The road goes ever on and on

Rather a long gap between posts. Not my intention, but the product of a busy period and a bit of a wobble in training. Those two are connected. Illness and minor injury led to the dropping of a few sessions, and then fitting in three 6- or 7-mile sessions during the working week, on top of a long walk at the weekend, has proved harder than expected. I've gained an extra level of respect for people who manage to compete at high level on an amateur basis. I've learnt some lessons, so next time I do something like this (see, I knew this would happen - there will definitely be others...) I'll be better prepared for the things that are likely to get in the way.

Still, I'm not too far behind where I wanted to be at this point. Seventeen weeks into training, I've covered a total of 311 miles, with a further 228 to go before the event. From here I've got four more weeks of full-scale training, then two weeks of tapering, then a week off before the day itself. This week has gone well, with walks of 5.1, 7.6, 5.3 and 20.5 miles, all of which I've enjoyed. None of them were speed walks as such, but keeping the pace respectable has become much easier as my natural speed has increased.

Yesterday's long walk incorporated parts of the Tissington and High Peak trails, both of which follow the routes of old railway lines through some lovely countryside. Aerobic-fitness-wise it's still dead easy, and my legs and back coped much better than they have on previous long walks. After finishing an 18-miler a couple of weeks ago in quite a bit of pain, I decided to take last weekend off and spend the two weeks hammering the stretches and foam roller instead - that seems to have worked. I was sore by the end of yesterday, but much better. As long as I keep doing the right things, I think I'll be OK.

Annoyingly, I did come out of yesterday's walk with three decent-sized blisters - one was there when I set off, though much smaller, and the other two appeared later. It was the first long walk I'd done in trainers rather than boots, but I can't tell how much responsibility they bear. Socks are also a factor, plus there's more than one way to lace a pair of shoes, and there is also the sheer number of miles I've walked over the last few months. It may be an unavoidable situation. Whatever the case, I can't afford to change my shoes, so either I crack on with these ones or I do the Parish in my boots instead. I'm going to experiment with some different socks over the next couple of weeks and see if I can crack it.

I'm not sure what to do about this week's training if the blisters don't heal quickly. I don't want to take any time off, but I'll have to balance that against the long-term damage I might cause by persevering. The only walk that really matters is the 42-mile one on the 17th of June, and I've got to be fit for that. Some hard thinking is required, and some advice.

On the positive side, I've managed to get a photo I've been wanting for a while, to remind people that it's more than masochism and pig-headedness that's making me do this.

Unfortunate ice cream placement notwithstanding, that T-shirt is the most important thing in the picture and it represents what's at the heart of all this. 

www.justgiving.com/fundraising/rich-vs-parish

Aye, there's the rub

The high point of last week was a moment of absolute, shimmering brilliance where I decided to do my four-mile speed walk in socks with holes in the soles. I knew this was a silly idea, but my feet have always been as tough as old boots... The trouble with that is that it makes you a bit more inclined to take stupid risks. The blisters started to form about halfway through, but there was no point going slowly and I wasn't going to stop, so I just pressed on and somehow hit my highest ever average speed - 4.2mph, or 13:51 to the mile. It was not exactly a joyful experience, but everything except my feet felt fine, so that bodes well.

I've thrown the socks out, by the way.

I was a bit concerned about doing twelve miles only two days after that, but the combination of the fantastic Compeed plasters and an extra pair of socks did the job. No problems from my feet at all. I did have a bit of pain in my hips and legs in the last few miles - all part of the same overworked-back problem, I think. I need to keep on at the stretches and it should keep getting better. I've missed a few days, for which I've got no reasonable excuse. It's amazing how many things an otherwise sensible person can find to prioritise above ten minutes' worth of exercises.

I'm currently halfway through the first four-walk week - both short, slow walks are done, so just the speed walk and the long walk to go. I'll report on all that next week, from the other side of the fourteen- or fifteen-miler I've got planned for this weekend.

Meanwhile, fundraising is going really well. I've had a number of contributions and am now a third of the way to my target, which is fantastic. Many thanks to everybody who's donated, and may the madness continue to inspire.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/rich-vs-parish

Raindrops on roses

49 miles walked since I last posted. I need to do this more regularly.

The last two weeks’ training has been really good. No dropped sessions - a slight hamstring pull picked up while lugging some bits of tree around last week meant that Friday’s speed walk turned into a second slow walk, but otherwise everything’s on track.

I saw the physio again on the 1st and things are looking good. My calves are pretty tight, so she did a bit of work on those with a device I can only describe as the vibrating mushroom of doom - painful, but productive - and I obviously need to put some work into stretching them over the next few weeks. She said my back movement was better, so those stretches seem to be working, and I’ve actually had almost no pain from it on the last few walks. We may be winning that battle.

