Plainview resident Derrick Hoffart has been making great strides with some personal walking challenges in the last few months, achieving some personal goals, and setting some new records.
In late July, Hoffart contacted the News about a personal walking distance challenge that he considered an “experiment” to test his own limits.
He reportedly walked more than 20 miles a day with no prior training or preparation. Notably, his previous average of steps was about 4,000 a day, the American average per day.
He jumped straight into more than 44,000 steps on this personal challenge, walking more than 143 miles during the week, with 329,755 steps total during the week of July 24 to July 30 (about the same distance from Plainview to Omaha.)
As part of the challenge, he also has been posting regularly on his social medial about his accomplishments and distances.
Then, last week, on Thursday, Sept. 14, Hoffart took the streets again, this time in Tilden, gaining some local popularity as he ended up breaking an Asian record for distance walked in a day.
According to the Asia Book of Records website, in April of 2021, a young man walked a record of 87.57 km by walking for more than 20 hours and 55 minutes – or around 54.5 miles.
Through record on his digital device, Hoffart logged 126,025 steps, hitting 55.45 total miles, overcoming the Asia record by nearly a mile in about 1,267 “move minutes” (around 21 hours.)
Just in case anyone is wondering: according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the greatest American distance is around 228km, or 142 miles/440 yards in 24 hours, accomplished by a Jesse Castenda in New Mexico in 1976.
Hoffart said he would like to attempt to beat his own record in the next few weeks, and he’s also hoping to eventually break a Guinness Book of World Records title as well in the future.
“I've always like to find the limits and try to exceed them,” said Hoffart. “It's actually fun to me and trains my mind that basically anything can be accomplished in some way. I like to be able to motivate and inspire other people. To put other small towns in the area on the map is another bonus for me.”
While walking in Tilden, he began to gather a following, walking around the community from midnight to midnight, admittedly, with no sleep the day before because he was excited to give the record a try.
He documented and filmed the entire process on his social media, and even had folks from Tilden walking with him for distances or bringing him food and drinks along the way.
Hoffart can be found online in most social media, his Snapchat handle, along with numerous others, is “Hoffplanet.”
