It's May already!

Well, after several weeks absence, due to a close family bereavement which scuppered any thoughts of training, I'm now back and very behind my schedule.  So behind, in fact, I had to throw my plans out the window & start again. It's fascinating how a lapse in walking puts you right back to where you started! Still, I  managed to get some walks in in April, mainly along the coastal area round here, but also a few gentle hills in Scotland, and a rather steep hill in Surrey with some old school friends.

And now it's May- the walk is only 9 days away and I'm finding the word 'EEK' flashing across my brain every morning when I wake up ;) Doesn't mean I can do much about it, not at this stage but here's a brief recap of my last 2 training walks.

Friday 24th May
So it wasn't the rain that drenched me today, but the field of rapeseed (such an unfortunate name). Who knew those bright yellow flowers could hold so much water–my boots had their own personal waterfall going on! But at least I now know which bits of my equipment are waterproof– and not these particular trousers, that's for sure. And sadly not my boots either, but maybe that's unfair and it was just exceptional circumstances (it was raining heavily and I was walking through a field of waist high flowers). I'm glad I brought a spare pair of trousers–the sheep surrounding me look rather amused as I wriggled out of the sodden ones into my nice warm fleece lined ones. Good thing I'm not shy! Amazingly, my wool mix liner socks, once wrung out, feel quite dry–no squelching at all :)

Today's equipment:
-Day pack
-an almost full platypus
-lunch & snacks
-spare trousers
-Hat, gloves, scarf thingy (snood?)
-Nano pod (it gets boring walking alone all those hours and it's much more fun being accompanied by the assorted teams on the Christmas 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue' episodes)
-Iphone with pedometer app
-maps
-money
-plasters, just in case
-spare insoles (in case the new ones don't work)
- a sit upon

Today's tally:
13.111 miles
5.25 hours
1132 cal
2.5 average speed
26,766 steps.


Lessons learnt? Carry spare dry clothing & change wet socks as soon as possible to prevent blisters. And don't rely on old boots before leaving it too late to buy new ones when you find out they really are not waterproof. And carry waterproof over trousers! And gloves- essential- it really got cold!

Monday 27th May
So today's walk was a good one- the sun was shining, the birds were singing & it was the beginning of  half-term so there were many families around necessitating many 'Hellos',  Good mornings',  and other assorted greetings. I didn't get round to listening much to my nano pod as I was enjoying the scenery and the sounds of nature so much. Also I found myself giving directions to people who'd got lost on the path (one advantage of following the same route many times is you get to know the distances and the different reference points) & avoiding the many cyclists zooming along the paths.

Today's walk seemed much easier because I had taken my walking poles with me. I discovered to my amazement that I was speeding along quite happily and merrily without any discomfort and without any strain on my knees. They really are quite amazing things and I would recommend them heartily to anyone who is daunted by the idea of a long walk- they really do help with support and provide extra balance and make walking so much easier.

 I didn't however reach the destination originally planned as it dawned on me that I didn't know what time the car park shut where I had left my car at the beginning of this walk, so I had to turn round and beat a hasty retreat. I did manage to check on the Internet enroute to find the car park closed at 'dusk’ - however at this time of the year who knows when the exact hour of dusk is! I made it back in good time though and used it to my advantage as the car park happened to have an extremely steep slope down to the beach so I walked briskly up and down it several times much to the bemusement of the elderly couple sitting in their car sipping tea.

Today's tally:
15.086 miles
5.5 hours (though it really took approximately 7.5 hours as I paused the time every time I stopped for lunch or for snacks- and I had a nice cup of tea with some fellow walkers at the Southwold Sailing Club. Oh yes, & I had to wait ages for the foot ferry to carry me back across the river to Walberswick)
1315 calories
2.6 average speed (though I started off at 3.2, thanks to the poles)
30, 278 steps

Lessons learnt? Marathon/ Snickers bars are much better than Mars bars for replenishing energy, Lucozade sports drink tastes much better than water, & I don't need to carry 2 litres of water with me all the time.

While I was away from the blog, a lot happened with the planning of the 3 Peaks walk (there are now 16 of us doing it), and the reasons for doing it changed slightly too- we need to raise money for a project we are starting up in Western Nepal, still with Tibetan refugees but working in communities instead of with the children in transit. The walk is now called 3 Peaks for Pokhara: '3 Peaks, 3 Problems, 3 Practical Solutions' and with your help by sponsoring us we aim to help and empower the Tibetans in the Jampaling settlement to create a better future. See our website  or our Facebook site for more details, and please help us raise the £6000 needed for thes project.

week 3: A Setback

Grrr- a frustrating week! I was going to do one long walk, one cross-training session, and one short walk. 1/3 of the plan was all I achieved, partly due to an ill mother necessitating my remaining at home all day waiting for the Dr. and the Occupational Therapist and keeping an eye on her to prevent her falling out of bed. Then the cross-training didn't happen due to the bad weather and severe procrastination, and worst of all–last night my back/hip went into a mild spasm conjuring up memories of last year's troubles/bed rest/paralysis, etc etc. Have been very, very careful today, using ice packs and hot beanie bags and painkillers and gentle potters around the front garden (it's SO pretty in the snow). No sitting or lying down for longer than 20 min at a time. Grrr- This is so maddening! Will have to wait and see how it fares but it could set me back a week or two :(

Constables house

Mind you, I did a fabulous walk earlier in the week in Constable country with my friend Cathy who works for the Suffolk County Council Area of Outstanding Beauty department. She was due to lead a public walk at the weekend so we went on a practice walk to make sure the route was okay and how much mud there would be (lots!). It was an amazing walk through the countryside that Constable knew so well & made famous through his paintings, including the house where he lived.

