The long walk home

I'm not sure why, but last Tuesday night I told Flyfour that I wanted him to give me a lift to the city (it's the colloquial phrase for the Milton Keynes Shopping Centre) the next morning, as I was planning to walk home from there. Flyfour looked a bit worried, he had once walked from our house (with BB in a buggy) to the shopping centre and I had given them a lift home and it wasn't a walk that he was sure overweight and unfit me could make... although he didn't come out and say that to be fair, (and he claims now it was just because the walk is a long and boring one), he just said it was a long way and was I sure that I wanted to do that.

I was determined though, I had it in my head that walking home from the City was a good idea. It was something that I had to do, and something which I was sure was going to allow me to push forward in my new lifestyle of being healthier and fitter. So Flyfour helped me work out the route I would walk and agreed to drop me off the following morning.

The following morning, after a quick walk (two hours is quick right?) around the City Centre, going in all the shops I wanted to, I set Endomondo going and set off walking home. A quick check of my phone about thirty minutes into the walk and Endomondo was paused, so not only did I not know how far I had walked, or have a rough calories burned estimation but I didn't have my route mapped and Flyfour who was following along on the PC at work wasn't sure if I was walking home or had taken up residency in the shopping centre.

Another thirty minutes later and Endomondo had paused again. This time I sent a tweet out, it felt like what I had accomplished (walking for an hour and covering about two and half miles) was being wiped out of existence. It was as if even Endomondo was suggesting I was too unfit to be bothered with, although I know that this isn't what was really going on.

A few minutes later and Flyfour noticed that the Endomondo tracker had me stopped at the side of a road for ten minutes and was worried, so he sent a text to me. I had actually walked quite a bit further than the Endomondo app had me and it was good to hear from Flyfour as I wasn't sure where I should be going and after a laugh about Endomondo losing me again, Flyfour gave me directions on where to go and I restarted the Endomondo app, hoping that a reboot would fix the tracking issue. I didn't know until I was home and looking later that evening with Flyfour, but it had worked. I think the problem is Endomondo didn't like I was also running Tunein radio, so the next time I'll come up with something that will keep both apps happy.

I knew that I was roughly half way home and despite my hip starting to hurt (why I went to the Doctors) and what I suspected was a blister forming (I was right and bloody painful it is too) I pushed on. The last hour of the walk seemed to pass quite quickly, I think in part because I "knew" where I was, this in the area I've lived in for the last twelve years, and also because I was starting to get eager to get home and have some lunch. Which I did as soon as I hobbled through the front door.

All in all the walk was fairly easy. Yes, it is a long walk and I wasn't quite sure where I was going at some points but it was actually quite fun and I'm going to do it again next week. I hope that once a week, a nice long walk will not only help me increase my fitness, and my stamina but will help tone my thighs and butt. I'll have a goal to work towards, to increase my speed of walking (I currently walk around 2.9mph, but would like to get it up to at least 4mph) and will be able to compete against myself. And maybe best of all, I'll be out in the fresh air and hopefully getting a little sun, or knowing the UK a little rain.

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