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Record number participate in fitness challenge

A record-setting 638 employees reached their respective exercise goal during the 2006 I-Fitness Challenge. That represents 21 more people than last year.

The 10-week event challenged ITD employees to exercise at least three hours per week and rewarded each successful finisher with an Interstate 50th Anniversary incentive.

FHWA vs. ITD challenge
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) held its own exercise event during the same period and challenged ITD in a contest to log the highest average exercise hours.

At ITD, 206 individuals volunteered to be part of the ITD team participating in the FHWA challenge.

An even split of 103 HQ staff and 103 district employees made up ITD's team. Not all of the ITD team members finished the challenge, but together they tallied 11,570 exercise hours during the challenge, an average of 56 hours each.

At FHWA, 11 individuals made up their team, logging a combined 594 hours or an average of 54 hours per participant. This is the first year FHWA has held an exercise challenge and it took until the final tally for ITD to pass FHWA’s average.

ITD team competition
The team traveling trophy is an annual battle for best employee participation. Last year at Headquarters 59 percent participation won the trophy. This year, three teams passed that mark. The Administration Services team (60 percent) and the Commercial Vehicle & Driver Services Team (63 percent) made a valiant effort. However, the Bridge, Right of Way, Highway Safety and Public Transportation team met the challenge and set a new benchmark with 68 percent of their people reaching the challenge goal.

At the district level, there was an extremely close competition between the top two teams. Ultimately, District 5 (31 percent) edged District 2 (30 percent) for the District “Best Team” participation honors.

Individual honors
So who logged the most individual exercise hours?

The highest tally was recorded by Tim Schaaf from HQ Operations with 210 hours. Second was Bruce Bovey from D-2 (Lucile Maintenance) with 202 hours. Rounding out the top five were: Dennis Glynn, HQ (Bridge), recording 177 hours; Rex Hufford, HQ (Operations), 166 hours; and, Glen Gierisch, D-4 (Rupert Maintenance), 165 hours.

The goal of the annual fitness challenge is to motivate employees to establish or improve good exercise habits that will carry on throughout the year.

Congratulations to all participants.

See complete results

Published 9-1-06