Walking - The simplest exercise

Walking, the simplest exercise and very beneficial.

This is my story of how Tia and I took part in The Isle of Wight Challenge 2017

January 2017, somewhere in a hotel in the midlands Tia turned to me one morning and said that she wanted to do a challenge this year. About 15 minutes later we were both signed up to do the Isle of Wight Ultra challenge, a 106km (66 ¼ mile) hike around the whole island. You get the options of doing the full island in one go or with an overnight stop, doing a half or quarter isle distance as well. You can run, jog or walk and living on the south coast it was not going to be too far for us to travel. Plus, it’s only walking right. How hard can that be? I’m a Personal Trainer, I look after myself and am in good shape, this will be a doddle.

Tia (thank goodness) was not as blasé as I was and said that we should complete the advised training schedule offered by the organisers. To offer my support I agreed to this and then there was the fact that we would have to raise £300 for a charity of our choice as well. We chose the Make a Wish Foundation but raising the funds was going to be a challenge alone. Even so, I was looking forward to this. I like a challenge, I’m competitive in nature and always want to do my best.

Our first training walk was 3 miles in distance. So, we got up early (around 5am), put on our warm clothes, packed our ruck sacks full of water, snacks, plasters and a first aid kit, we had our head torches on, walking boots, the whole shebang. Then we stepped out of our front door and the journey had begun. 45 minutes later we had walked from our house in Throop to Winton high street and back home. We needed none of the stuff we had packed, if anything it made the walk so much harder, all those layers and that extra weight. I was sweating, out of breath and slowly realising that if I had turned up to the challenge like this I would still have 63 miles to go! These training walks were not only needed, they were the best learning tool.

Over the months the walks got longer, 5 miles, 6 miles, 8 miles, 10 miles and our accompaniments got fewer. Walking trainers rather than boots, shorts rather than trousers, light weight jacket, high calorie snacks, camel pack, less thick layers of clothing. The walks were getting easier, I was looking forward to them each day, getting your daily steps in before breakfast, feeling energised to start the rest of the day, listening to my body and seeing the changes that walking was making and how positive my mindset was. All this walking was doing me wonders.

We had been lucky with the first 1 and a half months of training. The weather had been dry, mostly sunny and not too windy, no injuries, we had explored a lot of the Jurassic coast around Corfe and Lulworth and it had been genuinely lovely spending my time with Tia. Walking was never a chore with her, I loved it. The time had come for our first night walk. This was the one thing we had not attempted and seeing how on the actual challenge we would be walking all through the night we thought we should give it a go. We had been at my parents in Mudeford for an early dinner and decided to walk from their house towards Milford on Sea and then back. We were aiming to hit 13 miles. I have to say this was the only training walk I didn’t enjoy. In fact, I hated it. It was cold, dark, wet, we were walking on pavements surrounded by concrete, no scenery, no people, no light in places, the batteries in our torches died, our phone torches were not very good and to top it all off when we got back to my parents place at nearly 1am we were about 2 miles short.  

Our go to walk on a day off was the ridge way walk between Corfe and Swanage. You start at Corfe Castle and walk along the ridge way towards Old Harry Rock and then along the coast to Swanage. It’s about 9 miles, and after a lovely pub lunch in Swanage we would get the steam train back to Corfe. If you have never done this I cannot recommend it enough. The views are spectacular, the food if you go to the right places is great and the steam train is a real experience, especially on the viewing deck. Due to this our second attempted night walk we thought we would do half of this route and then turn around. We may be managed a mile. It was a very cold night, the ground was soaking wet, the grass was long, even with batteries in our torches the route looked completely different to how it looked in the day. Landmarks were not visible, there was nobody else around, the ground was uneven and Tia who suffers with Raynaud’s (a circulatory condition that leads to your extremities feeling cold and painful in low temperatures or if stressed or anxious) and also was feeling a little under the weather. I made the decision to abandon as it was not safe, in fact it was a stupid idea to even try it at night.

