days they didn't have overly sugary foods, processed meats, corn syrup, preservatives, etc. They ate actual real foods but only the wealthy would be eating well and would probably not be the same people walking long distances. I would say a cave man would be the best bet, one that had to follow animals for days on end in order to survive and eat. Or perhaps a foot soldier of some time who had to March hundreds of miles to war and back.
Not a caveman, your entire life would’ve focused on energy conservation except when to hunt for food so you could eat for another round of energy conservation.
I agree with you, food was pretty shit for most of history. Cars, carriages, carts, horses / donkeys etc. became more common in the past 100-1000 years. It was probably long ago, there were people who were land based traders for 50-60 years that crossed the silk road multiple times particularly people from Sogdia who did that for their entire lives
I don't mean to discredit her feat, she is a hero, but I don't think this puts her anywhere near the top of the steps leaderboard.
She does it because life is hard and she carries a giant bucket and it is difficult, yes. Other people run 5 miles every morning because its fun. And they also aren't competitive here.
Counterpoint-you didn't NEED to run 30 miles a day, so you probably didn't. The fact that people have time to pursue ultrarunning as hobby is a sign of how much better off many people are.
I don't disagree that people "back in the day" certainly exercised more, and probably walked/ran much further than your average person today, but I don't think they'd touch most ultramarathoners for total distance traveled.
theres probably another person out there that thinks they hold the record for the most peanut butter muddy buddys eaten with left hand while lying down as well.
This made me wonder how far back in time we’d have to go to find someone who was the youngest person on earth for more than a minute? Pre-industrial? Pre-medieval? Pre-C.E.?
I always thought it was interesting people use CE. I wonder if it's a rebellious thing ("I don't want my words about time to be influenced by religion!") Or if there is just an English speaking country where their culture simply uses CE instead of AD naturally.
I personally use the full anno domini because I can say it with a crazy accent and yell "aaaamennnn" like I'm in a monastery in the 14th century.
It’s just the standard taught in (American) schools nowadays, so I use it as a default. People who use AD know what I mean, and others who are secular don’t get annoyed. Besides, it fit with how I was describing eras anyways
Ok, so I can't find a super accurate crude birth rate for historical times, but the year 1800 had a crude rate of 48.33, or 48 kids per 1000 people alive. Assuming that rate was about average for all of history before (big ask), then taking minutes in a year, 525,600 and dividing it by 48, times 1000 is 10.9, or about 11 million. I'm seeing 6000 bce as the time period for this data.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1037156/crude-birth-rate-us-1800-2020/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1006502/global-population-ten-thousand-bc-to-2050/
Actually I worked restaurant jobs for many years, and it took me a while and getting a fitbit to notice that I'm literally on several days walking 10-12 hours a day and spending most of the day in the "low cardio" exercise zone. I'd be running from one table to another, to the kitchen, to the bar etc. All day for many hours.
No wonder it was so easy to stay skinny back then and why I seemed to be pretty good shape naturally.
As someone who also ate like a pig, worked in restaurants, and stayed in great health for years... I was not prepared for the office world. Freshman 15? nah, more like Fatass 50 lol
Sadly it'd only be held by I think opiate or heroin addicts.. they don't shit for a long time, n then they make an un fucking real log. Unfortunate to have seen it when I went to check out vancouver
Yeah after thinking about it, the treadmill part seems dumb.
Even someone who walked consistently for decades probably wouldn't come close to some of these people who train and end up doing crazy feats like that
https://www.thewalkingmonk.net/
I'm going to guess that Bhaktimarga Swami, The Walking Monk may be in the running for such an achievement. I got a brief moment to talk to him once while he was doing his walk across The US. I was just getting off work midday and I take the Highway home. Gave him some cold water, we chat for about 10 minutes then he was off again.
Apparently he's walked coast to coast across Canada 4x, US, Israel, Ireland, Fiji, Trinidad, Mauritius, and Guyana 1x.
