Momentum

So, somehow I've reached that point in the challenge where I'm definitely measuring things by how long there is left to go, rather than counting how much I've done. The summer has flown by, and for one reason or another (but mainly moving house), I haven't done as much walking as I'd have liked. As evidenced by the lack of post, the challenge has fallen by the wayside somewhat.

But I'm still on track. With 38 weeks down, and 14 to go, I'm on 765 miles. That means I need a very achievable 16.7 miles per week to come in at 1000.

Moving house has other implications as well though, as well as making me far too busy for a few weeks to think about anything else. I'm no longer within walking distance of my office, which means no more walking home for an easy 2.5 miles. And in fact, some days I'm even missing the short distance to the station, because of perhaps this challenge's biggest rival yet...

Yep, that's right. Healthy, sustainable and cheap though it is, cycling to work isn't helping me notch up those walking miles!

The summer hasn't been all bad on the walking front though. There was a pretty memorable climb up Ben Nevis, which left me (and most of the rest of my family) with very stiff legs for the next couple of days!

Now I just need to keep the momentum going for a few more weeks...!!

Over halfway!

25 weeks in and 504 miles down! Yay!

Rivers and Seas (2)

The second of my rivers and seas series took us along the Thames Path, following this section from Albert Bridge to Tower Bridge. In actual fact though, we extended the walk at the beginning, by meandering our way from Clapham Junction up to the river, and shortened it slightly at the end, due to time constraints, finishing at London Bridge instead. Add a poorly signposted diversion of the route, and an even more poorly signposted diversion of the diversion, and we walked something close to about 8 miles all in all.

It was an absolutely lovely day for it, which was one of the reasons we decided to walk. Another was that my best friend, who currently lives out of the country, was in town and we wanted something to do which took us from Clapham Junction, where she was meeting someone else for breakfast, to Waterloo, where I'd planned for us to get lunch at the Real Street Food Festival. So it was the perfect route really and a really good way to take in the sights around the river.

Although it's possible to do the walk on either the north or south bank of the Thames, I would definitely recommend the south (and not just because I live there). You can't beat Battersea Park in the sunshine, the foreboding towers of Battersea Power station (although the developments going on there were the cause of all the very confusing diversions), whatever interesting thing is going on at the Southbank Centre ('cos there's always something) and the swarms of tourists around the London Eye and Aquarium (especially the ones who ask for an 'ice cold' at the ice cream van, because that's the text printed next to the picture of a slushie!)

But if you do dare to venture North of the river, just remember to break step on Albert Bridge, or you may end up in the Thames instead...

Rivers and Seas (1)

Coastal and riverside walks have been the theme of the last couple of weeks. The weekend before last, we were staying with family in Harwich, so joined their walking group on an excursion to Felixstowe. The most exciting bit about this was that it involved a ferry, which took us from the pier at Harwich to the beach at Languard, from where we walked into Felixstowe.

I do like it when Google Maps directions include ferries! It wasn't as warm as a May weekend should be, especially given the sea winds, but it was still good fun and we managed to squeeze in an ice cream before getting the ferry home.

All in all, we walked about 5.5 miles, which isn't an enormous amount, but was definitely enough, given that the reason we were in Harwich in the first place was to do a 20 mile bike ride the next day. Also gravel beaches are not the easiest terrain to walk on!

Capital Ring sections 4 and 5: Crystal Palace to Streatham and Streatham to Wimbeldon Park

We actually walked section 4 a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't got round to blogging about it yet, so thought it made sense to do it together with section 5, which we did yesterday, to save me falling even more behind on the list of blog posts in my head!

So, we've managed 17 miles of the Capital Ring so far, which puts us at about 20% of the way round. It's definitely getting easier to get up and go, with the sunnier days, and I'm very much looking forward to the next section, which ends at Richmond Bridge, where I've been recommended a very nice German beer garden. Our travels have so far taken us through six London boroughs (Lewisham, Bromley, Croydon, Lambeth, Wandsworth and Merton) and I'm intrigued to see how many the whole walk will cover.

