Written 28th October 2017
Time for walking.
All the fitness plans and all the people who create them do not really work for me. Spending days in a gym trying to become some ideal version of a man holds no appeal.
When I was young, I was out on my bicycle whenever I could. I rode everywhere. Friendsβ houses. Shops. School. Anywhere my fleshy little pistons would take me.
I loved my bikes.
Walking came much later. Apart from the daily walk to and from school with my grandmother, and later the walk to big school with friends, I would cycle, take a bus, catch a train, or get a lift. I rarely walked unless I had to.
Then, in my early twenties, I had no bike, no car, and not much money for public transport. I relied on lifts from friends, or I walked.
The thing is, I never thought of walking as a chore. The more I did it, the more I realised I enjoyed it. If I needed to be somewhere, I worked out the distance and knew roughly how long it would take. If the weather was awful, it did not matter. By then, I had decent walking boots, a big coat, and an umbrella.
Among my peers, that was unusual. Most people seemed to go out of their way to avoid walking anywhere.
Eventually, I discovered that walking in forests and mountains made the whole thing better. I loved it.
Later still, I found I could run.
After a period of being unwell while living in Brighton, walking, then running, became a way to heal. I would run several miles every day, return to my bedsit, and lose myself in a book and a hot bath for an hour.
I did that for months.
Then I got better, got a job, and the walking gradually faded. I still made time for the mountains when I could, often car camping to keep the cost down. But life changed. I walked less. Other things got in the way.
After I got married, I picked up running for fitness again. I would run for forty-five minutes most days, then add a long run on Sunday morning. The longest was eleven miles. That remains the furthest I have ever run.
Then an injury put an end to it.
I did not have a bike. My calf muscles were damaged from running. I started putting on weight.
Things improved when I began walking Karta to and from school. Four miles a day, five days a week. When I was still working at the cinema, I would often walk or cycle to and from work too, even when finishing at three in the morning.
Now Karta is at secondary school in Ramsgate, about three and a half miles from home. Rhona drops him off on her way to work each morning, and I collect him in the afternoon.
At the moment, I drive.
That means I am missing the regular daily exercise I used to get without even thinking about it. So I have decided to start walking over to collect him. I will begin with a couple of days a week and build from there.
I reckon it should take us about an hour to walk home.
Good exercise for both of us.
Time to dust off my hiking boots and start walking again.
After all, taking the foot truck is cheaper than every other option.
Until next time,
adieu.