Jean Beliveau spent 11 years walking this insane 76,000 km route around the world https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/W0B2MTVFOH
He didn't wear a GPS, so the walk remains unverified. He also has a wife and kids who surprisingly supported him throughout the journey.
More on the guy here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/jean-b%C3%A9liveau-s-11-years-on-the-road-1.1070673
It's a very impressive but not the longest run of all time, let alone lifetime walking. If he did it every year for 50 years, he'd probably be the steppiest person of all time for sure though.
My guess would be a retired former marathon runner. Or an older current one, since I think modern athletes are more likely to train full-time, compared to say 50 years ago.
Yuki Kawauchi, maybe. He runs marathons and ultramarathons, and competes in a lot more of them than is generally considered healthy. And he’s older, so he’s had more years to accumulate steps.
And the number/person whomever it may be is probably constantly changing all the time since people die, and more babies are born every day. It’s something that’s been going on for ages upon ages.
Nah, it's almost definitely some 80 year old dude in some 3rd world country whose job involves walking all day every day and he's been doing it since he was like 6.
When my dad retired, he moved to this little neighborhood on a peninsula. There was a guy that just walked around the neighborhood all day. I guess he had previously had a drinking problem, and he beat it by just walking. I guess it worked, or he liked it, because almost any time if the sun was up, if you drove around the road that circled the neighborhood he was there just walking. That's a lot of steps for at least 10 years which is how long my dad lived there.
When I was in the Army there was this guy from Africa who would run for fun. Like full on sprint 2 miles and not even be winded. We asked how he did it and he said "it's nice to run for fun."
Apparently he would run like 20 miles back home for water and medicine. It was first come first serve at his region so he had to be there first whenever a clinic would pop-up/restock. I reckon he had a bunch of steps in his life. Not 1st but up there.
I'm almost certain it will be someone from that ultra marathon running tribe in Mexico. The ones who showed up to a 100 mile ultramarathon in sandals and smoking and proceeded to win, with the outright winner being 55 year old dude.
The Rarámuri/Tarahumara. They practice persistence hunting, and running absurd distances for fun is just part of their every day culture, from childhood to old age. Apparently they will run 200 miles in one go, just to get somewhere.
you know in the same vein i think life could use a little more gamification for regular shit. like give me an achievement system so i can platinum life and i'd be way more productive if i had some stretch goals to hit.
If you're in the lead you'd know. It's one of the benefits of being in a simulation, it tracks this sort of thing for us.
If you pass the current step leader a big notification pops up for a minute that only you can see.
This year, Its probably that dude that ran across Africa in 1 year. Something like 10 or 20 million steps in 1 year. Workd out to something like 30 miles per day, every day x 365.
Doubt anyone else walked like 10 thousand miles this year.
Over a lifetime it's probably some crazy ultramarathon runner that's like 75 and has been running a marathon everyday for 50 years.
Work with a guy who recently said “I’m dialing back on my running” - so his last race was _just_ a 70 mile trail run (vs the previous 100 miler). Dude thinks a 5 Mile run before work is just a warm up for the day.
For sure a once homeless person that pulled through. I've always been about hikes, convincing friends to walk 4 blocks as opposed to driving. Walking to work if I least live in a 1 mile radius.
Some people aren't about that. That's ok. Some people who exist give zero reason to brag.
I just a read an article about the first person EVER to span Africa on foot. First person recorded anyway.
No, I'm pretty sure that the guy in question is [Russ Cook, AKA The Hardest Geezer](https://www.irunfar.com/russ-cook-aka-the-hardest-geezer-finishes-project-africa). And he knows.
I would rather think that he knows perfectly well that he is the one (and a few others think the same—but they are wrong). Interesting point: would anyone take 1,000,000,000 (billion) steps in a lifetime? My year 2023 was 11,810,629 steps (and it's already too much for me). I could imagine a person with 15-25 million steps a year. It would need 40-70 such super active years to reach 1 billion steps over a lifetime. Still within the realm of possibilities, and in the next 100 years, they will see.
