Half Way Hell

Finished the week with a cracking 15 mile walk this morning. I needed to do something special to rid myself of the guilt from falling off the wagon on Friday night in spectacular style. I managed 27 days, but Christmas and New Year brought one retirement and the birth of two babies. Friday night was scheduled as a retirement do and wetting the babies heads combo. So as I was out I didn't get chance to do any training (except the mandatory bicep curls with pint in hand) and therefore thought it time to see how I would fare on a longer walk given what training I've done since the turn of the year.

I arranged with Richard Wild that we would walk the leg of the Parish route from Ramsey, back to my house in Lonan. Rich picked me up at 7am, and after parking in St Paul's Square around 7.20 we soon headed off towards Queens Pier Road and the steady climb out of Ramsey. We aimed to average 5.2mph as Rich is training for the Sarah Killey walk and I want to push myself as much as I possibly can. I absolutely love this route, and I am a complete statto when it comes to distances and landmarks all the way along. This is to do with a bad bad experience during the 2010 Parish and since then I have trained on this section countless times to banish the demons and also to prepare myself mentally.

This is a good tip number 3. If you have done the Parish before whether completely or not, train like billy-o on the section where you struggled. Pick out landmarks, measure distances, and time yourself. This way, when you get there on the day,  you will know precisely what to expect, what to look out for, and exactly how long you will be on that section - it really helped me. So there is a very good chance that you will see me on the Malew to Round Table section at various points during training this year.

Anyway, back to today, we made it the 14.57 miles from St Paul's Square to the Ballacannell bus stop in a little under 2 hours 50 mins and therefore pretty much bang on the 5.2mph target. The climb up to my house was a good warm down, but I have to admit, the rest of the day has been spent doing quite a lot of limping and plenty of sitting down. No blisters though !!

I have a good download of the stats which I will update this post with just as soon as I work out how to embed it from the Garmin website. I have to say that I am a complete technophobe and have just spent nearly an hour trying to do it. It's lucky the laptop hasn't been pitched out through the lounge window !!

Prior to my Monday rant, I promised a run down on my first Parish attempt in 2008, so here goes.

I thought I had trained well, living in Douglas at the time, I had several routes to keep it mixed up enough not to lose interest. The only snag was that the longest route was around 7 miles, and I probably didn't do more than 2 walks a week usually around 4 or 5 miles max.

Although I had supported many times previously, I have to say I was absolutely clueless about actually taking part in terms of training and nutrition, certainly on the day.

Everyone will remember 2008 as the most horrendous conditions for walking. The forecast was grim, but the start was relatively bright. It wasn't until I reached the Braaid Roundabout until the first signs of rain appeared, and once it started, it didn't give up for the rest of the day. Going into the day, I wanted to complete the whole distance, but my overriding objective was to get beyond Peel, and simply keep going until I couldn't walk any more.

I made it to Peel in a reasonable time (8hrs 14mins), and felt ok although I was absolutely soaked to the skin. I had a complete change of clothes behind the car (apologies to anyone who saw the early moon that afternoon). Dry clothes (albeit for about 20 minutes) gave me a boost, but as the crowds subsided and number of walkers dwindled on the way to Kirk Michael I really started to feel it and my pace slowed to around 3.25mph. The lack of training, particularly hill training showed itself, and I felt I was really starting to struggle. My mate Dan had picked up the support baton from Caroline at this point, and he kept saying to me to keep going and take it one church at a time. I decided under no circumstances was I stopping at Kirk Michael as it was a relatively short distance to Ballaugh. Once again, I was soaked to the skin, and just did not want to eat or drink anything as I was beginning to feel dreadful. Although I had gone a little quicker since Kirk Michael, I still wasn't anywhere near even 3.5mph and I knew in my heart that the end was in the post. Knowing the speed I was trudging at, and the fact it would have taken me best part of an hour to get to Jurby, and the conditions we endured on that day, I decided at Ballaugh to call it quits. I'd given it a good go, but poor preparation and lack of understanding of what was required put paid to that year's attempt. I would never make that mistake again. So I had completed 2 of my 3 objectives, I got past Peel, but half way was as good as I could do.

So here's looking forward to another successful week training, I'll give you another update midweek.

Ed

ps. Just a brief note for my co-blogger Richard - did you enjoy the footy yesterday???

pps. 2 days without a drink and counting.......