Pete Thomas’s Blog

It’s not all exhausting but somehow enjoyable walks round the countryside that get more and more exhausting, we also have to do weekday walks. Just when you thought you could give the calves, knees, thighs and blistery bits a chance to recover, there are also several weekday walks. Not so easy when you also have to carry on making an honest living, but I manage to do this by walking round Southampton common for a couple of hours. It’s very flat, but I make up for its lack of resemblance to Machu Picchu by walking very fast and doing arm-stretching and breathing exercises at the same time. Does wonders for your lack of self conciousness.

Compared with last weekend, this might have been a bit easier. We walked along the Pilgrim’s Way from Winchester to Upham and back, a round trip of only about 14 miles. No, no, no. It turned out to be either walking up hill or downhill. Even the level bits seemed to be hills (see photo - and yes, once again I had to run ahead to get the picture). So quite good preparation for the Andes (although I imagine the air isn’t quite as thin on the North Downs), but what with some very rugged and slippery slopey terrain undefoot we were beginning to feel we were progressing from ramblers via hikers to trekkers. But then you have to respect our predecessors the pilgrims who used this very path without Scarpa boots, Goretex or Compeed.

We managed to get lost again just before lunch (becoming a bit of a theme). This time we ended up in a field where a bunch of cows suddenly formed a line and stared at us menacingly. True to walking mythology we suddenly realised they didn’t have udders. Luckily they weren’t actual bulls, as Laurie pointerd out, they were steers and in a sort of macho adolescent kind of way were doing their best to be aggressive, nudging each other and saying “go on, you gore them to death”, then realising they didn’t really have the balls for a fight they moved off sideways. Later on we met a deer suddenly right in the middle of a field.

Apart from the foot pains (which I’ll discuss separately), we both got home feeling completely exhausted and aching from head to foot, on account of the amount of gradients involved. We also woke up feeling the same which was a bit disheartening: the trek is only 3 weeks off now. However it seems that this happens: you wake up thinking you can’t possibly even move for a day, but once you haul yourself out of bed and stretch a bit, the aches sort of subside. (But only “sort of”). I feel I could have gone on another walk today, but it wouldn’t have been easy. Next weekend is the 2 x eight hours. Aaagh, still I’m very grateful we are keeping up with the prescribed training schedule. And it’s great to see some of the best bits of rural England. Here are some pics of just a couple of the sights that helped the Pilgrim’s feel it was all worthwhile:

Especially this after a long walk uphill getting lost in the rain:

So far I haven’t had actual blisters, but some very painful areas on my left foot: the pad just below my big toe and the lower part of my heel. I hate these more than blisters because they are spread out and harder to define. The problem with my toe is not so much a blister but to do with lack of cushioning, ie I could do with more fatty tissue on the bottom of my feet, however my metabolism works in the usual way for gentlemen of a certain age, any extra fatty tissue goes towards enhancing the beer gut. As you can see from the boot discussion earlier, I’ve started to address the problem with new boots, but of course even though they can now be padded out with the incredibly expensive odoureaters, they still need breaking in while the affected areas are not yet healed, so I’m trying the conventional blister solutions: moleskin or Compeed. Laurie tells me people tend to either swear by one or the other. I’m currently swearing at both while I try them out: I have moleskin on the toe and Compeed on the heal. I’m resigned to the probability that due to the ever increasing training schedule I may just have to learn to control the pain, as the only way to completely heal them may be to go to bed for 3 months.

I was initially disappointed to discover moleskin is not real moleskin but an artificial molskin with a sticky side and a moley side. Being an animal wildlife lover I’m very glad there aren’t loads of mole farms. I suppose roadkill moles would be ethically sound, but most roadkill round here are hedghehogs. Not so good for blisters.

Compeed seems to be a very hi-tech sort of second skin, with very complicated instructions about peeling back various layers of protective packaging flaps and things (more than an inkjet cartdridge). You also heat it up for a minute before and after applying. You’d think that after all that palaver it would stay on if you have a bath, but no. Still, I suppose real trekkers don’t have baths so that’s alright then. The good thing about moleskin is that you can take it off before a bath or shower, and it still has plenty of sticky to reuse it.