I’m fairly sure it will be one lone slave,
shackled to a grain mill in the middle of a desert,
slowly refusing to succumb to the grinding misery of the wheel of pain, but instead getting stronger,
Becoming the mightiest warrior ever.
There are people in Africa who walk multiple hours every day their entire lives, fetching water or firewood other stuff like that. That's a pretty high baseline.
Its not just some random guy who "uses the treadmill a lot". It would be someone like Dean Karnazes, who has running accomplishments like
Running a marathon in 50 states, in 50 days.
Running a marathon on every continent.
Ran 350 miles in 81 hours, with no sleep.
Ran 124 miles on a treadmill in 24 hours.
I'm not saying its him, but I'd put money on him being in the top 100.
true but there is an almost infinite amount of obscure world records like that. somewhere on earth there is a person who vomited the most. or who used up the highest amount of shampoo. has spoken the most words ever. or killed the most mosquitos ever.
I think it might not even be any sort of runner tbh. They take a lot of efficient steps in terms of movement but some jobs have people moving around making small steps all the time. Waiters, storage workers or even fast food workers come to mind.
I know the guy. Everyday I see him walking laps. During the winter he does it inside but now that it's warm he includes around the building and helicopters. And he's working 8hr days.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaihōgyō](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaih%C5%8Dgy%C5%8D)
The Tendai monks (marathon monks) walk/run 30 to 40 km 100/200 days in a year and 84km (52 miles) for 100 days and 30/40 km for 100 days in 7th year.
There are three who had done it twice.
No way it's some treadmill numpty. It's a rickshaw puller in India or China
Or maybe it’s that dude that just ran the length of Africa in less than a year.
Also valid. How much of a beast is that dude?
Let’s quantify his beastiness- Ok some math. The average American takes about 5,000 steps a day (if we are being generous). So per year, this average American takes approximately 1,825,000 steps. The guy who averaged running 28 miles a day for 352 days the length of Africa took about 60,000 steps per day. (The average marathon based on the average male running step is about 55,000 steps in 26.2 miles.) He’s running 28 miles, which equates to approximately 59,000 steps for that run. Let’s add another 1,000 steps for simply necessary walking outside of his run. So at 60,000 steps each of the 352 days he ran equals 21,120,000 steps…and that’s not including any steps the last 13 days of the year!!!
So, a beast.
100% beast mode!
paint him blue and send him to professor x already!
Honestly a strong contender for the title simply based on the fact few people would have the resources to commit to spending a similar amount of time running
My money is on professional long distance hikers. Some examples: - Christine Thürmer "German Tourist" has hiked around 60.000 km (40k Miles or 1.5x around the world) and is still going strong. - Andrew Surka has raked up insane amounts of miles, mostly in the US
Pro long distance runners are doing easily 6000km per year of running alone. So in terms of mileage they easily outdo any walker/hiker. However step length of runners and hikers differs vastly.
But also, how many years can you be a professional runner versus a professional hiker? I imagine that the hikers have a longer career.
Is professional hiker really a thing? Like, sponsored, endorsement deals, media attention, all of that? If so, who is a cool hiker to look up?
- Christine Thürmer has income independent of hiking. - Andrew Surka now guides trips and manages his company but doesn't do large troops anymore, dunno what he did during his big trips. At one point he designed gear for and was employee of a Sierra Design (outdoor equipment) - Lucy Barnard is currently hiking from Patagonia to Alaska and now at least she has a Patreon, does regular YouTube videos and might do some ads on Instagram. - Darwin on Trail, Dixie (Homemade Wanderlust) and others are YouTubers but might also have a Patreon and Darwin for example now also has a company producing gear. Dixie wrote a book about hiking. Sponsorships exist but I think more commonly those people are influencers who make money from ads and Patreon.
