Senior Hikes Nearly 800 Miles to Delaware During Pandemic

Last summer, as lockdown and shelter in place orders were enacted to combat the spread of COVID-19, Mary Capka joined millions of Americans in the struggle to stay active and motivated. Her solution — walk nearly 800 miles to visit her brother in Delaware, all without leaving her home at Canterbury Court senior living community.

“My brother, Albert, and his family live there,” said Capka. “Since a real visit was out of the question, I set an exercise goal to walk there virtually.”

With Albert’s help, she plotted a door-to-door route through the Carolinas, Virginia, and over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge: 749 miles to be exact. On July 1, 2020, she departed, with a goal of “arriving” in Delaware a year later.

Through an app on her phone, she tracked her daily mileage. A calculated path through hallways and dining rooms netted 0.4 miles, which she completed five to seven times per evening. Weather permitting, she often altered her route to include the community’s gorgeous gardens.

“Ever so slowly the miles added up,” she said. “Every week or so, I called my brother to get a ‘position update’ of my map location.”

Last week, 10 months and 19 days later, Capka found herself on her brother’s virtual doorstep in Millsboro, Delaware. She pushed to finish nearly six weeks ahead of schedule so she could arrive on Albert’s birthday. They celebrated together via FaceTime.

“Some days I didn’t want to walk, but I forced myself to do it,” she said, adding she and her husband plan to visit Albert and the family in person this fall. “My motto became, ‘Just do it, and tell yourself you can’t later.’”