Yes I know I'm out of sinc but you will have to bear with me being a technical cul de sac. Anyway with less than 15 weeks to go its about time I started to get back into training. I am under no illusions that despite lumbering round a football pitch reffereeing twice a week and playing five a side I am not walking fit which I find very different. I am however under the illusion that I am at a reasonable level and it is only a question of gettingthe miles in. Doh.... training walk 1 soon proves me wrong on that front.
Todays walk (Thursday) is a 10 mile trot from Lumsdale, a small hamlet just outside Matlock in the Derbyshire Dales, over to Ashover via Matlock Moor and then back through Tansley. Total distance is a fraction over 10 miles measured on my phone through some form of GPS jobby technology. I just press a button and it tells me how far I have walked, time taken etc. On the old stats front I am delighted to find that I am bordering on obese when I calculate my Body mass index prior to the walk. Fortunately the instructions tell me this does not reflect muscle mass. Unfortunately man breasts apparently are not muscle mass. Bugger!!
Ok, after a haircut reduces my BMI fractionally, obese man and his crippled dog Meg start off cunningly planning our arrival at Ashover for lunchtime at the Crispin Inn. All good walking guides emphasise the importance of sustenance when expending energy and to my mind there is no finer sustenance than beer for me and a packet of mini cheddars for Meg. Having set our interim objectives we set off. Early morning has seen a deluge and it is immediately apparent that there are serious amounts of water about. Two minutes from home are some derelict water mills built by Sir Richard Arkwright and nowadays preserved by the Lumsdale society and the waterfalls are in full flow as can be seen. These are a little bit of a hidden gem but its wonderful to have them on our doorstep.
Once we get out into the fields and then into the muds it is 
very heavy underfoot and hard going. I console myself with the thought that the wet conditions and being obese mean I sink further and am therefore working harder than a malnutritioned normal person. It certainly seems to be working because I am rapidly getting knackered. Meg of course is running around like a loon, trying to swim in anything that even resembles a puddle (she is a labrador and a blonde... fatal combination on the old intelligence stakes) and unaware that we are doing a little bit more than usual. Anyway we make decent time doing my usual 3 miles per hour and make it to Ashover in plenty of time for a sandwich and appropriate liquid sustenance. This food stuffs all right but is clearly making me obese!
very heavy underfoot and hard going. I console myself with the thought that the wet conditions and being obese mean I sink further and am therefore working harder than a malnutritioned normal person. It certainly seems to be working because I am rapidly getting knackered. Meg of course is running around like a loon, trying to swim in anything that even resembles a puddle (she is a labrador and a blonde... fatal combination on the old intelligence stakes) and unaware that we are doing a little bit more than usual. Anyway we make decent time doing my usual 3 miles per hour and make it to Ashover in plenty of time for a sandwich and appropriate liquid sustenance. This food stuffs all right but is clearly making me obese!Much as I love this walk the one major downside is a really steep climb straight after lunch. (See picture... we go down and then up over that ridge) This does however enable me to test the wicking abilities of my new base layer and windstopper 
guide. This is a technical bit where the bride starts muttering "sad sad sad" in some form of mantra. Anyway Xmas kit seems to work, I sweat a lot but dry quickly and we eventually get up the hill. Meg having started off like an express train has now decided she is a loyal and devoted dog and will stay by my side. I lovingly taunt her by telling her if she wasn't so blonde she wouldn't have swam so much or ran so much. She looks at me as I if am totally stupid for having a conversation with a dog that can't talk... Told you she was a blonde.
guide. This is a technical bit where the bride starts muttering "sad sad sad" in some form of mantra. Anyway Xmas kit seems to work, I sweat a lot but dry quickly and we eventually get up the hill. Meg having started off like an express train has now decided she is a loyal and devoted dog and will stay by my side. I lovingly taunt her by telling her if she wasn't so blonde she wouldn't have swam so much or ran so much. She looks at me as I if am totally stupid for having a conversation with a dog that can't talk... Told you she was a blonde.Anyway about the 8 mile mark the legs are telling me that I have a lot of work to do to get fit and I do feel quite weary by the time we get home. Meg goes straight to her bed , curlers in and goodnight Vienna. We have completed the walk in just over 3 1/4 hours walking so the pace is Ok even though the fitness clearly is not. I guess realistically I should have expected nothing more bearing in mind the recent lack of games due to the weather, my food induced obesity (?) and lack of walking. What I clearly have to do is structure my training because worst of all I have carried nothing today. Food for thought when I consider my shortest day on the C2C is 12 miles.
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