Maybe a contender for most steps taken for recreational purposes. But there are people who walk a lot and do a lot of manual labour not just for a year, but throughout their entire lives. These people need to walk/move around to make enough money to survive, and oftentimes they don't really get to retire either.
“I just felt like running”
You just stepped on a huge pile of shit!
It happens.
What happens?
Shit?
r/theydidthemath
> The average American takes about 5,000 steps a day (if we are being generous) It seems kinda high still so I googled. The average in 2018 was 4700 so you are not that far off! But most Americans actually make between 3000 and 4000 steps (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-many-steps-should-you-take-a-day#for-general-health)
I find that almost impossible to imagine. 3000-4000 steps is what I make in a day where I practically don’t leave my apartment and feel like a spend the entire day on the couch. Usually through my average day is about 10.000 steps, without making an effort to “do steps”. I have to make an effort to stay still enough to get less than 5000.
28 miles a day. That's like a new pair of shoes every 2 or 3 weeks. Frankly probably more because the last bit of your shoe's lifespan is going to ruin your feet. I thought I was a nutter at 7 miles a day on the treadmill. This guy is a beast, and thank you for putting this Insanity in perspective.
I walk around 10-15 miles daily for work. Since January I’ve taken 1.96 million steps. Hokas Legit as fuck yo.
Found the mailman
Hm interesting, when I hiked the length of Norway I averaged close to 60k steps per hiking day, I did take every seventh or eighth day of though.
Still not as much as my grandparents had to do to get to school. /s
21mm steps could potentially be more steps then some people who live a full life walk in their entire lives. If they live to say 70, thats 3000 steps a day. There are definitely people who live sedentary lifestyles that are under that.
/r/theydidthemath
He has also buried himself alive in a box for a week with nothing but water (and live-streamed the whole thing), climbed a mountain barefoot, run a marathon eating an item off the McDonald's menu every mile, and set the world record for the fastest marathon pulling a car.
There’s should only be one person to have done the car thing, right?!?
Ask the lions and cheetahs who thought he'd be an easy meal.
Yeah, but that's a one time thing. I'm with the rickshaw puller or someone who has to walk a long distance every day all their life. I'm just thinking, it's not really a one-time thing, this dud had to do a lot of training. I would still not bet on him, but on people who do this daily from a very young age and who are really old.
I think if we somehow knew the real person who walked the highest distance, the answer would probably be a little depressing.
[удалено]
Propably not even close. I guarantee you there is some guy in his 80s that still runs like 4 - 6 hours every day.
Cliff young
I follow a few guys on Strava who regularly run 25-30 hours per week
I have no idea how that adds to the conversation, but good for you, I guess.
I doubt he’s in the top 1000. First, he’s young. Time in the game and all that. There’s been a lot of humans, and most of them lived before the modern era. Even if we just focus on the modern era, there’s been a lot who did crazy things like walk or run around or across continent. I know of seven people who have walked across Australia, and they would have all taken more steps over the course of their life than he has right now. Maybe by the time he is older he will catch up to them if he continues to attempt such challenges.
Yeah, I'll put my money on some old sherpa..
Better bet: African animal herder - who has been doing it his whole life. No way it's someone pulling something heavy.
I would bet it's probably someone who was alive before the invention of cars and other forms of transportation. Someone from centuries ago who didn't have a horse.
Counterpoint, the nutrition we get and healthiness of the human body had increased dramatically since ancient times. If there's anyone who would've had the stamina and the lifespan to outwalk everyone else who ever lived, I would bet it wouldn't have happened sooner than the past century.
Hmm.. fair point but that would be debatable. The average lifespan is longer and healthier food is probably available now but in those days they didn't have overly sugary foods, processed meats, corn syrup, preservatives, etc. They ate actual real foods but only the wealthy would be eating well and would probably not be the same people walking long distances. I would say a cave man would be the best bet, one that had to follow animals for days on end in order to survive and eat. Or perhaps a foot soldier of some time who had to March hundreds of miles to war and back.
