Week 4 (+3 days)

Having had such a flying start to the month, there was never a possibility that I could carry on as a started. This was the week (and a bit) in which the incredible run of walks stumbled.

Before I get into the ‘Walks Wot I Went On’ bit, here’s the final comparison chart, showing that I convincingly beat all previous records for January:

Just 26 miles were walked in the final week and a half of the month, bringing the total for the month to 175.9.

That graph only counts the times when I went out for a walk. The Fitbit goes further than this and counts all of my steps, whether I’m out for a walk or just pootling around. It tells me that I actually walked 208 miles this month (which I know to be an understatement because I haven’t quite got around to changing my step length settings to something more accurate yet).

The more memorable bits about the last week-and-a-bit of the month:

- On the first day of the fourth week, I didn’t go for a walk! (Yep, the Fitbit graph above shows that I walked nearly 5 miles, but I achieved this without doing anything that qualifies to go on my walking log.) It was the first of only 2 days in January that I didn’t go out. On this occasion it was because I’d pulled a muscle in my leg (by cutting out a sewing pattern, of all things!) and after a few days of walking on it, without it getting any better, I decided a rest day was in order.

- On Friday Mick and I arrived home (Mick from work; me from a walk) at exactly the same time and Mick immediately questioned my sanity, as the weather was somewhat on the inclement side. I defended my sanity: I had gone out within ten minutes of getting home from work myself and my drive home had been entirely dry. By the time I stepped back out of the door, it was drizzling. By the time I reached the canal, it was raining. By the time I reached the ponds it was raining quite heavily. If I’d known it was going to be damp, I probably would have worn something a little more waterproof!

- On Saturday I took a path I’d never walked before and discovered an underpass under the dual-carriageway that I never knew existed (not that I’ll be taking it again – I’d rather pick my way across the roundabout at the junction above the road than go through a wee-smelling creepy underpass by myself). The view from the path I’d never walked before is one of the better ones in the immediate vicinity:

- Things then got rather busy. Another day passed without a walk being taken, and the other days saw various flavours of very short local strolls.

- Which brought us to the final day of the month (i.e. today) when the rain fell, the wind blew and the temperature barely got above freezing. I procrastinated and procrastinated some more until, at 2pm, I had to bite the bullet. Last Friday Mick had questioned my sanity and today I questioned it myself. In fact, I nearly turned around and came home within the first five minutes (the outward leg of my circuit was the leg that was into the (very wet) wind). I can’t claim that it was the happiest walk I’ve ever been on, but I stayed dry (and, 3 miles in, I even started to warm up) and managed to cover just over 6 miles. I would have taken a photo of the flooding down by the river, or maybe the white horses on the pond, except that there was no way that I was going to take a glove off and get an electronic gadget out in that weather.

So, onwards to February…