Crystal Palace to Streatham (section 4) was a short one, at just 4 miles. The first half of the walk was mainly along streets, although we did pass through a section of the Great North Wood (although being in South London, I'm not entirely sure what it's north of!). Upper Norwood Recreation Ground was another nice green interlude:

We also learnt a little more about local history, after trying to find out a little more about this bench

And enjoyed a lovely view from the top of Streatham Common, rounded off by a banana ice cream from the cafe there.

We had a declicious late lunch / early dinner afterwards at one of my favourite veggie restaurants in London, the lovely Whole Meal Cafe just off Streatham High Road

Two weeks later, a slightly different group of us were back in Streatham to push on to Wimbledon Park for section 5. A lot of this was across Tooting Bec and Wandsworth Commons, and a lot of the bits that weren't on commons were along wide streets of the type of gorgeous houses which I can only dream of living in. The pigeon in this picture seemed to have the same aspirations - we stopped to watch him because he was making such a show of trying to get into the holes you can see above the front doors of these two houses:

A combination of the nice weather and it being a bank holiday weekend meant that the commons were full of people, and it was nice to see everyone enjoying themselves outside. Wandsworth Common is home to a particularly nice pond, with a very cool bridge:

And it was quite a shock to step off the common and come face to face with the slightly foreboding Wandsworth Prison, which the internet tells me is the largest prison in the UK:

This very end of this section of the walk, as we approached Wimbledon Park, marked the entry into new territory for me, venturing into bits of London where I'd not been before. I think much of the next few sections will be like that, until we work our way back round into North East London, and I'm quite excited about what's to come...

Catching up...

I've been very bad of late at adding up my totals and blogging about them. And at blogging about the walks. And at doing any actual walks... I blame the never ending winter which kept throwing snow down right up until Good Friday (ok, I was in Germany, but I'm sure that was the case in some parts of the UK too!).

But things are picking up. There have been quite a few blog posts bouncing around in my head these last couple of weeks, just waiting to be written. And there's been some walking too. But more about that in subsequent posts. What I need to do right now is some totalling, because the people who know about this challenge and this blog keep asking me if I'm on track. And quite frankly, I have no idea.

So, to start with what we know...

January... 99.9 miles

And now on to what I have so negligently failed to report...

February... 74.0 miles (well, it was a short month!)
March... 71.6 miles (well, it rained a lot and my monthly walking club was cancelled cos of snow!)

and

April (well, the first 29 days of it!)... 82.1 miles

Which brings me to a grand total so far of 327.6 miles!

I said in an earlier post that I needed 83.3 miles a month to stay on target, which means I'm currently 5.6 miles behind if we count to the end of April.

I think I've just set myself a goal for tomorrow!

The Glamours of Community Work

Working as a social worker doing lots of home visits in the community certainly keeps my miles up. My service covers two London boroughs and even though I make an effort to concentrate my visits for any particular day in particular areas to make sure there's not too much zig-zagging around, there's inevitably a lot of walking. I quite enjoy that though and often feel better for having had a bit of fresh air and exercise.

It's less glamorous when it comes to other human needs though, like tea, lunch and toilet breaks. I'm often far too far away from the office to pop back and while I have many clients who will offer me a cup of tea, which I'd gladly accept, there are also many where I'd rather play it safe or where it would neither be desirable nor appropriate to ask to use their bathroom. My knowledge of which local supermarkets, stations etc have toilet facilities is growing by the day.

As for lunch, it's usually a choice between spending a small fortune and sitting in the warm and dry in a cafe, scoffing a sandwich on the bus or eating outside, something which can be very pleasant in the sunmer (if I happen to be near a green space and not just a bench on a high street). Eating outside at this time of year is a bit more of a gamble, I discovered today, when a 10 minute snowstorm rudely interrupted my cheese and onion sandwich. So much for my thinking that the park bench would be more pleasant than the bus!