We gave up on the night walks and did some early morning walks, 3am or 4am starts locally and in the New Forest, these were great. We would start off all wrapped up, freezing cold, see the sun rise, walk through the morning, stop for food when needed and eventually get back to our car in shorts and t shirts have really enjoyed the walk, feeling very happy with our achievement …… and very hungry. These walks were tough though. Regularly walking 10+miles at a pace of 3-4miles an hour on rough terrain may not sound like much, but having done it, it was wise to build up to. We were fast approaching our longest training walk, the 25 mile walk.

For this one we planned the route carefully and decided to go along the Avon Valley Path. This is a 34-mile route that starts at the Priory in Christchurch Dorset and goes all the way to Salisbury Wiltshire. Researching the walk, we worked out where the 12 ½ mile make was (our turning point) and off we went. If you have ever seen random signs on lap posts, by gates or on walls and wondered like me what they are, well, they are signs for trails and walks usually. Not since we started geocaching have I felt like I’m part of a secret society, walking from point to point, being reassured you are going the right way by these signs. I loved this walk, it was very scenic, the weather was warm with a nice breeze, we walked along the river Avon, through fields of Rapeseed, woodlands, open fields, small, picturesque villages and towns it was great. That was until blistergate.

Blistergate is not a place, it is what happened to Tias feet. Her shoes had been rubbing, and her feet were shredded. We had to stop after about 15 miles, and I felt so sorry for her. 5 miles later and the pace was slow. We still had 10 miles to go to get to the car. She tried all the tricks she could to help the situation, glide, plasters, padding, the problem was the damage had been done. I wanted to carry her, but; one - she wouldn’t have it and two – 10 miles is a long old way to carry someone, especially when you have just walked 15 miles over the last 6 hours (including stops of course).

This was the walk that made me realise we were going to complete the Isle of Wight challenge. Tia was in so much pain, and yet she walked the last 10 miles with her feet in pieces, her guts and determination (and a little support from myself I might add) got her back to the car. Hungry, exhausted and with only 2 working feet between the pair of us we went to the Chinese take away, ordered a load of food we didn’t really want and picked up a bottle of brandy on the way home too. We really were not thinking straight after that walk.

The weeks ahead Tia didn’t miss a walk, but her feet were not healing very well due to not resting. I was feeling guilty as my feet were ….. absolutely fine. I hadn’t had a single issue throughout training other than hunger (I’m always hungry) and sunburn. No blisters, no rubs, no muscle pulls or twisted ankles, I felt great. D-day was fast approaching. We had put in the miles, decided on what gear we would take and what food would be required (the organisers include food and drinks in the price, but I was wanting to make sure I wasn’t hangry on the walk, as I am not very nice to be around when I'm tired and hungry at the same time) and we had only missed 2 training walks throughout the months leading up. We were ready, my only doubt was if Tias feet would last the distance.

There is one aspect throughout the training months that I have not really mentioned, the fundraising. £300 each was the set amount we had to raise or make up with our own cash for the challenge. We had chosen the “Make a Wish Foundation” a charity that helps terminally ill children have an experience that means the world to them, meet their heroes, go somewhere special to them, spending quality time with their families, whatever it may be, if possible, they make that kids wish come true. We set up our ‘Just Giving Pages’, told our friends, families, colleges, clients etc and the fundraising had begun.

We both managed to hit our £300 targets quite quickly due to the generosity of our close family and friends which was great, but being two competitive people we had decided to do our best to raise more money for the charity and see who could raise the most. One of my clients said to me to reset my target to a much higher amount because psychologically this would encourage people to support our cause more. So, I reset my target to £1000, as did Tia.

I was stuck around the £500 mark for a long time and needed some new ideas. Tia was updating her social media all the time with our training walks, progress, the cause we were representing, and this was really helper her, she was pulling away. I have very little interest in social media and sucked with technology so that was not an option, so I did a “Bake a Wish” cake sale at my gym with a lot of help from my client Amanda, one of the most selfless people I have ever met. She made me loads of bunting and downloaded posters and spread the world. With permission from the gym manager the gym was decorated, I had made a load of healthy snacks, other people had contributed some less healthy snacks, and I had a day to raise some more money.

