Riverside Park – I Walk Alone

Where is my bench?

Friday 13 January may not have been the most auspicious of dates for my inaugural 2023 walk, but it was the first non-stormy day that I felt well enough to risk venturing further than the local shops. It was still cold and windy, so I planned a route that gave me plenty of chances to cut things short if the weather turned nasty or my post-Covid tiredness got the better of me. I began with a slow stroll along the cut way beside the old St Mary’s College playing fields. I wanted to see if building work had started on the site since the College closed.

Checking on the mill

With parkrun back and most restrictions lifted, it really felt as if things were getting back to normal, so, on 11 August, I decided to risk a walk along the river. I had two aims in mind, the first of which was to check on the repairs to Woodmill. Back in May, some silly joyriders had somehow managed to crash into the side of the mill demolishing part of the wall. It had looked pretty grim when I went to inspect the damage, but since then, repairs had been made and I was interested to see how they’d gone.

Seven swans and tree fellers

On 4 June 2020, I was feeling a touch emotional. The walk I’d planned on Monday with Kim had been cancelled because she had a terrible headache. Now I knew it was a lot more than a headache, she’d tested positive for COVID19 and was extremely unwell. Suddenly the virus felt far too close to home. Kim was one of the NHS heroes we’d all been clapping on Thursday evenings and she’d caught the virus from the asymptomatic parent of one of the children in her care. Kim is much younger than me. She’s fit and healthy, she’s a runner and she was at home in bed not in hospital but I was horribly worried about her.

Lockdown blues

When the first UK lockdown was announced, on 23 March 2020, the one saving grace was being allowed to walk every day. The long walks I’d been used to were out of the question but I was sure I could live with that. After all, there were some lovely places to walk right on my doorstep. So, two days after the lockdown announcement, feeling quite optimistic, I set out to walk one of my favourite routes, along the River Itchen at Riverside Park.

The last training walk

27 September 2019

With just over a week to go to the big day there was time to fit in one more, fairly short training walk before the Clarendon Marathon. At this late stage we didn’t want to tax our legs too much or risk any last minute injuries so we decided on a gentle, and most importantly, fairly flat, eight mile route to Lakeside and back.

Twenty Miles

12 September 2019

When I set out this morning to meet Kim it was perfect walking weather, dry, cool and slightly overcast. This was good news because we had a very long walk ahead of us. Marathon training plans suggest a longest run or walk of between twenty and twenty two miles, followed by a tapering period of around three weeks. As we have just over three weeks left before the big day, today woul be our last really long walk. The plan was to cover twenty miles.

Eighteen miles

29 August 2019

This morning I set off bright and early to meet Kim. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the walk along the river to our meeting point at Woodmill was lovely. The morning air was cool and I was singing a little song in my head as I walked. Heat might become an issue later in the day but I was fairly confident this was going to be a beautiful, if rather long, walk.

A few extra hills for good measure

22 August 2019

After our sodden sixteenish miles last week and our equally wet weekend hill adventure, this week was all about shorter walks and hills. On Monday morning it was nice to see clear blue skies when I set out to meet Kim at Woodmill. The downside to the blue sky was the heat, even before eight in the morning, but I guess you can’t have everything and we were only planning to walk eight miles anyway.

All about hills

6 August 2019

One of the worrying things about the Clarendon Marathon, apart from having to walk twenty six point two miles in under eight hours, is the last five miles. By all accounts they are very hilly, including a trek up Farley Mount (the Mount part is a particular worry). With this in mind I thought our short walks should be hilly ones. On Sunday morning I scouted out part of today’s eight mile route and I was fairly sure Kim wouldn’t thank me for it, at least not today. Maybe on Marathon day though, she would.

Ten miles, cygnets and coffee

7 July 2019

The route for our ten mile Clarendon Marathon training walk was an obvious one, at least to me. The midpoint between my house and Kim’s is Woodmill so we arranged to meet there at eight o’clock this morning. Eight might seem a little early on a Sunday morning for most people but, given the heatwave we’ve been experiencing, starting early, before it got too hot, seemed the sensible thing to do. Besides, Rob and Commando had gone out at silly o’clock for a run so we were both awake anyway.

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