Walking in the Weather

Distance: 11 miles
Time: 3 1/2 hours
Weather: Varied!!!

I had yesterday planned. I'd get up at 7:00, have breakfast, walk over to my parents house, spend 2 hours frantically trying to get Glastonbury tickets, have some lunch and then so a nice 11 mile walk that ended back at my flat.

What I did not plan for was waking up to the scene pictured here!

My alarm went off, I stumbled out of my room, glanced through the spare room door out the window at the white blanket of snow in the garden, carried on towards the kitchen, stopped, thought 'hang on', went back to look out the window and then thought 'ah crap'.

I thought about not going for my walk. I thought about driving to my parents house and driving home again. But I didn't do the long walk I was supposed to last weekend and I'm not going to get a chance next weekend because of the marathon so I had to do it. Plus it had stopped snowing, it was just a bit cold.

So I walked to my parents, spent 2 hours frantically trying to get Glastonbury tickets, had some lunch and set off.

My main problem when I'm walking is not my feet or legs hurting but my lower back and stomach muscles. I've been working on these in the gym recently and before setting off I took some ibuprofen and rubbed deep heat into my back. What a difference it made!

I set off with a bit of a grumble in my head about the fact it was cold and it was boring and I didn't want to walk 11 miles but I soon got into it.

As I reached mile 4 I stopped for a drink and also to take my jumper off. I was warm, wearing sunglasses, the sun was beating down.

At mile 7 I stopped again to take off my sunglasses, put my jumper back on and got my wooly hat out of my bag as it had started to snow yet again.

At mile 9 I had a bit of a sit down on a bench in the park. It was glorious sunshine and I watched a young girl feed the ducks and felt the warmth on my back and I even took a picture of the beautiful daffodils.

At mile 10 I just wanted to be back in my flat as the snow flake stuck to my eyelashes and I could no longer feel my hands with the cold.

The last mile was hard. I think its partly psychological that I knew I was almost home. I hadn't taken any short cuts although the idea had popped into my head. I was determind to go on however there was a moment of despair when I really wanted to take a short cut home but realised the quickest way was the route I was supposed to be doing anyway.

I grit my teeth, psychologically split the last half mile into sections and made it home.

Then I went to the pub!