You know the saying “every journey begins with the first step.”

Mine just did.

Although I think a more accurate phrase might be “Even before the very first step, every journey starts with some procrastination, soul searching, excuses and maybe some planning”. Maybe it’s a bit wordy, but you get the point.

To say 2020 was a write-off is to grossly understate the disaster that last year has been to all of us, some have suffered far worse. As 2020 drew to a close I felt a growing hole in my self-worth – the year had slipped through my grasp and I hadn’t really accomplished anything. I mean apart from keeping my business afloat, my mortgage paid, my kids home-education on track, but as challenging as they are they’re my duty so I don’t really count them.

I needed a bigger, more tangible challenge, something to distract me from the world seemingly collapsing around us but also something that would make me a better person at the end of it. I wanted a challenge that would last for the whole year. Oh! I did learn Spanish and made it to the top of the Duolingo leader board during the first lockdown, but achieving that made my motivation to keep on learning evaporate overnight. Mi español no es tan bueno

I searched for “yearly challenge” – that was a bit too nebulous as I got results from “draw a picture every day for a year” to “loose 25% of your body fat by Christmas” (probably only to regain it again shortly afterwards!). These weren’t doing it for me. So I narrowed my search and typed in “uk walking challenge” and within the first three results – I saw it and knew it was what I wanted to do immediately…

Walk 1000 miles

I loved walking and have been an avid (but always novice) hiker in the past. Walking 1000 miles in a year seems just the “right amount” of challenge. It’s not an impossible number (just under 3 miles a day), but if you aren’t committed enough you simply won’t make it.

So that was mid-December, by the end of December I got my procrastinating done and out of the way and ended up just biting the bullet and signing up.

I had tried to get a couple of my close friends to do it, although we wouldn’t be able to physically walk together for a while, I thought a bit of fun competition would be a good motivator, but that wasn’t to be.

So here we are now at January 1st and I have just completed my first ..and second walk. I hadn’t planned a second one but after heading out this morning for a nice 4 mile walk, my wife decided we should go for a nice family walk for New Years Day. We headed to the Dundas aqueduct, just outside of Bath, and managed another 3 miles along the canal, it was a lovely walk. Cold but dry and there was a slight mist in the air which gave everything a storybook vibe.

So 7 miles on my first day – I already feel as if I achieved something and I’m even ahead of target. 993 miles to go.