Refreshing Rain

I've been feeling pretty low this week. My asthma has been quite bad, which in turn has made me feel quite sluggish and energy-less. I had a day off work sick yesterday because I couldn't quite seem to work up the momentum to get out of bed.

But then today magically I felt a little revived. The weather was not exactly what you'd call inspiring - a typical grey drizzly London day, and it all started off badly with train delays and cancellations. And one thing I have found with my job is that more often than not, even if I go into the office feeling less than 100%, going out to see patients will often perk me up. And by the time I'd walked to and from various stations and buses to and from my home visits, I'd put 3 miles on the pedometer. And since I was feeling that little bit more lively and enjoying the drizzle-laden fresh air, I decided to go for it and walk home. So at the end of the day, 5.5 miles made me feel a lot more like myself again, and like I'd achieved something to boot :-)

Mud, mud, glorious mud

The latest long(ish) walk was Shiplake to Henley-on-Thames. 11 miles and plenty of mud. Some of the paths and fields had turned into mini rivers and lakes, so we had fun balancing on logs, grabbing on to trees and squeezing through barbed wire fences to try and avoid having to walk through water...

 Balancing act...

 Sure there should be a path here somewhere...

Squeezing through...

The buzzards obviously didn't think we'd make it!

I seem to have stalled a little on the Capital Ring lately, mainly because the weather has been so nasty. February's been a quieter month with only 77 miles so far, but that's fine... plenty of time to catch up in March!

January

January's total is in... at 99.9 miles! How hilariously tantalising is that?!

Still, I only need 83.3 miles a month to keep on target, so it's nicely ahead of that, even if it does make me want to go out and walk 0.1 of a mile up the road before midnight tonight, just to tip it over the edge.

Can't believe a whole month is over already. It's been a big week for walking, with a 12 mile walk from Henley to Pangbourne last weekend, and then managing to notch up about 10 miles in the course of my work over the last two days. I've had back to back home visits booked over the last two days, and a 10-15 minute walk to each one from the bus stop / station / last one doesn't seem like much, but when you factor in 10 of them, it suddenly adds up.

I'm definitely glad I started this. I was looking at endurance / charity walks the other day and thinking about signing up, but decided against it in the end. I want to challenge myself, but I don't want to push my body to its limit. At the moment I'm really enjoying being outdoors and walking, even when it's crazily windy (like today) or icy and muddy (like on Saturday), and I don't want this challenge to become a chore, or one more thing to have to stress about. I've been reading a lot about focussing on positives at the moment, and being out in the fresh air, looking and listening to what's going on around, even in the middle of a big city, is a great way of doing that.

Some pictures of the Henley to Pangbourne walk:

It was icy...

and muddy.

There were piggies...

 an alpaca farm...

and a scarecrow with a dog made out of wellington boots.

 And most importantly, it was all rounded off with tea and a lovely piece of cake (raspberry and white chocolate, for anyone who's interested!)

Penguins and Helicopters

First of all, to oblige Charlie H (I wonder who that could be?), have a picture of a penguin. He's walking, so fits the theme of the blog perfectly...

I'm currently trying to make an ice penguin. It's a mould which my best friend (who lives in Helsinki) sent me for Christmas. You fill it with water, leave it outside in freezing weather, and voila, ice penguin. It's not going so well at the moment though, possibly because as cold as it feels here, I'm told it was -30ºC in Helsinki at the weekend, so I think it's made for that kind of weather. He's lying outside with a thick coat of snow on him though, so fingers crossed.

Back to the walking. I've come to the conclusion that my pedometer is picking up a lot of extra walking from station entrances down to platforms and that kind of thing. I already set the step length a little too short to try to compensate, but I think I need to do a little more than that, because there's no way I've been walking quite as far as it says I have, and I don't have a good enough memory to keep taking it in and out of my pocket according to whether I want my steps tracked or not. I already round down the total it's giving me, but I'm also going to deduct 2.5km from my total every week, just to make sure it's completely fair and enough of a challenge.

