Moonwalk Deja Vu – first published 9 November 2012

After my first Moonwalk was over I told anyone who would listen, “never again.” The training took all my spare time. I had horrible blisters, all sorts of aches and pains and some of those long walks in bad weather were the stuff of nightmares. Waking twenty six point two miles around London all through the night was gruelling to say the least, especially for someone who likes to be in bed by eleven. There was a terrific buzz crossing the finish line but it didn’t quite feel worth all that pain. When I said it I really meant it…

9 November 2012

Yesterday I did something incredibly stupid. I signed up for another London Moonwalk. I’m blaming Mr Bumble, who posted the sign up details, also Mel C and Ally who then went and signed up too. Of course they asked if I was going to join them. My first thought was, I just don’t have the time for all the training, especially with my working week being such a moveable feast.

That thought lasted all of about two minutes before I had to go and have a look at the Walk The Walk site. Once I was actually on there it was a small step to getting out my Visa card and putting my name down. So I’ve gone and done it, committed to hours of training and a twenty six point two mile walk round London in the middle of the night. Not good for someone who is useless after eleven. Mel C rightly pointed out that I only had myself to blame as I was the one who started the whole thing off by signing up for the first one then posting about it on WLR. As she put it, “you unleashed the monster in the first place.” Obviously she was talking about the Mr Bumble monster. In my defence, I had no idea quite what a can of worms I was opening at the time though.

Today the Moonwalk training has to begin. I know I’ve got until May 11th but it’s only actually twenty five weeks, believe me, that’s not very long when you’ve got to build up to a marathon. Last time I started with my five mile White Swan walk and added a mile every week until I was walking to Winchester and back. This time I think I’m already quite a bit fitter and better at long distance walking so I’m going to have to think of a different approach. I’ve been Googling different marathon walking plans but the distances seem a little short to me to be honest. Still, its a starting point so I’ll go with it for now. My main aim is to do it faster than I did before. I’m not talking about the event here really because, with so many people, speed on the night is a bit academic.

My longest training walk in 2011 was twenty seven point six miles (mainly because I got a bit lost) and I did that in seven hours forty seven minutes. I’ve signed up for the five to six hour category this time instead of the seven to eight hour one I did last time so there’s a lot of speed to be built. Last time the actual race took me eight and a half hours thanks to traffic, toilet stops and sheer numbers of people. I think I’ve learned a bit since then though, especially about the loos. Sorry people of London, but when I want to go I’m finding a bush this time like all the other shameless sensible people, no more half hour queues for me that’s for sure. At least starting in the fastest group there should be less people slowing me down.

As the weather forecast was for rain this afternoon I decided to do my first training walk this morning. I downloaded an app called WalkJogRun mainly because it gives me local routes for the different distances which I thought might be helpful. The training plan for week one suggests three, three mile walks during the week and one five mile ‘long walk.’ Well that should be a piece of cake. I figured I’d go down to The Shore again, that should be more than enough miles. I’ve watched Commando sticking religiously to his half marathon training plan and I can see it’s worked for him so I’m going to try a proper plan for myself and see how it works out. At least I have time to change my mind if I feel it’s not helping.

Luckily my trainers survived a spin in the washing machine after the boggy New Forest walk last weekend and they were dry, which is more than I can say for the weather. Weathermen take note, afternoon does not mean nine thirty when I’m less than half way through my walk. When I set off it was dull but dry. I was pretty sure I’d started the WalkJogRun app as I left the house but when I got to the top of the Little Hill I realised I hadn’t. Luckily, as back up, I started the Walkmeter at the same time so all was not lost. The plan was to try to keep to a good pace for the whole walk so I was pretty much marching along with some good fast music on my iPod and my Camelbak strapped round my waist. Not long after I passed the little common, after a brief stop to take a picture of a tree that made me think of an Ent (sorry but that’s how my mind works), my phone buzzed. When I looked it was the WalkJogRun app saying Lap 1 10.07km. It took me a moment to work out that was my speed for the point six two kilometres it said I’d walked since I switched it on. Unfortunately kilometres mean nothing to me so I didn’t really know if that was a good time or not but I thought it sounded kind of slow so I pushed myself to speed up.