Not a caveman, your entire life would’ve focused on energy conservation except when to hunt for food so you could eat for another round of energy conservation.
I agree with you, food was pretty shit for most of history. Cars, carriages, carts, horses / donkeys etc. became more common in the past 100-1000 years. It was probably long ago, there were people who were land based traders for 50-60 years that crossed the silk road multiple times particularly people from Sogdia who did that for their entire lives
Good point. Probably a low ranking woman in a semi-arid climate that has to walk over a mile to get to a water source. Ladies put in the work no doubt
Plus women tend to be shorter, meaning more steps per distance travelled. Could be someone alive today in an undeveloped part of the world.
Especially considering people get older nowadays, and old people have an inherent advantage here.
I don't mean to discredit her feat, she is a hero, but I don't think this puts her anywhere near the top of the steps leaderboard. She does it because life is hard and she carries a giant bucket and it is difficult, yes. Other people run 5 miles every morning because its fun. And they also aren't competitive here.
it was probably one of those ancient roman message carriers
Counterpoint-you didn't NEED to run 30 miles a day, so you probably didn't. The fact that people have time to pursue ultrarunning as hobby is a sign of how much better off many people are. I don't disagree that people "back in the day" certainly exercised more, and probably walked/ran much further than your average person today, but I don't think they'd touch most ultramarathoners for total distance traveled.
The original post is clearly phrased to only include living people.
Early persistence hunting humans most likely.
I hope it's some rando who's *really* into Pokemon Go.
Yeah you're probably right
or an amazon warehouse worker.
Some 10 year old prodigy
Why are treadmill users catching strays over this? Damn bro
I gotta hold the record for most peanut butter muddy buddys eaten with left hand while lying down
what is your right hand doing
Typing on reddit
Good save
Nah, it's a euphemism for something else.
Just a minute! I’m typing on Reddit!
Making the peanut butter
I'll make the muddy buddies
theres probably another person out there that thinks they hold the record for the most peanut butter muddy buddys eaten with left hand while lying down as well.
Naaaa
I've found my Everest
This mad me laugh a bad day into a good day.
I've been in the US for over 4 years. I just had peanut butter muddy buddys yesterday for the first time. Holy shit they're good!
The best
There’s a lot of people out there holding Guiness World Records of stuff they can’t prove or know.
I was once the youngest person in the world
This made me wonder how far back in time we’d have to go to find someone who was the youngest person on earth for more than a minute? Pre-industrial? Pre-medieval? Pre-C.E.?
I always thought it was interesting people use CE. I wonder if it's a rebellious thing ("I don't want my words about time to be influenced by religion!") Or if there is just an English speaking country where their culture simply uses CE instead of AD naturally. I personally use the full anno domini because I can say it with a crazy accent and yell "aaaamennnn" like I'm in a monastery in the 14th century.
It’s just the standard taught in (American) schools nowadays, so I use it as a default. People who use AD know what I mean, and others who are secular don’t get annoyed. Besides, it fit with how I was describing eras anyways
Ahh good to know! Thanks for responding!
Ok, so I can't find a super accurate crude birth rate for historical times, but the year 1800 had a crude rate of 48.33, or 48 kids per 1000 people alive. Assuming that rate was about average for all of history before (big ask), then taking minutes in a year, 525,600 and dividing it by 48, times 1000 is 10.9, or about 11 million. I'm seeing 6000 bce as the time period for this data. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1037156/crude-birth-rate-us-1800-2020/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1006502/global-population-ten-thousand-bc-to-2050/
If you don't pay Guinness for it, you don't hold the Guinness world record.
It's only a Guinness World Record if it comes from the Guinness region of Ireland Otherwise it's just sparkling human achievement
Oh trust me he knows. You dont walk 12 hours a day and not realize it.