As always, the long walks are getting longer - 11 miles on one Wednesday night, which was quite a nice way to spend the evening after a day cooped up in a training room, and then 15 miles the following week. The latter was done in two legs, with a two-hour break in between while I pottered around one of the High Peak villages, so I thought I’d give it some welly on the way back and did the second leg at an average 3.75mph. With a target race pace of 4mph, I’m pretty happy with that. It’s the pace that scares me at this point - the distance is fine, because I’m enough of a stubborn little bugger to keep putting one foot in front of the other for as long as it takes, but the tempo is what’s going to take the real effort - so something like that provides a much-needed confidence boost.

It occurred to me yesterday that the short walk I did last night was the same length as the long walk I did eight weeks ago. Because I’m not pushing myself like hell I don’t feel like I’m getting fitter - maybe that’s a runner’s perspective, or maybe it’s just my state of mind - but progress is clearly being made.

Another slightly more compressed week this week, because I’m losing half the weekend to other activities, so the speed walk will be done tomorrow morning and the long walk, probably a twelve-miler, on Saturday. After this weekend, training goes up a notch, with four walks per week instead of three. The short walks will go down by a couple of miles in order to stop my overall weekly mileage from increasing too rapidly: a three-miler and a four-miler next week. I might chuck in a bit more speed work as well, maybe doing the long walk as a sort of extended interval session.

In other news, I’ve finally got round to adding all the necessary information to my fundraising page: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/rich-vs-parish. I’ve set a target of £420 - ten quid per mile - which is ambitious, but if aiming low was in my nature then I wouldn’t be doing this. I plan to give everything I’ve got to the physical and psychological side of the challenge, so I hope that inspires others to help with the financial side.

A walk in the park

The physio assessment was useful. I asked for advice on maintaining the current reasonable(ish) condition of my ITBs, and some help to get them loosened up a bit, and came away with some exercises to do. She also did a bit of work on them - somewhat suspiciously, it was by far the least painful session I've ever had, but she may have been testing the water. I'm going back in three weeks' time, so we'll see what happens then. My foam roller use (every other day, more or less) has been approved - I'm glad about that, because I can feel the difference it makes. She also advised me that the muscles of my lower back are currently compensating for weakness in my core, so I've got some exercises to work on that as well as stretches for the back itself, which was pretty tight when prodded. Meanwhile, work have given me a footrest, which I'm trying to bully myself into using properly.

That morning's four-mile walk turned into a six-miler after I unaccountably turned the wrong way down a road - what is with me at the moment? Between that and the already-compressed schedule, that week's speed session ended up being dropped in favour of an extra recovery day. Last week's unfortunately went the same way, but this week should be a bit easier, so I'll just draw a line under those and move on.

Last Saturday's walk was a quiet and snowy ten-and-a-half miles around Derwent and Howden reservoirs. This being the longest walk I'd done for a while, I was a bit daunted by the distance, but it didn't feel like a challenge in the end. I was able to press on a bit in the last couple of miles, once the slush started to disappear, so the whole circuit took three hours and thirty-eight minutes. I don't rush these ones at the moment - it's nice to be able stop every now and then to admire the scenery, or stand at the water's edge and imagine three or four Lancasters rumbling out of the cloud.

There was a stumbly, slithery, foggy four-miler along the lower slopes of Stanage Edge on Monday evening. Not the most enjoyable time I've ever had on a hillside, but the wind had picked up by the time I got back down to the road and there was nobody else around, so I turned my headtorch off, put my hood down and walked along the road in darkness for half a mile or so, listening to the rustling and whistling of the trees. Very atmospheric.

The next long walk was on Wednesday, after work - a sympathetic employer is allowing me to shuffle my hours around, so I set off from home at 1640 and walked 9.5 miles through the woods and along some of the country roads nearby. Some of the roads are a bit dangerous in the dark - narrow and lacking in verges - so I'm going to avoid those in future. It is a bonus that I'm learning a lot about the part of the world I live in, doing this.

I must admit that Wednesday's was the first walk I really haven't wanted to do. It was just tiredness and the lethargy that comes after a full day's work, when there's a TV and a game of Hearthstone and a Stephen King novel at home... But you go out anyway, and it's always worth it. My back and legs both started to hurt in the last three miles or so, but stopping and stretching the back seemed to help both. I felt tired the following day, but not uncomfortable, so I'm starting to feel less afraid of the longer distances. I'm looking forward to what's coming up. 😁

Companion to owls

Last week was definitely more of a challenge. Other commitments necessitated a bit of shuffling to get everything fitted in, so I chose to do the long walk on Wednesday morning, before work. Here I am at 0455, just before setting off, with bright good morning face and trusty TTMA coffee mug:

It was a very wet morning and rather foggy as well, which contributed to a navigational error that turned a nine-miler into a ten-miler. The early part of the route passed through a belt of woodland and it was thick enough under the trees that most of my headtorch beam was bouncing back into my eyes and not doing a lot of illumination. I've experienced the effect before while running on the high ground above Port St Mary in the early morning, and there's not much you can do except trust your sense of direction. In ancient woodland with a spaghetti-like network of paths, that's a risky strategy, and I chose wrongly. I knew I'd end up in more or less the right area whichever way I went, so it was just a case of hoping for the best and resigning myself to a bit more time on the road to join up the dots if I went wrong. So it goes.

