Parish Walk Training Diary

Chatting to Parish Walk website host, Murray Lambden about the Parish Walk. He asked me if I’d ever done the walk myself. I said that I would have trained for the last one but had been too pregnant to take part. He asked me if I’d ever considered doing a Parish Walk training blog. ‘What would be the point of that if I’m not actually going to do the walk?” I asked. “Exactly!” was his reply.

Consequently, I find myself, near the end of February, setting up a blog and giving it the optimistic title, Parish Walk Training Diary. Ha! I don’t even have time to do my post natal pelvic floor squeezes, let alone find the opportunity to go for a five mile training walk.

So why did I decide to commit myself to this seemingly crazy idea? My first reaction to Murray’s suggestion was that, with a relatively new baby plus having just returned to work three days a week, I won’t have time to train. However, the morning he asked me had been particularly busy at work. I drove to Marine Drive for a quick 20 minute walk to clear my head. The sun was shining, the sea and cliffs looked spectacular: the frantic pace of the office seemed a million miles away. Returning to the car, I thought: if I feel this good after 20minutes, just think how fantastic I’ll feel if do commit myself to some training. Even if it’s not regular and even if, by June, instead of committing myself to one specific destination (eg Peel), won’t it be worth just trying to see how far I can get? Any training is better than no training; any exercise is better than no exercise. It’s still 18 months since I last tried to touch my toes!