Parish Walk Training Diary

This is my final post. When I started this Blog, it was with the full intention of taking part in the Parish Walk! With a new baby, it was difficult to find time to train but, with the focus of the Parish, I did manage to make time to get out and walk - even if it did mean pushing the pram at the same time.

Every single training walk helped get me fitter and when I eventually did get to walk without a pram, I just sailed along. In fact, during the very early weeks of my pregnacy, I did my best walks. I was really flying!

I hope that others who are taking part have been able to relate to my Blog. I hope it might have encouraged other time-challenged mums (and dads!) that it doesn’t matter how much training you do, any training is better than no training; even the shortest walk will leave you feeling refreshed and energised.

I’m sorry that I’ll be missing the fun of taking part but at least it means that I can now film the event for BBC News. Our feature should be on North West Tonight on Monday, around 6.30pm.

Myself and my colleagues are going to stagger the filming between us. Ariane will do the morning’s filming; I’ll do the afternoon and Mark will do the night.

Well, you can’t expect a pregnant woman to get out of bed in the middle of the night, can you? (Not to go filming, anyway.)

So, myself and my surprise-but-very-welcome Bump will see you on Saturday afternoon.

Take care of yourselves and have fun!

Best wishes,

Kerry, Baby and Bump
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I went to see the physio to check her opinion on whether I should still take part. She said that although pregnant women do take part - depending on the advise of their GPs - she would advise me not to take part. What? Miss it again? I did train for it last time but missed it due to having a baby!

The physio’s reasoning is that my body is still pretty battered from the last pregnancy and birth. If I take part in the Parish and get caught up in the whole atmosphere of the event, I could well push my body further than it wants to go. I could see her point. And to be honest, I’m getting puffed out walking up Douglas Head to work; the Sloc is, currently, unimaginable.

Thank goodness the first weeks of pregnancy are over. I was feeling so down, so sad about everything. With the first pregnancy, I felt emotional every now and then and I’d just have a good cry and immediately feel better. But with this one, I haven’t felt like crying - just sad about…everything. Maybe when you already have one baby to look after, you don’t have time to think about how you’re feeling yourself so it all gets bottled up.

I do feel much better now and although I’m not up to doing any training, at least I’ve got the energy to take the baby out for walks again. I took her onto the beach for her first play in the sand and for a paddle. She absolutely loved kicking her feet in the water and got excited whenever a wave came. As for the expanse of beach…what an amazing sight for a baby who’s just learnt how to crawl: wide, flat surface with no obstacles. Heaven!

OK, I’m pregnant. What about work? It was too early to tell them. What about the Parish Walk blog? Well, now you know! But the big question is,  can I still do the Parish Walk?

The pregnancy handbook which every pregnant woman gets from her GP states that ‘Taking regular exercise will help you to have an easier pregnancy and give you more stamina to cope with labour.’ Further, it says that ‘if you already follow an exercise routine then - providing your GP agrees - there is no reason why you shouldn’t continue with it.

The handbook lists walking and swimming as the ideal methods of exercise for a pregnant woman.

But I don’t feel like exercising. I feel like lying down and sleeping whenever I get the opportunity.

I did drive to Baldrine to start a light training walk. I was in my full kit. But when I switched off the car engine, I could hear the birds tweeting above and it was all so quiet and peaceful and the late afternoon sun was so warm and the car was so warm and the car seat, if I just reclined it backwards, felt so comfortable and for once, I had no baby to look after and I felt so sleepy that instead of having a walk, I went into a deep sleep for an hour. It was such a good sleep that I was convinced, as I woke up, that it was morning and that the alarm had just gone off.

So much for training.

I just have not had the energy.

Evenings are also not possible times to get a walk in either as (like last time I was pregnant), I have ‘reverse’ Morning Sickness which starts around 5 o’clock in the evening. This is the critical time. If I don’t eat at least a sandwich, an apple and a banana between 5 and 6pm, a sort of sea-sick queasiness engulfs me.

So much for training.

I just have not had the inclination.

It’s funny how when it’s the second time around, doing a pregnancy test doesn’t hold quite as much fear as the first time at all. I’ts so recently that I did my last pregnacy test (less than a year, put it that way) that I still had one test stick left over and still within Use By date. So I did it. Just to put my mind at rest.

