Wow, life is so busy. So much going on. I was lucky to manage to grab most of a day out yesterday with Pammy at Mottisfont, and a few miles around the grounds into the bargain. Today was the main walk of the weekend with Saturday and Sunday already booked up for stuff. The weather report (end-of-day version) was continuing changeable – cold and grey at the start (woolly hat replacing cap in the team line-up), the sun evidenced its existence for a short while, a quick light shower while the wind was in my face, more cold and grey, more sun, another light shower and so on.
7 miles to coffee and a free one for me being so loyal. Not long after I felt the need for further sustenance; I was just hungry rather than tired, weak, achy or anything else. I stopped briefly at a convenience store. Two pet hates of mine at this time.
(1) when I want a sausage roll, I don’t want a pack of six, I want one. Extremely inconvenient for a convenience store to not cater for my individual need in this way.
(2) I am allowed to use self-service without being tutted at. Rude rude rude. It’s there and it’s my choice. Life moves on, you can queue for a human assistant if you want but I like the convenience and I’ll be out of this shop five minutes before you. You can say that I am costing the job of the assistant but I am providing employment for those who develop and maintain the self-service technology. When you buy your first car, are you not similarly costing the bus driver their job? A hundred and more years ago, when man developed a car horn, was that not costing the job of that bloke who walked in front of the car with a flag? Technology brings convenience and we are entitled to move on.
Anyway, rant over, and a drink and a punnet of blueberries were really well received. I felt much better and was happy to take long routes at a decent pace all over the place. My head music for long periods was Daft Punk’s Get Lucky and I got lucky with almost everything today, especially avoiding the large number of idiot drivers on the road who occasionally made me feel like I was in some video game with one life remaining. I really enjoyed the cricket on the radio and chuckled every time it was mentioned that the Surrey game was delayed due to rain, spoken with the same solemnity as would the announcement that a reigning monarch had passed away. So the 5Live Sports Extra commentary switched regularly between a number of games which was nice rather than the usual wall to wall Surrey coverage.
My mind turned to a number of friends and colleagues taking part in walking or running events and challenges, too many to mention them all but very best of luck to those that are coming up in the next week or two. Well done to Stephanie Green whom I discussed a few weeks ago and she completed the London Bridges Half Marathon in a personal best time. I am still pondering what to do myself and thinking that I would be need to be doing something like half distance (30+ miles) if I was going to be able to complete one of those 100km ultra challenges. I cannot believe that much less than that is good enough preparation – it doesn’t have to be 30 miles every walk but at least one walk of that distance is necessary for a decent chance of accomplishing the full 100km.
Today I managed 23.62 miles and though it hurt near the end, I had plenty still in my legs. Anything above about 20 miles increases the likelihood of chafing in the nether regions and there is a bit of stinging there when I think about it. But it is a good distance and I certainly wasn’t at my absolute limit.
Spiceboy's Very Long Walk 