Walking 100,000 Steps Across Chengdu (Part 1)

There are some challenge ideas that arrive in a moment of brilliance.

This was not one of them.

The idea for The Long Walk — not to be confused with Stephen King’s novel of the same name, though at several points in the day the premise felt equally dark — had been quietly simmering in the back of my mind for years.

My older brother and I are competitive in the deeply unnecessary way only brothers can be. Whenever we visited a new city together, we somehow turned sightseeing into a walking contest.

“Only 24,000 today?”

“Wow, somebody took a taxi.”

I’ve always loved exploring cities on foot. Walking slows the world down. While you can still see all the things from a car, the sounds and smells of the world are muted.

But I had never truly found my limit.

I had never reached that moment where my body says, Sean, absolutely not. One more step and we are filing a formal complaint.

And so, naturally, I decided to make city walking the next Hope in Motion challenge.

Unlike running a marathon, biking across Iowa, or canoeing through the Boundary Waters, walking is something almost everyone can participate in. You don’t need expensive equipment or months of training. You just need feet… And maybe questionable judgment.

This challenge would be different from our previous adventures. Instead of Lionel and me tackling something mostly alone, we opened it up to everyone. Participants could either attempt the full 100,000-step challenge solo or complete it collectively as teams of two to four people. In the end, over 30 teams signed up, representing five provinces and three countries.

Honestly, the level of support caught me off guard. People I hadn’t spoken to in years messaged. Former students signed up. Teachers joined. Parents joined. Friends of friends joined. People I barely knew committed themselves to voluntarily walking ridiculous distances, all to raise awareness for the low-vision community.

Before a single step had even been taken, the challenge already felt bigger than us.

April 30: The Night Before

Being the procrastinator that I am, I made the completely rational decision to leave approximately 80% of my preparation until the evening before. After getting home from school, I launched into a frantic scavenger hunt through our apartment.

Chargers, shoes, extra socks, underwear, snacks, baking soda, body glide, running stroller.

Heading out, I knew I had most of what I needed, but also knew I was forgetting something. (As it turns out, both assumptions were correct.) At around 5:00 p.m., Lionel and I headed downstairs and waited for our Didi — essentially China’s version of Uber — when suddenly I realized:

Lionel’s pedometer. Still charging upstairs. Of all the things to forget on a 100,000-step challenge, that felt like an especially important one. I sprinted back upstairs, grabbed it, and immediately began mentally spiraling: What other critical item have I definitely forgotten?

The answer to that question...is rain gear.

Our first stop was Abu’s bike shop, where we planned to stash supplies for the following day.

This was the same shop where I had bought the bamboo bike I rode during RAGBRAI, and Abu generously offered to turn his shop into our midway checkpoint.

Strategically, it was perfect. Located near the center of Chengdu, it would serve as our gathering point for walkers throughout the day. The plan was for Lionel to walk as long as possible, then ride home in the stroller while I stumbled my way back to the suburbs of Pidu.

At least, that was the theory. In my head, the evening looked beautifully efficient:

Drop supplies at Abu’s. Head to my friend Brian’s apartment. Eat dinner. Lights out by 8:30 p.m. A perfect night of preparation. Instead, the city began operating on what I affectionately call my wife’s time — where every task somehow takes three times longer than expected.

3:00 A.M. — The Walking Begins

To my surprise, Lionel sprang out of bed immediately. No complaints. No groaning. No pretending not to hear me. Just instant enthusiasm. Within minutes, he was pacing laps around Brian’s apartment. After about five minutes, I told him he could walk the hallway outside. His face lit up. “Oh,” he said, completely delighted, “this is wonderful!”

The kid genuinely treated a dimly lit apartment hallway at 3:00 a.m. like Disneyland. Meanwhile, I shuffled toward the coffee machine. Soon, Lionel and I were both pacing the hallway while poor Brian remained tragically stepless, standing over the stove making omelets like the responsible adult in the room. By the time we left the apartment, Lionel and I had already crossed 2,000 steps. Brian had barely cracked 500. A devastating statistical disadvantage.

Walking outside, we were greeted by two things:

Our videographer.

And rain.

The videographer had been arranged by Abu to document the challenge, and I immediately felt bad for him. First, he had agreed to meet us at an unreasonable hour. Second, it was drizzling. And third, he had unknowingly committed himself to following two increasingly delirious walkers across Chengdu for an entire day.

He clipped microphones onto Brian and me, and we began pretending we were professional documentary subjects as we walked toward our first meeting point: Dongjiao Memory.

What I wasn’t expecting was company.

At 4:00 a.m., standing in the misty darkness, was Morticia, leader of the Chengdu Hash House Harriers, decked out in a high-visibility vest with her dog beside her. The fact that another human voluntarily joined us before sunrise felt deeply encouraging. Together, we wandered through Chengdu’s quiet streets, passing groups of people still lingering over late-night barbecue.

At that moment, I felt grateful for something. Yes, I would be in pain later. But at least I wouldn’t be dealing with the hangover these people were about to experience ten hours from now.

Small victories.