My first 100 miles

 I reached the 100 mile marker without realising. I knew it was imminent but I was so focused on just finishing my walk last night that I crossed the line with no fanfare and not even a second thought.

It wasn’t till I got home, logged my miles, got changed and sat down for some food when I noticed the notification.

It felt great, even though I was being very low-key about it to my family, I actually felt a bit of a rush. That was 10% of my challenge done in 3 weeks. Then of course my brain started to crunch the numbers and do some subconscious forecasting without a deliberate thought from me. At my current rate (big assumption) I figured I would reach the 1000 miles by July/August time. My immediate next thought was could I even stretch my target to 1500 miles… but I’m getting way ahead of myself!

Was the first 100 miles hard?

If I’m being honest, the first 100 miles was neither physically easier or harder than I was expecting. My legs were a bit tired and my heels felt like I’d walked a 100 miles on them, but generally I felt OK… maybe even good.

At no point during the last 21 days, had I not felt like going for a walk. Indeed I had actually got to a stage where I was actually looking forward to going for my daily walk. Some days I even walked multiple times.

A few easy tips to reach the first 100

One of my “tactics” (and I mean tactics in the loosest possible sense), was not to look at the overall total more than once or twice a week. You know the saying about “a watched kettle”, well it applies equally when you are counting down (or up) to something too! The more you look at it the slower it appears to pass. Instead I just set myself a minimum walk distance each day, and in the couple of instances that I didn’t make the daily target, I just added a bit extra on the next day. If I kept to my daily target – I knew roughly were I was. My personal daily target/minimum was four miles.

Another habit which, (at least initially) wasn’t a deliberate choice was to walk every day… no matter what. I’ve stuck to that, and even during the torrential rain that was Storm Christoph, I went out walking… and of course got soaked in the process. By walking every day, I’ve never had to make a decision about whether to walk or not… “shall I go out today?” just wasn’t a question I’ve asked myself. It’s surprised me how quickly this has become a habit. Walking everyday has helped me clock up the miles to 100 much faster than if I had been procrastinating about even to go for a walk.

What have been the biggest challenges?

I have been surprised that motivation hasn’t been a bigger factor, but on retrospect I guess it makes sense. When I first started it was a bit of a novelty, and by the time the novelty had started to wear off (if I’m honest it hasn’t quite yet) the walking had become a habit. There has only been one night I had to force myself to go for a walk and that was due to the rain.

There are two huge challenges at the moment; the weather and lockdown.

The weather is the biggest frustration, the endless rain (or snow) has meant we’ve had flooding making some of my planned walks impossible. When the flooding subsides it leaves a trail of muddy devastation – which is fun for kids to walk on, but absolutely exhausting when you are trying to go any distance. this has resulted in me doing more pavement pounding than I would have liked.

Lockdown is it’s own unique challenge. It hasn’t stopped me walking but it has (and continues to) stop me going further afield to walks. I’m desperate to get down to Dartmoor or Exmoor and get a ‘proper’ scenic walk in. However, lockdown has forced me to be creative with routes and made me explore places in my own locale that I’ve never been before… but it’s wearing thin. I feel sorry for the people following me on Instagram who are kind enough to like my endless photos of the same four footpaths from different angles!