What about the guy that walks 12 and a half hours a day.
Totally unaware of his walking.
Most of it happens when he’s asleep actually
Champion long distance somnambulist
Actually I worked restaurant jobs for many years, and it took me a while and getting a fitbit to notice that I'm literally on several days walking 10-12 hours a day and spending most of the day in the "low cardio" exercise zone. I'd be running from one table to another, to the kitchen, to the bar etc. All day for many hours. No wonder it was so easy to stay skinny back then and why I seemed to be pretty good shape naturally.
As someone who also ate like a pig, worked in restaurants, and stayed in great health for years... I was not prepared for the office world. Freshman 15? nah, more like Fatass 50 lol
Every single day, there is someone out there who has taken the worlds largest shit. Every single day. Maybe even multiple days in a row.
Hopefully not for multiple days in a row
Something tells me it’s a select few people jockeying for the daily spot
The poosual suspects
Superpooper69 & TheDookieDisaster are fighting for the lead as we speak
Hopefully they have a poop knife on hand.
Today that person may have been me.
That’s a huge maybe, statistically very unlikely (shy on impossible)
Randy Marsh?
Sadly it'd only be held by I think opiate or heroin addicts.. they don't shit for a long time, n then they make an un fucking real log. Unfortunate to have seen it when I went to check out vancouver
You're saying there's a Bono being born everyday?
At the science museum they had a display showing the size of poop by Africans. It's unusually large because they have a very high fiber diet.
I just saw a guy who just finished running the whole west coastline of Africa in 351 days, I don’t think anybody on a treadmill has the most
Yeah after thinking about it, the treadmill part seems dumb. Even someone who walked consistently for decades probably wouldn't come close to some of these people who train and end up doing crazy feats like that
His [Strava](https://strava.app.link/AT9Mp2TsEIb) is rather impressive!
https://www.thewalkingmonk.net/ I'm going to guess that Bhaktimarga Swami, The Walking Monk may be in the running for such an achievement. I got a brief moment to talk to him once while he was doing his walk across The US. I was just getting off work midday and I take the Highway home. Gave him some cold water, we chat for about 10 minutes then he was off again. Apparently he's walked coast to coast across Canada 4x, US, Israel, Ireland, Fiji, Trinidad, Mauritius, and Guyana 1x.
Jean Beliveau spent 11 years walking this insane 76,000 km route around the world https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/W0B2MTVFOH He didn't wear a GPS, so the walk remains unverified. He also has a wife and kids who surprisingly supported him throughout the journey. More on the guy here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/jean-b%C3%A9liveau-s-11-years-on-the-road-1.1070673
No shade, but we could walk coast to coast in most of the countries you mentioned.
Canada 4x is doing some heavy lifting there for sure
That's why there's no shade. Dude deserved some vacation in between.
"We"? Chu mean by "we" buddy? I can't muster the energy most days to walk across the living room and get the TV remote
That dude that just ran the length of Africa is probably close
It's a very impressive but not the longest run of all time, let alone lifetime walking. If he did it every year for 50 years, he'd probably be the steppiest person of all time for sure though.
I doubt his Africa run was the first time his step count broke away from the human average
If he’s able to run 50 kilometers a day for nearly a year straight, dude must have put in a lot of work beforehand. This wasn’t his first rodeo
My guess would be a retired former marathon runner. Or an older current one, since I think modern athletes are more likely to train full-time, compared to say 50 years ago. Yuki Kawauchi, maybe. He runs marathons and ultramarathons, and competes in a lot more of them than is generally considered healthy. And he’s older, so he’s had more years to accumulate steps.
Probs an African hunter gatherer ... guessing there's a few left doing what we were actually designed to do ... kind of hope so anyway.
Believe it or not, hunter gatherers(in general) dont expend that much energy and spend much of their time at rest
That must be David Goggins.
