Stepping out, stepping up
“After a day’s walk, everything has twice its usual value.” G. M. Trevelyan
15h Feb – Days to go on 100 days dry: 56. Days until the Dartmoor Way: 89
There is no small amount of satisfaction in planning. The joy of mapping something out, literally in my case, and imagining the progress can be quite exhilarating. Of course that all comes crashing down about an hour or so into the walk itself, usually when I am standing at the foot of TBH craning my neck up and cursing my decision to do this bloody thing at all.
In my most honest moments I realise that in the middle of Dartmoor week, when the temptation to jump in a taxi and head home hits the hardest I am going to have dig deeper than I have at any time so far.
I have come to realise that there are three distinct phases to what’s going on here. I am pretty sure that the clever folk who put the program together knew what they were doing. But didn’t spell it out. It is more of a learning process than I gave it credit for.
The phases are, (for me at any rate), mental, physical and more mental. Confused? Let me break it down.
At the very beginning of this program getting everything ready for a two hour walk was child’s play. (In hindsight, I seem to remember making a big deal of it, but whatever.) Consult the map, make sure the walk is long enough, grab the dog lead, set out. As the weekend walks have become substantially longer more prep is needed. Especially if it’s just me. Map, water, snacks, gloves, waterproofs, wooly hat. You might laugh at this, but being 3 hours into a 6 hour walk and experiencing a sudden down pour in February is no joke. Even in the Cotswolds. Look, I’m not saying it’s life threatening, just really, really uncomfortable.
The planning phase has been really enjoyable. They are practice runs in a sense. This bit of kit is essential, this one is unnecessary, and so on. I’m never wearing jeans again on a walk, I know that! Then there’s the joy of locking down longer, more challenging walks, measuring the distance and starting to mentally walk through the map, imagining how it’s going to work out.
So far the walks themselves have been brilliant. Hard work, but brilliant. At times, usually when I am only half way up a hill, struggling to breath and wishing for a stair-lift to magically appear in front of me, I curse my lack of fitness and remember that I used to play rugby regularly, work out three times a week and do a lot of rock climbing. Reminding myself that was nearly 30 years ago as I stubbornly slam one foot in front of the other doesn’t always help, but channeling that furious disappointment in myself inevitably drags me to the top of whatever I have in front of me and you know what? I always get to the top. (Well so far anyway!)
The final phase, the one that I probably don’t give enough credit to, is that mental euphoria I experience when I get home. Showered, empty (small) bottle of chocolate milk in front of me, fresh dry clothes and battered leg muscles. This is what I need to draw on. This afterglow of the walk itself. I am doing this for a variety of reasons, but honestly, once home and dry I am already planning the next weekend. And I can actually feel the progress in every walk. As I push the distance and duration I feel in better shape, physically and mentally than I did after that first couple of hours it took me to do 9 km and considerably more so than I did this time last year.
This weeks walk is going to take some 6 hours and cover just over 27 km. This represents 12 km less than the longest day during Dartmoor week. With some 12 weeks left for training I am happy with where we are.
I am already in the early stages of planning the first overnight / back to back long distance walk. But more on that in a later post.
“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.” Yogi Berra
