Rumination: The Conclusions of 2013

Here we are at the darkest corner of the season, the pit of the year, only redeemed by the fact that it has Christmas located within it, and as we are about as far as possible from the active walking weather, this must be as good a time as any to have a reflect on the triumphs and failures of the 2013 season. I have to find something good to say at this grim portion of the fading Autumn as my only stretch of exercise, my annual festive stroll to Birstall retail park had me appalled that it starts getting dark at 2pm, so a positive rumination on the season passed is necessary before I can start stoking the enthusiasm for hitting the trails next year. So what have we learned in 2013?

Self at Cam High Road,
the Dales Way Summit

First up, My success rate on my walking targets for 2013 was only 57%, or 3 and a half targets out of 7 were achieved, when I had thought that I had done better than that. The complete Dales Way and the individual trips to the Yorkshire Three Peaks went off the list without real trouble, despite the winter intervening hard on my trips to Ingleborough and Wharfedale, and getting in the many tours between Calder, Aire and Wharfe wasn't the most complex of challenges, so that's three solid successes. Two aims were half achieved, after a fashion, The first half-success was completing the Bradford Millennium Way, which had not been my stated West Yorkshire circular tour plan, which was the Wakefield Way, but I had always intended to substitute that one for its shorter neighbour when I acquired a route guide, so a failure to the letter of my plans, but a success to the spirit of it. The second half-success was getting Elder Niece up her first big hill under her own power, but I failed to get younger niece out at all, and didn't get anywhere near Pendle Hill, either on my own or with My Sister's family, so that success isn't whole either. The Witton Weavers Way didn't happen because I failed utterly to organise any trips over to the West Pennines, and completely failed to get together with My Sis at any point between May and November, so a major social fail there. And finally,  note the complete absence of social walks in my schedule, failing to organise anything at all with Mr IH or Mr MW, as I had gotten so wrapped up in my Dales way and High Moors schemes that I completely forgot to include the social element, and for that display of ignorance I owe everyone an apology, because that sucks, frankly. (Of course, the targets were of different sizes and the wanderings on the High Moors accounted for a third of my total walks, and exploits along the Dales Way and the assaults on the Three Peaks accounted for another third, so that put my failure into some sort of relief).

Self on Great Manshead Hill

Secondly, the work/life balance is much harder to achieve then I had thought. I do not have a home life as such, still enjoying the single life at 39, but finding the reserves of stamina and enthusiasm for the weekends proved to be much harder this year than it dis in my first season. I'm going to blame work for that, as performing the role of runner for the Central Locate Team in the hospital used up so much of my energy, with being on my feet around the site for six hours of every day, leaving me with little in the tank when the weekend comes around. I had thought I was immune to that, having thrown myself into my first walking season without any real physical preparation, but the second year proved much harder, with a couple of occasions of me feeling like I had nothing left in reserve and that I couldn't really go on with the regular schedule. Of course, I failed to factor in time out again, as each good weekend surely couldn't have me sat at home, and I'd compiled so many routes for the days on the High Moors that I really had to keep hammering out the miles even when I didn't feel the enthusiasm for it. This proved especially tough through the last two months, as I was on full-time duty with CLT and really feeling it hard and getting wobbly knees on every day of walking, and I'm pretty sure that doing the Bradford Millennium Way in a single week was not a very good idea in retrospect, as that proved to be a much more challenging exploit that I had anticipated. Still, I'm back into regular duties in the Records Library now, and that doesn't promise to make me feel much less overworked, but the greater risk is of being bored and stressed rather than physically knackered, and if I'm not feeling enthusiasm now it's because we are in the depths of the Dark Season, and there's another month of it to endure before we see regular daylight again.

Pair of Boots #3 at the end of
the Bradford Millennium Way

Thirdly, I have endured (but my boots have had the worse of it). This does relate in part to point two, but the reality of it is that walking isn't getting me any healthier as I am not losing weight or gaining extra physical strength for me to take back to work. I'm well aware that walking is well within the body's range of tasks that can be done without extra effort, but this year has not had me feeling good like 2012 did, so I can only assume that I am a peak fitness and weight for my regular routine and the only way to do better is so start doing a strenuous exercise regime (and we all know that is not going to happen). The real drawback of the extra exercise and lack of energy is that I eat more, and we know that controlling ones diet is more important than exercise, but a day on the trail demands devouring of a whole pizza plus high-sugar drinks, and a tiring day of work demands chicken and rice and extra treats of biscuits and chocolate. As a result, there has been much less of a spring in my step, and my moods have not been nearly as bright as they were either, far too many days of feeling grey and having to psyche myself for the weekends, not that many days on the trail were spoiled for it, but a lot of days in between had me in places that I don't like being, psychologically speaking. Still, I didn't do myself any injuries and find myself still active despite all the stresses and strains, but my poor boots have had a season to forget. It's well known that I destroy footwear, being on my feet all day and rubbing through the heels of every pair of shoes that I have owned in the last decade, but I had hopes that Pair of Boots #3 might see me through to the end of my 1,000 mile odyssey but they came to the end of their life as the season ran out. A shame because the soles were still in good condition, but once the glue holding the soles to the uppers failed and they started to leak,they were on borrowed time, and a repair job only saw them through to the last day. I would have expected more from boots that claimed to be good for three seasons, but does that mean three years or three seasons literally? Who knows, they did manage to do 625.2 miles towards my total, and they will probably stick around as the emergency pair after another repair job, but I know the fourth pair of boots will have to have a bit more care taken of them.

2013's up-country walks
(not including Leicestershire)

Finally, and more positively, the miles continue to melt away, and my perspective on the country continues to change as I go. Taking on a walk across the country really does change your perspective on the scale of these lands, distances which seem huge when driven in a relatively short time seem to become much less when walked over a long period, and whilst it may take just over two hours to drive to Lakeland, it actually seems much closer when you have walked there over nine days. This change is wholly psychological and I really lack the words to express it, but experiencing the world at a wholly human pace allows you to make so much more sense of it, and I now understand why pilgrimage was such an important part of major religions (though it's not about the destination it, its about the journey!). On a less huge scale, it has allowed me to make a lot more sense of the geography of the West Riding, because travelling by rail or road gives you a small perspective on the world, giving you small areas of the land that you interact with and large area that you don't, and thus your world-view become limited. Take a trip over the moors that divide the valleys that have the population centres in them and the world suddenly looks very different, as you realise that there isn't a huge distance between the Calder and the Worth valley, or between the Aire and the Wharfe, and that the inter-relationships between them are that much stronger than you would have thought otherwise. Conversely, travel between Colne and Calder, or into the reaches of Upper Wharfedale and you find that there are areas around these parts which have a whole mess of bugger-all in them, and literal solitude can be obtained without venturing too far from home. And once again, the miles have just flowed through, 451.9 over 39 excursions, significantly less than the 47 trips made in 2012, but only 13.4 fewer miles totalled, leaving me a mere 87 miles short of the 1,000 mile total. It seems to me that 1,000 miles should be an adequate total for any walker with sufficient endurance and ambition to achieve in two years, but it'll do for me in three and I'm not going to rest when it is attained as I've still got a full year's worth of trekking to do in 2014, before I turn 40. The final analysis on my walking exploits is that if you add the miles walked in 2013 onto the line that I plotted in 2012 of all my combined miles so far, heading south across Europe, I would find myself now on the dockside in Marseilles, the equivalent of Half of Great Britain and all of France: Morley to the Mediterranean in only two seasons!


Next on the Slate: 2014!