I’d had severe tiredness for weeks and weeks, plus I’d felt a couple more tendons twanging out of place. My whole body definitely feels like it’s softening, giving way slightly.

I peed on the test stick. Immediately, the ‘pregnant’ window showed a blue cross. Absolutely no question about it: I am pregnant. Again!

I’ve still been feeling absolutely exhausted. My husband made us our tea and I stayed on the sofa, with my plate on a tray. After the meal, I got up, still holding the tray in one hand and felt a sudden ‘pidoing!’ on one side of my lower abdomen. It felt like a tendon giving way. ‘That’s funny,’ I thought. ‘I haven’t had that sensation since I was…pregnant.’

Since my last posting, every weekend morning I’ve woken up with the aim of training…it just hasn’t happened because I’ve felt so exhausted. It’s taken me all my energy to get up, get the baby ready, take her for a walk and return home, pushing the pram up Old Laxey Hill which, at the moment, feels like it’s getting steeper every day. By the evening, I’ve been in bed by nine o’clock which is earlier than I can ever remember needing to go to bed before. Maybe it’s a virus.

I’ve been feeling good since the Begoade Road walks so I decided to see how long it would take me to get to Ramsey today. It was pretty hot so I took some of those water bottles on a waist belt and filled them up again at the Dhoon. Again, I was suprised that I arrived in Ramsey feeling quite fresh. It always seems so far when you’re driving. The road can seem a bit relentless but when you’re walking, you notice things you don’t see when you’re rushing past in a car.

Road walking is great if you’re of a basically nosey nature. You get to see into people’s gardens on the way past: you see whose house is up for sale; how people like to spend their Sunday’s - cutting the grass, washing the car, panned-out on the lawn reading the Sunday papers. Then of course, there’s all the flora and fauna- the lambs are in the fields at the moment and as for the totally heavenly smell of hot gorse: why has no one ever bottled and sold the smell of hot gorse? It has got to be the most beautiful of all natural scents.

It took me just fractionally under two and a half hours to get to Ramsey. So again, I must be walking at just over four miles an hour.

I think I’ll do the same route a couple more times then the week before the Parish, I’ll walk back to Laxey again. That’ll be about 20/22 miles. Then I’ll know that I can definitely get to Rushen and, at a push, I could perhaps get to Peel. But for today, I took the bus back.

I must get out in the car and measure the route I’ve been doing for the past few weekends: Laxey to Baldrine along the main road, over to Lonan Old Church, down onto the Groudle Road, up to the top of the Whitebridge, up and around Coan Rennie on Begoade Road then down into Laxey, along the Glen Road and back up Old Laxey Hill.

I’ve been doing this in two and a half hours, just going at a fairly quick but steady pace and just enjoying being out for a walk on my own, without pushing a pram! )In fact, part of the route is what I used to do with the pram so it just seems so much easier now.) I’ve felt good afterwards and haven’t felt stiff at all.

I have to say, the right gear does help. The t-shirt does keep me cool and the because the leggings are stream-lined, they somehow make you more aware of  how you’re walking - your style, I suppose. The new trainers are great too. I feel like I’m floating along.

My Dad reckons this route is 12 miles which suggests I’m walking at quicker than 4 miles an hour. It just goes to show how far you can get if you just get out there and have a go!

During the week, I haven’t had much chance to walk. If I get a lunch hour at work, I do a walk along Marine Drive, just to keep moving. But the weekend walk is the one chance to have a proper walk.

it’s feeling good though.

Went to the Lakes for a couple of days last week and ended up at Go Ape, a kind of Krypton Factor assault course but at 60 foot above ground, between trees. You’re in a harness, so you can’t fall off but the death slides and various air-bourne challenges are still quite scary. It wasn’t Parish Walk training in a physical sense (although hauling yourself up the Tarzan nets is a good work-out for the arms) but psychologically, I think it was useful training. There were quite a few puzzles which you couldn’t work out just be looking at them. You had to just launch yourself off your tree platform and hang on for grim death to whatever ropes were around while you found a way to complete that challenge. Yes, useful.