I felt the length of this walk in a way I haven't with any of the others - it may be that I've reached the point where I'm starting to extend my endurance. Having done another long walk the preceding Sunday, rather than doing them a week apart as usual, may also be a factor, but I was gently achey by the time I got to work at 0825. Walking from home to work by the scenic route seemed to go well, so I'll do the same in subsequent weeks where my weekends are out of commission.

The rest of the week didn't go entirely to plan. Sunday's short, slow walk took place as intended, but several nights' poor sleep meant Friday's speed session was bumped to the following Monday - today - to try and give myself a bit more recovery time. Things like this are annoying, but there's no point in either whingeing or beating yourself up - the walks have got to be done. I did get the session in this morning, the same route as last week's with exactly the same time, down to the nearest ten seconds - how's that for consistency? I'm hitting 14 minutes, 13 seconds to the mile on average over these short bursts and 17-18 minutes to the mile at the relaxed pace I'm using for the longer walks. I've got four months to close that gap.

Day off tomorrow, then up another notch with a slightly longer pair of walks on Wednesday and Thursday, then the next long one on Saturday. That'll make four in total this week, with the schedule a bit more compressed than usual, to account for last week's dropped session and next week's reshuffling. My spreadsheet-fu is proving very handy. 

I've booked myself in to see a physio on Wednesday. My dodgy tendons feel fine at the moment - I think my regular sessions with the Evil Foam Roller of Doom are helping - but it seems prudent to get what help I can BEFORE things go wrong. I could also do with some advice on minimising the damage I'm doing to my back by using my office chair as a general target for my bodyweight rather than sitting on it like a normal person. I am working on it!

Ice, ice ... maybe

Week Three done, with minimal interference from the icy weather. Waking up on Friday morning, I wondered if there might be some speed-skating, but in the event it was fine. The morning is definitely the time to do these sessions - far fewer people around, and far less traffic as well. The urban fox I saw on my way in took four attempts to cross the main road, but I was a bit luckier. Even at 5'5", height has its advantages.

The session itself was a two-miler this time. I'm still getting used to keeping the pace up - it's not difficult effortwise, but it requires concentration to keep walking out of your natural rhythm. It's fun, though, to be doing something new - feels a bit like running did when I first started, years and years ago. Fear of injury means I'm not running at all at the moment - a longstanding ITB problem means the risk is pretty significant, and the last thing I want to do is scupper my Parish attempt by arsing about - and so far, surprisingly, I'm not really missing it. Having something else to obsess over is obviously good for me.

The other two walks were three miles and eight, the latter done in the Peak District on Sunday morning. A later start than usual allowed for some of the ice to clear from the roads but there was still a fair bit about, so progress was fairly slow. Except at one point, when progress from my feet to my backside was very rapid indeed. Good job I bounce well.

This week is the first of three in which I've got too much on to fit in a long walk at the weekend, so I'll be doing them during the week instead. Working nine to five means this has to be either early in the morning or late in the evening: I've gone for the former. It'll make for a pretty early start, but it suits me better than having nine miles to do after work. I'm looking forward to this one. 😁

Left, left, left-right-left...

That's my second week of training complete. This week's short walks were the same distance as last week's, the only difference being that this time I did the tempo one out on the roads rather than on a treadmill. It went well: 1.52 miles in 20 minutes, 30 seconds, so an average speed of just over 4 mph. I found it reasonably easy - it's a fast pace, so I had to keep my brain engaged to ensure I didn't settle into my usual rhythm and slow down, but it wasn't uncomfortable. I did this one in the evening, straight after work, which also reminded me why I've always trained in the morning. If I go out at that time again, I might be tempted to take my harmonica to help get rid of those people who shamble down the middle of the pavement like snails going over sandpaper. Headbutting them in the small of the back feels a bit extreme.

Speaking of backs, I've discovered that the combination of an office job and my own total inability to sit in a sensible position is (probably) causing lower back pain when I walk. Not all the time, but sometimes. It was there for much of this morning's seven-and-a-half-miler. It's not severe, but it'll have to be dealt with. Some bad habits need to be unlearned, I think.

Overall, things are going well. Total training mileage is still low - eleven miles this week - so it should be easy, and it is. The tests of character will come later, which makes it important that I form the right habits now.

Onwards and upwards.