Peggy Hansen (left) walks Tuesday with some of her co-workers from Merit Title, Colleen Kontney (back left), Stacey Cira (back right) and Stacey Ernst (right). Hansen has logged more than 71 miles since beginning the daily walks over the summer. She and other staff at the West Allis title firm plan to participate Saturday in Briggs & Al’s Run & Walk, a benefit event for Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.

Convivial stroll is part of each weekday for co-workers

It started out in summer with a fitness challenge from the boss. Anyone in the office who walks 32 miles a month gets half a day off.

Peggy Hansen's reaction: No thanks. Too hard.

The story might end there except that Greg Schumacher, a partner at Merit Title in West Allis, approached Peggy personally and oh-so diplomatically to ask if she could rally her fellow non-walking troops to break a sweat. It was a risky move, like a husband buying his wife a treadmill for her birthday.

With her fitness level hovering right around zero, Peggy reluctantly agreed. The classic excuse of "no time for exercise" wouldn't work; she was allowed to log the miles during the workday.

So the deskbound title examiner started walking.

Here was the new incentive: If Peggy knocked off 32 miles in the six weeks leading up to Labor Day, the company would pay to enter the whole office in Briggs & Al's Run & Walk, which is happening in Milwaukee this Saturday.

She has not missed a weekday so far, even the hottest days of summer, and several co-workers keep her company on the walks. She never has to walk alone.

"But what was crazy is that the people you thought would walk with her didn't. And the ones, the smokers and stuff, who didn't walk one mile at all in the other month, they're all out there walking with her and getting her going," Greg said.

I went along Tuesday, a perfectly sunny, warm day to be out of the office. We walked through Greenfield Park, past the golf course and around the lagoon and back to work - 2.2 miles officially in about an hour. That makes the season total 71.14 miles, including her longest distance of 3.3 miles one day last week.

"Now I hear, 'You've almost walked to Madison!' That's a long way," Peggy said as we hit our stride. "And with no cheating and no rounding up."

Momentum is on her side these days, and Peggy plans to keep the walks going as winter approaches. At age 52, the Waukesha woman is getting in better shape, has lost 16 pounds and is trying to get her diabetes under control. At the grocery store, she's purposely parking farther from the door. She's sleeping better, and her doctor says what she's doing may be saving her life.

"She loves it, but she pretends she doesn't," said co-worker Stacey Cira, a regular walking buddy. Peggy jokes that she's always looking for a way to get out of walking, asking park workers and bus drivers if she can get a lift back to the office.

"It gets us out here. I don't exercise except for this," said another fellow employee, Debbie Peterson.

The two have picked up the interchangeable nicknames of Cluck and Fuss because they're always making sure Peggy is getting enough water and reassurance along the route.

Another worker at Merit Title, Andrea Laster, tried getting radio personalities and other local celebrities to walk for a day with Peggy. No one came through for her, even when Andrea lowered the luminary standard all the way down to the guys working at the gas station up the street. But Peggy was pleasantly surprised by walk-alongs from her stepdaughter, her two dogs, and the owners of the title insurance and closing services company.

The biggest attraction was Chorizo, one of the Brewers racing sausages. The office chipped in and rented the costume. That walk attracted a lot of funny looks and horn-honking.

Peggy returned to work Tuesday with the flush of sweaty success on her cheeks. "When I get back to the office, somebody always has the fan on for me," she said. "They've all been incredibly supportive."

And downtown on Saturday, geared up for a 3-mile walk, they will all be wearing matching T-shirts saying, "Walking with Peggy 2010."

By Jim Stingl, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 18, 2010.