Walk smarter, not quicker

 DON'T ASK HOW LONG IT'LL TAKE, JUST IF...?

Two days ago I became a proper OAP.  Yesterday I walked more than ten miles.  Today I ache.  Spot the obvious connections.

Once again I have signed up to do the Kiltwalk charity event in September.  My first, in 2018, my sole aim was to get to the end.  For the next I wanted to be quicker, and did the fourteen and a bit miles in three hours thirty three minutes.  Frustratingly close to three and a half hours, so that was to be my aim in 2020, if the same course was in use.  But we know what happened next.  And again in '21.  So here I am, trying again.  The route has yet to be announced, but I know one thing.  I won't be doing it in three and a half hours.

Three years older, complete with the subtle physical modifications that gradual decrepitude  brings.  A clear thickening around the middle.  Two bouts of the oh-so-fashionable covid virus, leaving me with (my GP suggests) a few breathing problems from long covid.  I have finally entered the world of daily meds, for a mild heart condition.  And the dodgy left knee gets ever dodgier.  Intimations of mortality

But the optimistic part of my brain still goes "you've done it before, you can do it again".  While the inner realist reflect on all those changes, and wonders...

I haven't tried on the kilt for a long time. Will it still fit, comfortably enough to wear for so many hours?  I can always get another kilt though. I can't get another body, so I'll have to make the best of the one I've got.

I've now put nine walks behind me, from less than five miles, up to yesterday's first effort at passing the ten mark.  I've learned that I have to pace myself - as the one attempt to push on at something like my old speed resulted in me feeling like shit for all of the day after!  Yesterday's ten and a bit felt comfortable enough.  But took over three hours.  A pace that would take me over the four hour mark on the day.  

It's not as if it matters.  If anyone is going to sponsor me I'm sure they'll not make it conditional on my pushing myself to the point of exhaustion, or covering the distance in a certain time.  The most important thing is to collect some money for Advocard, my chosen charity once more.  And this year, for the first time, I won't be alone in my kilted effort, with at least one other and possibly more joining in.  But there's still this stupid pride thing that us humans do.  And knowing that the one thing about getting old is not actually wanting to feel like you're getting old.  I just wish that optimistic wee voice I mentioned within would learn to shut up.

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