Which painting am I in?

I even had my photo taken in front of the scene near his house that featured in one of his most famous paintings (I will send a bar of chocolate to the 1st person who tells me the name and date of said painting and who owned the cottage on the left-hand side of it). Any art lovers out there? (Local friends excluded as they've heard all about the walk!)

Wildlife tally: alpacas/ llamas–5, horses 5, rabbits 2, birds–lots (blue tits, pheasant, crows, pigeons, blackbirds, finches, swans, geese), sheep and lots and lots of lambs.

One other plus to the week–I've made a large (A2 sized) wallchart of the days and weeks ahead so I can plan properly as I keep forgetting to do the lunges, squats and steps, probably the most important daily exercises. I look forward to the satisfaction of crossing each day off with a thick red pen :)
 

Week 2- Shingle and Sailors

Week 2 consisted of a gym visit to get my  cardiovascular system moving (bike and treadmill), a good stretching yoga class and a brisk 5 1/2 mile solo walk (no Marion today) which included a boggy, flooded golf course diversion (good practice for the peat bogs between Pen-y-Ghent & Whernside, 2 of the 3 we'll be walking in June), and a very brisk–almost–run–section of a shingle beach. Boy, I was sweating up a storm–have you ever tried running on shingle?

Sailors Path sculpture

Friday though, ahh, that was a good one–we walked the Sailors Path (a well-known route in this area, part of the Sandlings Trail), stopping off to lunch at Snape, and then back again–a good 8 miles or so. As it was so muddy I wore the Tibetan boots, the ones I bought especially for the Mount Kailash trek in 2007 and have hardly worn since as the backs are too high for me and cause bruises. And Friday's result? Bruises on the backs of my ankles for the next few days. I definitely need a new pair of boots as  I'll be crippled before I complete the 23 miles of the Three Peaks. A good fitting pair of boots is SO important- know anyone who wants a well-travelled but hardly-worn pair of boots, size 5?


[Stats: 8:071 miles, 668 cal, 243 min (4 hours- but that did include a one-hour stop for lunch)]

p. s.

For some reason, Blogspot wouldn't let me upload this to the previous post, so it just has to have a post all of its' own. I LOVE this photo :)

Moritz & me

Lions & Tigers & Bears, oh my!

Pantiles

Wowee, what an amazing walk- it was brilliant! Marion turned up at my place with a mystery walk planned in her head, & we headed off towards the same route we've done for the past two walks. However, this time we diverted off to the left, over the boardwalk across the marshes, up our first incline (note I didn't say 'hill'!) towards this fabulous old house called Pantiles with some sort of bird of prey statues on the gateways, and then she headed left towards an old farm. I stumbled along behind wondering where on earth she was taking us, as she opened a gate into a field and headed towards a fence bordering a wood. As instructed, I peered in between the trees and lo & behold…there were some llamas, 8 of them, peeking out from behind the trees watching us.

Llamas

Single llama

It was astonishing to see them in the woods, a very unusual place- especially round here.

Photos duly taken and we headed back towards the farm sheds and heard voices, and there to our delight….were…..some lambs! the most cute, adorable fluffy little things sniffing around and falling over the ewe who was on her back having a pedicure. It was fantastic! We were welcomed with open arms by the farmer and the lady looking after the sheep (never found out her name) and invited to hold one of the lambs- I was in heaven!! The little cutie is called Moritz and is only two weeks old and LOVED being hugged. I nearly took him home with me. And even better, we got to carry him down to the field with the rest of the flock because he didn't want to walk. The flock consisted of three ewes, and eight lambs and they were fabulous! It was with extreme reluctance that we left to continue our walk- I could have stayed there all day playing.

Time for a pedicure

Lambs clambering over mum

Moritz

The walk continued up another incline, along various fields, through Aldringham church churchyard (! not sure how best to phrase that), past the old almshouses, more fields- in the mist this time so that everything had disappeared when we turned round- through a foresty bit and then back onto the old railway tracks heading back to my place. I was still skipping with joy after befriending Moritz and wanted to show the world the photos. This may become a regular walk!

Stats for the day? Well, I turned off the pedometer by mistake at one point (I was looking for the altitude bit (hah! that's a laugh considering I live by the sea!) but we both reckoned it was about 5 miles. no idea of the rest, except it took about 2 hours.

Week 1

Ok, I've actually completed week 2 so I'm behind with my blogging, so let's have a quick catch-up, shall we?

