Today I turned up for a 20km walk.
Now, to be clear up front, I was looking forward to this. Walking, thinks I, now that I can do.
It's not cycling, which seems to be all about hills: you're either ascending (Why. Am. I. Doing. This??) or descending (Aaarrgh! Aaargh! I'm going to die!), or transiting between hills.
It's not running, which is an awful lot of work and everyone else seems to enjoy it and I'm always the odd person out because I'm dragging myself around at back and broadly uncaring how fast I do so.
It's walking. OK, a bit dull if it goes on for any length... But I've got this. I'm a fast walker. This is my event!
It didn't start well. First announcement - 1km has been cut from the route because of some other event. Everyone else was probably thinking (inside) "oh, well, that's quite good, finish sooner". Me? Well, you can see the problem. I NEED 20km today, the plan does not allow for the odd km to drop off here and there.
Anyway, off we go. Follow the signs and don't get lost, says the man. All well and good but, as it turns out, it helps if you make sure that you've removed all the signs from the preceding 10km run first... A whole group of us went off on a big loop (ending up back at the start) before being sent back onto the right path ("oh, look, there's a big yellow sign pointing right - that wasn't there earlier"). People were quite annoyed, people on the 10km walk actually gave up rather than keep going with their extra mileage (the 10km route was unaffected by the "other event")... And I was thinking "oh, good, that'll have got me back up to 20km then".
Admittedly, I think our diversion was more than 1km. And I think that the reduction due to the other event was more than 1km. And not all of the route was perhaps as clear as I would have liked: what with the diversion and the very small starting group (maybe 50 people doing the 20km walk total) I did end up doing the vast majority of the route on my own, slightly concerned by the whole "going the wrong way" at the start...
But overall I enjoyed it. The weather was good (for walking 20km), the route was interesting (to me), and I was pretty consistently speedy.
Totally shattered now, mind, but still - the world needs more walking events!!
:o)
Today's stats:
Walking - 26 mins, 1.63 miles [to the walk]
Walking - 3 hr 21 mins, 12.427 miles [actually 13 miles, but better too many than too few!]
Walking - 32 mins, 1.67 miles [and home again]
Now, to be clear up front, I was looking forward to this. Walking, thinks I, now that I can do.
It's not cycling, which seems to be all about hills: you're either ascending (Why. Am. I. Doing. This??) or descending (Aaarrgh! Aaargh! I'm going to die!), or transiting between hills.
It's not running, which is an awful lot of work and everyone else seems to enjoy it and I'm always the odd person out because I'm dragging myself around at back and broadly uncaring how fast I do so.
It's walking. OK, a bit dull if it goes on for any length... But I've got this. I'm a fast walker. This is my event!
It didn't start well. First announcement - 1km has been cut from the route because of some other event. Everyone else was probably thinking (inside) "oh, well, that's quite good, finish sooner". Me? Well, you can see the problem. I NEED 20km today, the plan does not allow for the odd km to drop off here and there.
Anyway, off we go. Follow the signs and don't get lost, says the man. All well and good but, as it turns out, it helps if you make sure that you've removed all the signs from the preceding 10km run first... A whole group of us went off on a big loop (ending up back at the start) before being sent back onto the right path ("oh, look, there's a big yellow sign pointing right - that wasn't there earlier"). People were quite annoyed, people on the 10km walk actually gave up rather than keep going with their extra mileage (the 10km route was unaffected by the "other event")... And I was thinking "oh, good, that'll have got me back up to 20km then".
Admittedly, I think our diversion was more than 1km. And I think that the reduction due to the other event was more than 1km. And not all of the route was perhaps as clear as I would have liked: what with the diversion and the very small starting group (maybe 50 people doing the 20km walk total) I did end up doing the vast majority of the route on my own, slightly concerned by the whole "going the wrong way" at the start...
But overall I enjoyed it. The weather was good (for walking 20km), the route was interesting (to me), and I was pretty consistently speedy.
Totally shattered now, mind, but still - the world needs more walking events!!
:o)
Today's stats:
Walking - 26 mins, 1.63 miles [to the walk]
Walking - 3 hr 21 mins, 12.427 miles [actually 13 miles, but better too many than too few!]
Walking - 32 mins, 1.67 miles [and home again]
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