It was on the most part a fun day. I was blown away by the generosity of the gym members. 50p to £1 I was charging for a treat, talking to people about what the ‘Make a Wish foundation’ did and how the money would be helping sick children. I even had a few members ask me where I had purchased the cocoa and coconut energy balls and they genuinely did not believe me when I said it was my own recipe, and I had made them myself. That’s a compliment and a half I guess. It almost all went and thanks to the generosity of the gym and its members I managed to raise just under £150 that day. So, if any of you wonderful people are reading this story, thank you for your kindness and support.

It was the day before the walk, we had got all our gear together, clothes, bags, shoes, first aid kits, walking polls, sun cream, plasters, glide, sunglasses, normal glasses and snacks. It may sound a lot but It all packed into 2 small ruck sacks and between the 2 of us it really wasn’t too bad. My dad picked us up and drove us to Southampton where we got on the ferry and were taken across the most expensive bit of water to travel across in the world (I’m not making that up, it genuinely is). Tia had found an Air B’n’B for us to stay the night in, and I have to say the couple who ran it were so nice, as was our stay. We arrived, dropped our gear off, had a cup of tea and some chill time, checked where we were at with our fundraising targets (I was on just over £700 and Tia was on just over £800) then we went out for dinner, that was an eye opener for sure.

We found a restaurant nearby to our accommodation and were thinking tactically. No alcohol (we are not big drinkers anyway, but we certainly didn’t want to be dehydrated or hung over before the walk) and a lot of calories. We sat down full of excitement and a few nerves as we discussed the day ahead of us, this was going to be the furthest I had ever walked in one go and for at least 24 hours nonstop. Tia caught my attention in a discrete manner and pointed out that most people in the restaurant with us were also doing the challenge the next day. As we observed I was horrified to see the stacks of empty beer and wine glasses in front of them, the boasting of having done no training or having done a couple of training walks. There was a realisation there and then that this would probably have been me if Tia hadn’t have seen the challenge for what it was and insisted on us completing the training walks. The other realisation was that very few, if any of these people were going to complete the challenge successfully.

That night sleep was in short supply, not through nerves but we had to be up very early as the coach was taking us from the north of the island to the starting point on the south of the island at about 5:30am, and our amazing hosts had insisted on making us a full breakfast before we left. These were my kind of people. Breakfast was delicious, a full English with turkey eggs, never had those before, just like chicken eggs only BIGGER. Tia had avocado and sausage on toast. Breakfast was a big success, and we got ourselves ready, said goodbye to our great hosts and off we went.

We walked down the road and got to the pickup point. There were a lot of very different people. Some looked like they were about to go trekking through the jungle on a month long expedition (a bit like Tia and I on our first ever 3 mile training walk), then there were people like us who had fairly full bags with what we considered through our experiences over the last 3 months to be the bare essentials and nothing else. Then there were 2 lads who had pretty much nothing other than the smallest bag that looked empty. It may have been the time of day and lack of sleep, but it took me a while to realise, these chaps were going to be running the challenge. What nutcases I thought, running 106km in one go, that’s nearly 2 ½ marathons back-to-back. At the same time, I had the upmost respect and admiration for them, that takes even more dedication, training and guts. Fair play to them and good luck too.

Tias foster mum Jack and older sister Sam met us at the start line. We had about an hour to kill after we registered, collected the tracker that we had to keep on our person at all times, our numbers, maps, emergency contact numbers, bandanas etc. there was snacks and drinks to be had too (despite the big breakfast I made the most of these facilities). Our start time was 9:20am and it was fast approaching. It was a little overcast and there was a chill in the air, but even so having completed all those training walks we both knew it would heat up fast and that we would get too hot if we wrapped up too much at the start. 9am and all 9:20am starters were called over to the start line for our warmup and motivational pep talk.

We set off about 9;20am on the Saturday morning, it was chilly but dry. We walked at a good pace and as the day went on it got warmer and warmer. We were overtaking people all the time; we had a good pace and the months of training walks we had completed were paying off. We hit the check points, refuelled, then continued. This was so enjoyable, great weather, free food and drinks, exercise, fresh air, I was loving every minute.