Marion approaching

Marion & I started the training off on Monday March 4th with a gentle circular walk that we are both used to, from Aldeburgh to Thorpeness and back again. It was a fabulous day, bright sunshine, no wind and fairly warm compared with what it has been recently. We'd arranged to meet on the old railway line behind my house which is  a brisk 5 minute walk, and from there on to Thorpeness via the Thorpeness Golf Club & the Meare and then along the beach back to Aldeburgh where we'd part company (as that's where Marion lives). We both thought it was a short-ish walk of about 3-4 miles and we were both full of beans, chirping away merrily as we pottered along at a nice pace, noting the various birds on the way (wish I could list them for you, but I'm hopeless at bird identification: I know a robin,  blackbird, blue jay, owl, peacock & pheasant by sight, and by sound- a woodpecker, owl and peacock. Oh, and a skylark, which I love- it really makes my spirits soar to hear one of those). However, on one part of the route there was a strange sound I hadn't heard before and Marion promptly announced it was a  curlew! Golly- I knew there were in this part of East Anglia but I'd never heard one before. How exciting! Maybe I should add here that the land we were walking along is managed by the RSPB, so there's bound to be lots of feathered friends around. Anyhow, it sounds like this: http://sounds.bl.uk/Environment/British-wildlife-recordings/022M-W1CDR0001375-0600V0. And then, as we were walking along the beach, my favourite seaside sound of all: http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/s/skylark/index.aspx

So, a lovely walk in nature on a bright sunny day- a great way to start the 3 Peaks training. And when I got home I turned off the Pedometer app I have on my phone, to find we'd actually walked 5.25 miles- much longer than we'd reckoned. And burnt off 425 calories. And just for the record, it took us 117 minutes.

On Thursday 7th, we did the same route but reversed, so I started out earlier to meet Marion at the other end of the railway line, by the caravan park in Aldeburgh and we headed along the beach to Thorpeness, etc etc. This time I took more photos, and we stopped off at her house for a cup of green tea. More skylarks, and seagulls galore (but no curlews). For some inexplicable reason, although the distance was almost he same (5. 2 miles), we burt off more calories (471)! No idea how that happened! And it took 150 minutes, but that's because of the very welcome cuppa!

Old windmilll without sails

The Scallop on a shingle beach

Artwork decorating building site

So that's the first two days. The following day was...well, you'll just have to wait for the next post!

The 3 Peaks Challenge

It was a dark, cold December evening and the nine of us were walking down a London street after the Art Refuge UK Christmas dinner.

"Let's do a joint fundraising event", said someone up front." Good idea", commented several voices from behind. "How about the 3 Peaks challenge?' said Sarah K  (or was it Emily?), ' I've always wanted to do that". " Ooo, that sounds good" replied one person," I'm up for that". " Me too",  I replied, and after various other murmurings along similar lines, Sarah K. and Emily said they'd look into it and let us know. We  all then parted and headed home to concentrate on Christmas and holidays, not giving the suggestion a second thought...apart from Sarah & Emily.

And that's how, folks, a few months later I find myself having committed to walking three of the highest peaks of the Yorkshire Dales: 23 miles within 12 hours. Not an easy feat, I hasten to add–me being somewhat of a slug when it comes to exercise. I think part of me jumped at the word ' challenge', continuing the theme started last year when I jumped out of a plane to help save the charity (joined by Emily, bless her!). That one, at least, didn't require training, just a solid conviction that things were going to be okay and I wouldn't (probably) die doing it.

This time I'm part of the 14 strong team–seven of the Art Refuge UK team (trustees and coordinators) plus assorted family, friends and supporters. I'm looking on it as a team-building adventure, with lots of fun and laughter to keep us going. We're doing it to raise lots of money for the charity- and I'm assuming that you already know about it as you have probably come here via either our website or our Facebook page, or even possibly our Virgin Money-Giving page. But just in case you have found your way here without any of that, check us out: www.artrefugeuk.org.
You can also donate to the cause here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=arukyorkshire3peaks&isTeam=true

My good friend Marion agreed to do the practice walks with me (she's walked from the west to east coasts of the UK before) and had thought of joining us for the 3 Peaks but decided the practice walks would suit her better. We put our heads together and set up a training schedule based on a programme she found in a hiking magazine and working around our working commitments. At the moment it consists of three walks a week, two short and one long, plus assorted exercises to strengthen the legs.

My biggest challenge is going to be finding hills to practice on. Suffolk, where I live, is as flat as a pancake–nothing even remotely resembling a mountain for miles. There are some steps leading down to the town centre but I think I'd get bored pretty quickly running up and down them several times in a row, plus I'd look rather silly.

Anyhow, I thought I'd start a blog, partly to keep a record of how I do, but also to help motivate others. I will add photos as I go, and play around with format, etc but as it's late and I wanted to get this posted asap (procrastination is my middle name), I'm stopping here for the night. Will update you on how Week 1 went tomorrow. In the meantime, if you feel like it, have a look at previous blogs posted here over the years- it will shed some light on some of the activities of our wonderful charity and some of the people involved.
Night all!