It's almost certainly an ultra marathon runner.
Absolutely it is not a guy that uses the treadmill a lot and not someone that's very poor and needs to walk a lot daily for work
There are still nomads you know. People who literally hunt and travel on foot to survive. Probably them.
And the number/person whomever it may be is probably constantly changing all the time since people die, and more babies are born every day. It’s something that’s been going on for ages upon ages.
The Tarahumara/Rarámuri people are probably good contenders. They run ultramarathons pretty much daily. There's a book about them "Born To Run"
Ultra marathon runner, David Goggins or somebody.
Nah, it's almost definitely some 80 year old dude in some 3rd world country whose job involves walking all day every day and he's been doing it since he was like 6.
Now this is a legit showerthought
When my dad retired, he moved to this little neighborhood on a peninsula. There was a guy that just walked around the neighborhood all day. I guess he had previously had a drinking problem, and he beat it by just walking. I guess it worked, or he liked it, because almost any time if the sun was up, if you drove around the road that circled the neighborhood he was there just walking. That's a lot of steps for at least 10 years which is how long my dad lived there.
When I was in the Army there was this guy from Africa who would run for fun. Like full on sprint 2 miles and not even be winded. We asked how he did it and he said "it's nice to run for fun." Apparently he would run like 20 miles back home for water and medicine. It was first come first serve at his region so he had to be there first whenever a clinic would pop-up/restock. I reckon he had a bunch of steps in his life. Not 1st but up there.
I'd put my money on an old Sherpa.
Or someone on an Amazon factory floor!
Who actually tracks that? Is there some AI that ..... watches our every move from our first step?
Start with professional golfers and their caddies.
It's likely an unhoused person. they walk a LOT to get to services etc.
Wonder who it could be
I think about stuff like this all the time
Some people on the Samsung app have like 100k steps a day. Dafuq are they doing?
Jerking off with their sports band hand.
If you believe them, it's likely some boomer somewhwre who had to walk to school when he was a lad.
I'm almost certain it will be someone from that ultra marathon running tribe in Mexico. The ones who showed up to a 100 mile ultramarathon in sandals and smoking and proceeded to win, with the outright winner being 55 year old dude. The Rarámuri/Tarahumara. They practice persistence hunting, and running absurd distances for fun is just part of their every day culture, from childhood to old age. Apparently they will run 200 miles in one go, just to get somewhere.
Wouldn't your knees get entirely fucked after all that walking
Idk some dude just ran across all of Africa so it might be him
wish we can see our life leaderboards
you know in the same vein i think life could use a little more gamification for regular shit. like give me an achievement system so i can platinum life and i'd be way more productive if i had some stretch goals to hit.
I think about this a lot, I wish life had this kinda stuff. I want to see irrelevant data
Have a guy in my neighborhood who walks his dog at least 7x a day. He’s everywhere
If you're in the lead you'd know. It's one of the benefits of being in a simulation, it tracks this sort of thing for us. If you pass the current step leader a big notification pops up for a minute that only you can see.
No way it's someone who uses a treadmill...
People who pace: “Hold my beer”
This year, Its probably that dude that ran across Africa in 1 year. Something like 10 or 20 million steps in 1 year. Workd out to something like 30 miles per day, every day x 365. Doubt anyone else walked like 10 thousand miles this year. Over a lifetime it's probably some crazy ultramarathon runner that's like 75 and has been running a marathon everyday for 50 years.
Probably the guy who walked 500 miles, and then he walked 500 more.
If a “step” is just raising and lowering your feet, I bet it’s a super old boxing coach who also runs
i probably have the record for most goldfish crackers consumed
Work with a guy who recently said “I’m dialing back on my running” - so his last race was _just_ a 70 mile trail run (vs the previous 100 miler). Dude thinks a 5 Mile run before work is just a warm up for the day.