So... totals so far:

Week 1 -  17.5 miles
Week 2 - 24.2 miles
Week 3 - 17.8 miles

Which puts me a whole 2 miles over target. This last week has mostly been a lot of walking for work - more than planned, just because I happened to have home visits in and around Vauxhall on Weds and Thurs, and the only way to get anywhere near where I needed to go was to walk, cos all the roads within almost a mile's radius were sealed off for the helicopter crash.

Fear not. I'm not just going to write about walking here. Given that I'm aiming to keep this up for a year, it could get (or maybe already is) more than a little dull. So I'll intersperse it with a few penguins and other bits and pieces here and there.

The Capital Ring (3) - Grove Park to Crystal Palace

Nearly two weeks in and the pedometer has notched up 42 miles (translated from its German 67.5 km). This puts me just ahead of the 2.8 miles per day needed to reach my target, thanks to today's 7.5 mile walk along part of the Capital Ring.

There are numerous walking routes in and around London, and as I said in my last post, I'm hoping this challenge will motivate me to make better use of them. The Capital Ring is 78 miles in its entirety, and if the London Outer Orbital Path (LOOP) is the walker's equivalent of the M25, then the Capital Ring is the North and South Circular, running in a loop around London through suburbs located roughly in zones 3 or 4.

I'm hoping to have walked the whole thing by the end of the year, but we started today with section 3, the closest bit to us. It runs from Grove Park to Crystal Palace, through the Great North Wood in Downham (north of what, I wonder?) and the lovely Beckenham Place Park.  One unexpected highlight is that it also took me very close to two of the places important to my childhood - my Great Aunt's old maisonette in Beckenham where we used to go and stay, and my parents' old house in Penge, where we lived until shortly after my 3rd birthday.

We unexpectedly came across the Kent Country Cricket Ground (this one's for my cricket-mad parents):

Other highlights included meeting a giant squirrel in Beckenham Place Park:

Seeing (and most definitely hearing) a few of London's infamous wild parakeets (although a dog kept chasing them away while I was trying to take photos):

And the Crystal Palace Park dinosaurs:

All rounded off nicely with a late roast lunch in Crystal Palace.

While I may have looked a little like a powder puff or the Michelin man, my new walking socks and gilet both have a definite seal of approval for keeping me nice and snug in the (possibly slightly below) freezing temperatures. Despite the cold though, I really enjoyed myself and I think we're both looking forward to the next section.

The Reasons and Rules

Once I'd worked out in my head that I probably walked an average of 500 miles a year already, I started thinking about challenging myself to double it. I thought that more walking would help me to keep fit and would also be good for my mental health. Last year was a difficult year at work for many reasons, and I found that walking home occasionally helped to get rid of some of the stress that had built up during the day. I deliberated it for a little while, because I was wary of setting myself an unachievable goal and making myself feel worse for not being able to reach it, thereby taking all of the pleasure out of something I enjoy doing, but I don't think that's going to be a problem unless my circumstances change somehow during the year. I already go walking once a month with friends, but I'm hoping that another benefit of this challenge will be that it drives me to explore some of the many walking routes in London that I've wanted to try out for some time and somehow never found time for.

So, those are my reasons. Now for the rules:
1. Any kind of walking counts, whether I go out for the sake of walking, or whether I walk to somewhere (e.g. work or the shops)
2. Wandering does not count (e.g walking round the shops or walking to the kitchen to get a cup of tea at work!)
3. It's meant to be fun. I shouldn't stress about the challenge or the blog. It doesn't matter if the only people who read it are my mum, my girlfriend and possibly my girlfriend's mum, depending on how well the translate function works.

I've got my fancy new pedometer so off I go...