Shortly after the second check point a lady we had just overtaken twisted her ankle on some uneven ground, Tia stopped me and said she didn’t look good, so we turned back and offered help. She was in a lot of pain and was going into shock. We calmed her down and I applied first aid to her, and we waited with her until the organised first aiders arrived. As soon as they did, we were off again, and we had time to make up.

The walk in the day was amazing. It was warm, the Island is beautiful, we were going at a good pace (just under 5 miles an hour) and it was lovely spending some quality time with Tia. The stops were quick for us, snacks, fluids, toilet breaks and then off again. There was plenty of fruit, sweets, chocolate and all those simple sugars that most of the time we should avoid. Making sure we were hydrated and had plenty of snacks and water going forward was also important. The day was passing by, we were still going at a good pace and were nearly at the halfway point.

It is funny looking back at this challenge, I remember certain people who I have never spoken to and will never probably see again. These are the participants who we had an unofficial rivalry with during the challenge. Two groups of people come to mind. There was a couple who were walking at a very similar pace to us, we would overtake them, then they would overtake us, this game of cat and mouse went on for hours literally. Each time we got to a check point, if they came in behind us, they would look for us and then make sure they left before us. We would then be hot on their tales and the dance continued. Needless to say, as we approached the halfway point, we were ahead of them, and it turned out they were only doing the half island.

There was a group of young lads (I’d guess early 20s) and we unfortunately upset them. We were walking along a road just over a quarter of the way into the walk and Tias sister and foster mum had popped over to support us. They had pulled into a layby, and we stopped to drop off any items we were carrying that we realised we didn’t need and of course have a quick chat. Once we were back in the game so to speak, we did a little jog to get back to where we had been, this meant overtaking this group of lads, and they didn’t take too kindly to us running past them. So, they made a point of running past us and continuing to go at a pace which was not only too fast for them in my opinion, but with the footwear they were wearing (I’d call it fashionable footwear) I felt this was going to end in tears. Still, they shot off ahead of us and were out of site.

The halfway point was a real eye opener for me. We had walked about 33 miles, it was around 10pm, the sun had set, and the temperature had dropped dramatically. Tia was struggling with her feet and this sudden drop in temperature, and as we entered the halfway point it was packed. There must have been hundreds of people doing the half Island challenge, so of course a lot of there family and friends had turned up to greet them. This meant there were loads of people who were not doing the challenge but were taking up chairs and tables. I needed to get Tia a chair and get my own feet looked at as they were starting to hurt a bit. No one was willing to give up a chair. Everyone I asked would just say (sorry but they are taken) After 3 or 4 of these conversations I was getting annoyed. The next table I went to that had about 10 chairs round it and only two people sat at it I didn’t even ask, I just picked up a chair and started to walk away with it, and when they said sorry but that seat is taken, I simply to them that I didn’t care as they clearly were not doing the challenge and my partner (now wife I might add) was and needed it more.

Once Tia was sat down and was warming up, I went to the medical bay to get my feet looked at. There suggestion was to wear bigger shoes as my feet had swelled. 10:30pm at night, in a tent in the middle of nowhere and that is the advice you are given. Helpful. The problem is, when doing a walking or running challenge, you have 2 options. Wear shoes half a size too big so when your feet swell, they are ok, this however will give you blisters. Or wear shoes that fit and then are too tight when your feet swell, this usually results in a lost toenail or two. Tia had done the first, and I had done the latter. So, I loosened my shoes and went back to Tia.

Tia was doing much better now, we had eaten a hot meal, Tia was not sure what I would want so got me a bit of everything which consisted of bolognaise, sweet and sour chick and curry. I might say this was not a nice combination, but I needed the calories. Then came the bit of the walk that I struggled with the most, the night walk.

