I immediately feel as though this past month is going to be one in which I’ve ‘under-achieved’, when it comes to my overall mileage…
That’s in spite of recent attempts to ‘boost’ my tally over the weekend now behind us and, of course, the time I spent down in Cornwall.
June, I think it’s fair to say, was an unexpectedly wet month. For July though, I don’t feel I could use the same excuse and, although I’ve done at least one walk each weekend, I think the main loss has been in the reduced frequency of evenings walks.
I can partially attribute that to the fact that I’ve started playing football again – for one evening each week, I’m involved in an hour-long six-a-side match locally… Before this, I hadn’t kicked a ball properly since 2010, if not earlier! After that first match, my legs needed almost four-days to recover and that was in the run up to my Cornwall trip! After my second game, I was sore but not nearly as stiff as on the first occasion.
I’ve had thoughts about getting in to running or some variant of trail-running, to keep my fitness up – first, I’ll see how things go with the football!
Let’s look at another month of mileage:
03/07/2016 – 15 miles – West Harptree
09/07/2016 – 8.75 miles – Wellow
16/07/2016 – 2.5 miles – Lanhydrock (National Trust)
17/07/2016 – 15 miles – Cornwall Coastal Walk (SWCP)
18/07/2016 – 3.5 miles – St. Michael’s Mount and Marazion (National Trust)
18/07/2016 – 3.5 miles – Goonhilly Downs
19/07/2016 – 2.5 miles – Cotehele House and Mill (National Trust)
23/07/2016 – 9.5 miles – Goblin Combe and the River Yeo
24/07/2016 – 8 miles – Cheddar Gorge
31/07/2016 – 16.5 miles – Malvern Hills
Plus 10.5 miles of local and evenings walks.
Total for July 2016: 95.25 miles
Well… Although I’ve not quite cracked the ‘hundred-mile month’ target, I am staggered to sit here and realize how very close I was! About ten-days ago, I tallied up my progress and I was struggling close to fifty-miles… Even with yesterday’s trip to the Malverns, I hadn’t expected to finish any higher than eighty. I’m very pleased!
Better yet, this now pushes me over the five-hundred mile mark! I’m halfway there and very close to achieving my ‘minimum’ goal of six-hundred miles in the year. I don’t know if I’ll get close to the thousand but I’m confident now that I can reach eight-hundred. August and September should be good months for walking weather.