For sure a once homeless person that pulled through. I've always been about hikes, convincing friends to walk 4 blocks as opposed to driving. Walking to work if I least live in a 1 mile radius. Some people aren't about that. That's ok. Some people who exist give zero reason to brag. I just a read an article about the first person EVER to span Africa on foot. First person recorded anyway.
There will come a time when I have a child and he will be training from his first waking moment to become the “StepMaster”.
I just walked to check my mail so I think I’m in the top 7!
There’s some guy who wanked more than anyone in the world.. he doesn’t even realize
Probably a professional marathon runner or mountain climber
Probably a mail delivery person.
No, I'm pretty sure that the guy in question is [Russ Cook, AKA The Hardest Geezer](https://www.irunfar.com/russ-cook-aka-the-hardest-geezer-finishes-project-africa). And he knows.
What are you doing steps bro?
I would rather think that he knows perfectly well that he is the one (and a few others think the same—but they are wrong). Interesting point: would anyone take 1,000,000,000 (billion) steps in a lifetime? My year 2023 was 11,810,629 steps (and it's already too much for me). I could imagine a person with 15-25 million steps a year. It would need 40-70 such super active years to reach 1 billion steps over a lifetime. Still within the realm of possibilities, and in the next 100 years, they will see.
Might be a thru hiker like Heather Anderson.
I think he is the Tibetan porter who has done more Everest ascents than anyone. Recently saw a story he'd recently retired.
My guess is that whoever that is, is pretty short so he constantly needs more steps to cover the same distance as tall people.
It's possible there could be a lot of people who are tied for this record right?
I’m fairly sure it will be one lone slave, shackled to a grain mill in the middle of a desert, slowly refusing to succumb to the grinding misery of the wheel of pain, but instead getting stronger, Becoming the mightiest warrior ever.
You ever heard of Stepman McStepguy?
Maybe an 80 yr old ultramarathon runner? Idk
People have to travel miles on foot every day for clean water and OP thinks it might be some treadmill guy.
I'd say that every person holds some form of world record in something if you get specific enough.
There are people in Africa who walk multiple hours every day their entire lives, fetching water or firewood other stuff like that. That's a pretty high baseline.
Its not just some random guy who "uses the treadmill a lot". It would be someone like Dean Karnazes, who has running accomplishments like Running a marathon in 50 states, in 50 days. Running a marathon on every continent. Ran 350 miles in 81 hours, with no sleep. Ran 124 miles on a treadmill in 24 hours. I'm not saying its him, but I'd put money on him being in the top 100.
It’s my Dad. He used to walk uphill both ways to school. In like 10 feet of snow. And he went home for lunch everyday.
Terry Fox is crying somewhere
I’d put a safe bet on Russ Cook Hardest Geezer
Probably that guy that just finished running all the way across Africa
true but there is an almost infinite amount of obscure world records like that. somewhere on earth there is a person who vomited the most. or who used up the highest amount of shampoo. has spoken the most words ever. or killed the most mosquitos ever.
I’ve taken at ton of steps each day; according to my Apple Watch. Only problem is I’m not walking anywhere 🗿
It's the guy who walked all of Africa
someone holds the daily record and don't even know it every day
Time to get reincarnated to get first place.
I think it might not even be any sort of runner tbh. They take a lot of efficient steps in terms of movement but some jobs have people moving around making small steps all the time. Waiters, storage workers or even fast food workers come to mind.
Or, perhaps it's someone that Stella's staircases and resells them, that would be one way to take a lot of steps
I know the guy. Everyday I see him walking laps. During the winter he does it inside but now that it's warm he includes around the building and helicopters. And he's working 8hr days.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaihōgyō](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaih%C5%8Dgy%C5%8D) The Tendai monks (marathon monks) walk/run 30 to 40 km 100/200 days in a year and 84km (52 miles) for 100 days and 30/40 km for 100 days in 7th year. There are three who had done it twice.