It was cold, dark and I was tired. If Tia had not been there, I may well have given into sleep. I don’t d well when I’m hungry or tired, but if you put the two together then I am a nonfunctioning horrible person. Somehow Tia got me through the night. The tiredness hits you in waves. You are ok, plodding along, enjoying the night walking, then suddenly it hits you. Your eyes want to shut, your legs feel like lead, you can hear the words being spoken to you, but you cannot process them or even string a sentence together. It is like you are sleepwalking, your body is telling you to stop, your mind is not making any sense, but that grit and determination (and Tia) are willing you on. You keep going. A lot happened in the night, lucky for us it didn’t rain, we didn’t get lost, and we didn’t stop! We were seeing at each check point so many people dropping out, they just couldn’t continue. This did I might add include the group of lads who raced off ahead of us earlier in the day unsurprisingly. Still, we continued.

We were approaching the three-quarter check point, and we were told by some of the volunteers that it was only about 2km further. This was a lie. It was more like 10km, we walked and walked and walked and the tent was no where to be seen. Just when we were starting to think we may be lost there it was, on the top of the cliff looking out to see on the western part of the island. We had just about timed it right as we wanted to watch the sun rise together. We went inside, it was that awkward time where the dinner food was being run and the breakfast food was not quite ready, so there were limited options. We decided to have porridge, some hula hoops and plenty of tea. I popped outside to fill up our water and to my slight disappointment the sun had just risen. I grabbed Tia and we started walking the final stretch together with the sun rising.

The walk took us down to the beach and then came the reality of what we were doing. We were walking at a good pace still, slightly slower but still over 3 miles an hour, and we came across a lad on his own looking a little worse for wear. He asked to join us as in his words we were “going at a good pace”, but he could keep up, and we did say to him he was welcome to join us, but we were not slowing down, we had that 24-hour target to hit. Needless to say, he couldn’t keep up and after only a few minutes he was back on his own. The coach in me would have loved to stay with him and help him complete the challenge, as there is no way he would have done it on his own from that point, but I was not working, I was there to complete my own challenge.

The terrain was brutal for the final part of the walk. Up and up it went, and just when you think you are at the top of said hill, you go round a corner and bam, another climb awaits. This is where I had to help Tia. She had got me through the night, I had to get her up these climbs and to the finish line. Somewhere along the way she had lost her hat, and it was cold and starting to rain. We put on our waterproofs, and I gave Tia my woolly hat and we continued. We got to the final check point before the finish line, and it was heart breaking to see how many people were tapping out at this stage. They had come so far but just couldn’t go on. Tia and I were not going to be beaten, we are both too competitive and had put so much time and effort into this whole process to stop now. So, on we went.

We hit the 100km mark and had mixed emotions, 100km nonstop was quite an achievement, but we still had 6km to go and our pace going up hill was obviously a lot slower, I estimated we had about another hour to an hour and a half to go. This was tough. We didn’t talk much at this point, we just walked, and walked, and walked (and cursed the people who planned the route, I mean seriously, however planned to put the hilliest part of the walk at the end is pure evil!). But before we knew it, the finish line was in sight.

The walk took us 25 and a half hours, I read somewhere that if you complete it in under 36 hours you have done well, but I wanted to do it in under 24 hours. We had stopped at different points for longer than had been planned, most notably when the lady had hurt her ankle, that was a good half an hour, and at the half way point where we were there for over an hour too. Taking these into consideration we did well, and the fact we walked for 25 and a half hours pretty much nonstop is something I am incredibly proud of.

I know this has been a long read, so firstly thank you for getting this far. But there is a point to this.

• Firstly, I feel it’s important that we challenge ourselves, push ourselves to achieve and be the best we can be. By doing this we can achieve so much more than we may originally believe we are capable of.

• Secondly, don’t cut corners, preparation, thorough planning and execution is vital with any task, especially a physical one. No matter how easy something may sound, underestimate it at your peril. Walking sounds easy, but trust me, walking for that distance is an easy activity made into the ultimate challenge

• Thirdly, surround yourself with people you trust and who will support you and build you up rather than hold you back. I’m not sure if Tia and I would have completed this challenge had we not been there to support each other when we needed help.

• Finally, stand up for yourself and what you believe in.

The fact I wanted to complete the challenge in 24 hours, and we did it in 25 still annoys me to this day, but we were some of the fastest walkers who took part, and that’s something I am greatly proud of. On top of this, between us by the end of the walk we had raised almost £3500 between us.