Trying to get back into the swing of things

I'm sorry to say that my restarted training stalled last weekend and I failed to do a single walk. A busy Saturday followed by a very late night meant I was left with very little inclination to get out walking on the Sunday. To avoid the same trap this weekend I made myself get my weekly training walk in today instead.

As I'm still getting back into training I'm still not quite up to the longer walks I was doing late autumn. As a result I'm still quite reluctant to go to far from home, giving me the option to return home early if I want to. So for today I headed off to Whittlingham for a walk round the Great Broad. A lap of the broad is 2.5 miles, plus an approximately 2.5 mile walk each way meant I walked just over 7 miles, no where near what I was doing but certainly heading in the right direction.

Whittlingham Great Broad

I am finding it quite frustrating that I am effectively starting from scratch when it comes to my training, knowing how much work I put in before which, it feels like at least, was all for nothing. The one positive I am trying to take from it though is that I am now able to appreciate just how far I came before, and at the point I really didn't know what I was doing, so hopefully with that experience on board I can get back to that fitness again, and hopefully improve event more. 

I did take a few minutes halfway through the walk for a short break, during which I sat watching a group of swans. They were standing in pairs and kept standing in positions making a heart shape with their necks. I lost count of the number of times when I just missed pressing the button on my camera in time and missed what would have been a great shot. The below is unfortunately the closest I got.

Bridging the gap

So, today's walk was the first 'proper' one in my restarted training. Trying to ease myself in gently I set out to do a 3 or 4 mile walk just around my part of Norwich.

Started off in Tombland and walked through the Cathedral Close to the rive where I picked up the Riverside Walk along to Bishop Bridge. From there I found myself at Gas Hill ( Gas Hill blog). Although I'm taking it easy training wise at the moment I decided to give it a go, to see how much my hill fitness has dipped. Pleased to say I managed the hill, although did find it very hard work!

River Wensum

I then walked along the other side of the river to Foundry Bridge and followed the Riverside path back to the Cathedral Close. Then I walked along King Street up to the Lady Julian Bridge and followed the river along to Carrow Bridge. At this point it finally dawned on me that I seemed to be crossing a lot of bridges, so decided to see just how many times I could cross the river in one short walk. With this in mind I followed the river back to the Novi Sad bridge, then crossed the Lady Julian Bridge again before heading back to the Cathedral. I then walked down to the Fye Bridge on Wensum Street, down Quayside to Whitefriars Bridge before going back to Wensum Street and down Colgate. I followed this to again cross the river on Duke Street, then over to The Playhouse to cross the river via St Georges Bridge. By this point my 3 mile walk had turned into 5 miles so I headed home. I was hopeful that I had covered all the bridges in the City Centre (geeky yes but there you go...) but then stumbled on the poster below...

Turns out I missed a couple, that's a future challenge I guess......

Take 2...

New Year, and I'm back!

As you will know from my last posts back in September/October I was very disappointed that, despite months of training, I was unable to complete the Three Peaks Challenge last September due to coming down with glandular fever only a few days before. This was a huge disappointment but I am pleased to say that I have rebooked to complete the challenge in June and now that Christmas and the New Year are out the way I'm going to start picking up my training.

I still have some way to go to get my fitness back to where it was and I don't want to risk pushing myself too much and relapsing so I'm going with the slow and steady approach. The current plan is to just do small walks, without my backpack, during January and then in February start on a 4 month plan to get me to the level I need to be at by June. Over Christmas I started doing a bit of walking and today did my first 'training walk' (blog post to follow). It's not going to be a quick process but at least I've started and I hope you'll all continue to follow my progress on here......