We’ve taken Manu a lot of places in his short life so far. Within Greece he’s been to Patras, to Pelion (twice), and back and forth between Katerini and Thessaloniki more times than we could reliably remember (we guesstimate it at 15). And we just got back from a wedding trip to Sweden, returning via Amsterdam. For a five-month-old he’s exceedingly well-travelled.

Which made me wonder: what’s his lifetime average speed?

If we add up all the distance he’s covered,1 and divide by the number of hours he’s been alive, we get (at time of writing) just under 2.4km/h. Average walking speed, according to wikipedia, is around 5km/h so he’s not making particularly good time; on the other hand, his pace is much more impressive when you consider that he hasn’t learned to crawl yet.2

I’ve added the calculations to a google doc, which (if I’ve made the right incantations) should update the time component of the calculation daily; as long as I remember to add new trips to the doc, you should see below an up-to-date record of his current average speed. 3

Notes:

  1. Taking only the large trips, for simplicity’s sake. I skipped the beach trips, visiting the pediatrician, etc etc. I also didn’t try to estimate how many kilometers I’ve covered walking up and down the bedroom putting him to sleep. [↪]
  2. Also, just you try keeping up an average walking pace for five months straight. On a milk diet and no solid foods. [↪]
  3. I thought about including his carbon footprint, but someday he’ll be old enough to read this himself and it didn’t seem fair. [↪]