Springing into Action Part I

I've come to the conclusion over the years that I'm inherently lazy. Although I have always fully understood that exercise and physical activity are good for you and provide a multitude of benefits, getting older I have found it increasingly challenging to stir up the motivation to stay active.

I went to a school where sport was high on the agenda, although I guess like many others I'm not sure I was left with the most positive of impressions, eg being one of the last to be chosen in team sports, standing frozen on a hockey pitch as goalie in the middle of winter, being hit in the face playing netball, having to go swimming in the middle of the school day with little time to get dried properly afterwards and spending the rest of the day with damp hair, facing aggressive and hard-faced opponents during inter-school sports competitions. The list goes on.

Although it wasn't all bad and I do have fonder memories of playing tennis and rounders on warm summer afternoons and enjoying eating segments of orange during netball match half-time breaks. I do however remember feeling very resentful that my senior school's brand new state-of-the-art indoor sports centre was completed on campus just as I was leaving to go to college to do A levels, so I never once benefitted from its use. Just think, I might have been a professional basketball player in the making (my height would surely have been an advantage), who was just never afforded the opportunity to give it a go. Surprisingly I did continue to be quite active once I left school, during my late teens at University and into my 20s - mainly swimming, squash, tennis, running, Ceroc dancing and later skiing (badly). Walking never once featured on my list of things to do for pleasure or to keep fit and active. After all, wasn't it only middle-aged and old people who walked and hiked? I thought of it more as something to do when you retire and have way too much time on your hands; maybe a little lightweight? I would smile to myself if I saw couples out walking together with their matching walking poles, rucksacks and (often) matching cagoules. For me, the only valid reasons you would go for a walk were a) if you had a dog, or b) if it was a specific, planned one-off outing with a group of friends with a very definite start and finish point; more of a social activity which inevitably included a pub-lunch somewhere along the route. In fact, that was usually the main reason for bothering to go out at all.

At this point, I do need to come clean about quite a negative walking experience I had in my early 30s. My thinking about walking was clearly shifting, as I had the bright idea of using a couple of weeks' leave from work to walk the North Downs Way, starting in Farnham, Surrey and finishing in Canterbury, Kent. A well-established ancient pilgrimage route with a distance of 153 miles through the beautiful undulating countryside in the South East of England. Apart from buying a brand new pair of walking boots, two new pairs of '1,000 mile walking socks', and booking accommodation along our route, I did absolutely nothing else to prepare. Picture day one then, when a very kind friend drove us to Farnham and dropped us off at our start-point bright and early at 7am. I'm not quite sure how heavy my ruck-sack was (I am a serial over-packer when it comes to travelling) but she gently suggested that we might want to re-think the contents and get rid of some of what we'd planned to take with us, given that I could barely heave the said rucksack onto my back. We sheepishly re-assessed our rucksack contents, and 20 minutes later she was driving off with at least 50% of our belongings in the boot of her car. It was a beautiful early summer Saturday morning and as we began our walk all was well with the world. I clearly remember stopping off at a Tea Shop for a mid-morning drink and piece of cake, the sun was out, the birds were singing and until early-afternoon I remember feeling very thankful for living in such a beautiful part of the UK.

I don't know what planet I was on when planning our walk, but I'd booked a B&B for our first night which was 23 MILES FROM OUR START POINT! It seemed like a good idea at the time. Not surprisingly, by the middle of the afternoon the brand new (and not broken in) walking boots and socks began to rub big-time on the 'hardly ever used for walking long distances' feet. I persevered for as long as I could before having the bright idea of stopping and taking my boots and socks off, providing my feet with a bit of respite and a breather before continuing our journey. I guess I should have heeded my husband's sage advice: "whatever you do, don't take your boots off." Needless to say I couldn't bring myself to put my boots back on again so limped for the final 2 miles along a stony path in just my (brand new) socks. I can't remember if I cried or not. The most embarrassing moment came when the owner of the B&B we were staying at that night called to enquire as to why we still hadn't arrived. We'd given her an ETA of 4pm but by this time it was well past 6pm and she wanted to go out for the evening. My husband explained our situation and with around half a mile still to walk she very kindly offered to drive to collect us. I have never been so grateful to see another human being, or for that matter, a bed for the night. Things only got worse when I tried to get up the following morning and proceeded to slide out of bed straight onto the floor and crawled into the bathroom. It took every ounce of will-power and strength to get my legs working again and I very quickly came to the realisation that I wouldn't be doing any walking of any distance over at least the next few days, probably longer. So, with our tails between our legs we walked a short way to the train station and caught a train home. Our second most embarrassing moment came when we arrived at our friend's house (the one who had dropped us off the day before) to collect the belongings we'd left with her. She clearly hadn't expected to be seeing us again quite so soon. To say she found our situation amusing would be a gross understatement and to this day she still laughs raucously when she reminisces about my ascending her apartment stairs on my hands and knees. Our walking holiday wasn't completely wasted though, as we still travelled from B&B to B&B by car instead and then completed shorter walks around the local area once we'd arrived.

Following this less-than-positive experience, the thought of attempting any future long-distance walks could not have been further from my mind. I drew a mental line under the event, tried hard to forget it had ever happened, and probably continued for many years to feel quite indifferent towards walking, either as a hobby or as a way of keeping fit and active. That was, until I watched the film "The Way" mentioned in my first blog post.