The next beep I noticed was just as I reached the base of the New Bridge. This time my pace was 9.11km, better but I still had no real idea what it meant. I won’t bore you with all the updates but 9.11km was my best pace of the day and the rest were between that and 10.33km which was when I was coming up the steepest bit of Peartree Avenue I think.

The sky looked bleak and I was glad I had my waterproof trousers in my rucksack. By the time I reached The Shore it was spitting with rain and the sky and sea were the same colour as the naval ship docked across the water. The Red Funnel Ferry was coming in and I was pretty glad I wasn’t on it, I don’t imagine it would have been the nicest crossing.

Although I had my waterproof trousers in my bag I still had to find somewhere to stop and put them on so I pushed on through the drizzle until I reached the three mile mark and the last of the little beach shelters. I haven’t been inside one of them for years. They’ve decorated them with drawings of birds and shells which is nice, and there are some coloured lights around the ceiling inside that almost look like glow sticks. Unfortunately some kind person has managed to break half the windows though which is a shame. After I’d pulled on my waterproofs which I managed to do without taking my trainers off, I stopped for a few minutes, looking out across the playground to the grey sea and sky and Fawley in the distance. A sip or two from my water bottle and I was ready for part two, although I did take a couple of photos of the playground with its sunken galleon in the gravel. I’m not sure if it’s the same one that was there when my boys were little or not but there were no children playing today.

Walking back I noticed that they’ve made quite a bit of progress on the painting of the flats. Last time I didn’t realise that each is a slightly different shade of blue getting progressively lighter as you walk along the promenade. They’re going to look quite nice when they’re done. The rain was getting harder so I pressed on back towards the jetty as fast as I could. The Shore is not the best of places to be when the rain really starts. It blows up off the water with the sea breeze. I remember it well from a long walk I did a few years ago. I came home soaked to the skin that day.

As I was walking back past the white wave benches I noticed two men on the grass and wondered what they were up to. They each seemed to be unpacking something and when I looked closer it looked like they were paragliders, hang gliders or something like that. I’m not sure quite how they’re going to take off from there but I suppose it does get windy along The Shore. Maybe they had a boat somewhere to tow them. If I hadn’t been on a training walk or the weather had been nicer I might have stuck around to see. I wonder how they got on?*

The trees and the berries are really beautiful at this time of year. Everywhere I looked there were bright colours against the dark sky. I even saw some pretty white berries on a dogwood. The last part of my journey is uphill, not a steep slope just an unrelenting incline back up to the village. It probably wasn’t the best thing for my speed but, living where I do, there’s not much else for it, whichever way I go there are hills. The little church on Peartree Green looked wonderful peeking out between a mass of amber coloured leaves. I had to stop for a minute to take some photos. Then it was onwards and upwards trying to keep my pace as fast as I could despite the slope, the rain and, I have to admit, a little tiredness after pushing my pace for the whole walk.

On the final leg back down the hill I tried to take advantage of the down hill stretch. Unfortunately things didn’t go to plan as somehow something had found its way into my trainer and was stabbing at my foot. There was nowhere to stop so I had to keep going but it felt like a massive shard of broken glass. When I finally got in and took my trainer off I couldn’t find anything so I have no idea what it was, probably some minuscule splinter so small I couldn’t even see it. Anyway there was no damage done, except to my final speed, and my foot looks fine. My total for the walk was 6.06 miles which feels like a good start.

My next task is to book a hotel for the Moonwalk before everyone else does the same thing and we can’t get anywhere to stay. Wish me luck.

*some time later I found out the men by the wave benches were kite skateboarders. I never even relised there was such thing.