That’s it. After four weeks of Living Streets Great British Walking Challenge, Walking Heads blogger Fay Young reports a grand total of 62.6 times round the Wembley Stadium and 18.8 muffins burned. Or, to put it another way, 104 miles through streets of Edinburgh, Glasgow and a ramble round the West Highlands. Despite ups and downs she discovers how streets come to life when you are walking.

A high point: walking on Eigg

Perhaps my first lesson should have been blindingly obvious. Being tied to the screen for hours at a time, I was never going to get very far down the hypothetical road from John O’ Groats to Lands End.

Even so it came as a shock to discover how little I walk during a normal working day. A sedentary person is  someone who takes less than 3,000 steps a day – that’s roughly one and a half miles – and I don’t see myself as sedentary. Surely I could knock up much more than that walking to business meetings and evenings up town.  My office is at the top of three flights of stairs, that should count for something!

I soon learned that 20 minutes brisk walking is roughly 2,000 steps, around a mile, and that a trip to the bank plus extra lap round the park equals two miles. But some days the pedometer stuck stubbornly low: only 5,000 steps after hiking to a meeting in Leith and back? Surely some mistake.

The high point was our holiday in the West Highlands. Not only did my friends and I cover 25 miles (each) in three days (when we weren’t sitting on trains and boats) but on Eigg my pedometer recorded a magnificent 22,000 steps – 11 whole miles! I enjoyed a celebratory real muffin on the ferry from Mallaig to Armadale.

The lowest point was returning to cold, wet Edinburgh to find incredible results appearing on Living Streets website. Top walker, Tim Rollett was clocking up 40 miles a day (is he a postman?) to finish with a triumphant total of 1,043.5 miles. So he would have got almost all the way from J O’ Groats to Lands End. At 4 miles a day, I would just about reach Alness.

But though I wish I had achieved more, I don’t regret a single step. It was great to have an incentive to get out more. If nothing else, my eyes feel the benefit of stretching beyond the small screen, discovering a whole new world of chimney pots, and pavement cafes, street signs …and holes in the road (I happily lobbied my local MP and MSP on behalf of Living Streets campaign to improve pavements – and got encouraging replies).

So my Great British Walking month ended with a last lap of Glasgow Music Tour, Route 4, on a beautiful May evening, exploring musical nooks and crannies on and off Sauchiehall Street, listening to great stories, watching reflections of St Columba’s Church dance on huge office windows across St Vincent Street and discovering yet again how streets come to life when you are walking.

OK, that’s it. I’m off to the bank. I could take a short cut to the machine at the top of the hill but I will go the long way round. #GBWalk may be over but the walking goes on…