The Walker With Heart

Every so often a walker or runner has to do the hardest thing... admit their most faithful friends have gone from new, through comfortable, through worn to just plain worn out... And so my Inov 8 285s are making their way to the great recycling bin in the sky, they were my first pair of inov 8s... designed foe fast moving over rough terrain, they managed in their 18 months on my feet to get: boggy in the Peak District; go up, over and around the Fairfield Horseshoe; completed my first run/walk marathon; countless short walks and long hikes; and, yesterday gave me my first blister in over 1000miles... Not a bad return on the investment, and I will be getting another pair... But not for a month or so... The walking has been hard but good! As well as the old standby of the Wirral Way and walking some of the running training trails, I did 13% of the Transpennine Trail http://www.transpenninetrail.org.uk/template.asp?ID=0& parentID =481 also known as Bootle to Warrington ... Just ...

The only conditions that really scare me are hot and dry... And next week's projections are for hot and dry just when I was meant to be walking a very long way... A long way along a path I don't know and I don't know where the water stop are. So I'm being sensible, I'm going to walk the miles, but do them locally... Tomorrow will be about 13miles along the canal path I've run so much of as marathon training, Tuesday will be along the Wirral Way and then the connecting paths to Chester, should be around 26 miles, Wednesday well I'll pick where, but it'll be a long one (c30miles) and Thursday something nice as a treat... Then the East Midlands Outlet Village beckons, and to run down the final miles.... TTFN Paul

It's been almost a year when I started my insane quest to run or walk 1000km... 355 days... 1500km, 1 marathon, 1 walking marathon, 2 half marathons, many a hill, many a mile plodding around the streets of Bootle , I walked with friends and on my own... So with 10 days left what is there to do? Firstly, walk a chunk of the 133 miles... I'll be setting out from Stafford on Tuesday morning and sometime on Wednesday will have walked 70 miles along the Heart of England Way. That's a lot of miles in not a lot of time, its training for a big event I want to try next year, which is a proper endurance event, So with the 15-20 miles I walk tomorrow, that'll take me to just over 100 miles, leaving about 25 miles to do at the last weekend of my challenge year... and what a weekend that will be - if you've ever wondered what a man running on a treadmill in an outlet village looks like then this is your chance! I'm going to be doing the last of my miles at the McArthur Gl...

Said the office wag when I opened the large, impressively postmarked letter... There's something about the postmark "Buckingham Palace" that sends a thrill and a chill down your spine. The black stamp of the "Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood" means its going to be good - the last one of them was the invite to my Investiture. What was in the buff envelope? The formal Warrant of Appointment to the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire - signed by the Queen and Prince Phillip themselves. The copperplate is beautiful, the wording archaic and wondrous - how many times do you get called "our trusty and well beloved Paul Willgoss ", by HRH herself? The envelope also had in the statutes of the order, when where and how to where the medals and information on the Chapel of the Order at St Paul's. So my night is sorted, I've had a reasonably hard climb, tea is in the oven, GUCH emails sent so now time to kick back and read the statu...

Its been a week... A full week at work, a very full week at work... However, my new person is beginning to settle in, I'm on top of most of the stuff that's going on and I'm also getting there on a couple of issues that need bottoming out. Throw in a meeting of the Civil Service Disability Network, a telephone conference with the GUCH Walking Club Executive and a CHF Trustees meeting its no wonder I spelt 12 hours last night... Today was a stack of stuff for the GWC - reminding people of our next walks, explaining what we're doing behind the scenes and stuff like that - a meeting of the European Congenital Heart Group - finalising the documents for the Berlin conference - and working with the GUCH International Group to help the Slovenian's by answering a questionnaire... So, not a lot of time to get out and exercise - I did manage to get climbing twice, and it seems the climbing wall has started booby trapping routes - one hold spun on its screw and another ...

Well the legs still don't want to run, walk and climb is fine, run makes them feel a bit leary ... Probably the two most contentious words in the congenital heart world (UK branch) are "safe and sustainable", a quick trawl of the support websites or facebook will show many a group being set up to save a hospital or a ward. I won't be joining any of them. Not because I don't care, but because I care too much. The origins of Safe and Sustainable go back to the Bristol Hospital Enquiry, and quite simply this is designed to ensure that the surgery that heart kids get is the the most appropriate, done by well trained and supported surgeons who are used to doing the operations and are in a surgical setting which are designed around the needs of the child going through the surgery and their family. Is that too much to ask? I don't think so. I want every heart kid to get the best surgery available to them, I want their parents to be given the best advice, support...

Ok , so what's going to the Palace like??? Absolutely fantastic... The slightly longer version... Travelling down with my gang the day before, drinking Champagne and eating select of cheese on the train started the couple of days as it was going to carry on, new and novel experiences... The planned trip to the zoo was curtailed by the weather so we wandered to the Imperial War Museum instead and pottered. Decent Italian and then back to the hotel for another bottle of Champers and an early night. Not much sleep, I was far too excited for that! A stroll along the embankment at 5:30 started clearing the head, followed by coffee and a rather unhealthy fry up in the hotel. Then it was getting the morning suit on, with a little help with the ruchet ... I'm not double jointed or have eyes in the back of my head!!! Hailing a cab for Buckingham Palace was the 1st magical parts of the day... Rolling up to the gates and seeing the Royal Standard flying was the 2 nd . That meant Her M...

So this is it, the final month... 30 days... What am I going to do? I could sit back and relax... But that's not really my style... ;-) So I'm going to have some fun, and hope that some of you will try and join me and possibly raise some cash for the Children's Heart Federation in the process. I'm going to ask you to become the 1 in 133. One in every 133 babies born in the UK has a congenital heart defect and for the last month I will do 133 miles. All I would like you to do is be the 1... Do a mile... Do it fast, do it slow, do it playing tiddlywinks, on a spacehopper but do it with a smile on your face.... If you can raise money for CHF then that's just great. If you can get in your local paper for becoming the 1 in 133 then that's as good. This is about showing that the 1 is as wonderful as the 133, is as much fun and worthy of as much love and attention. So while you're all doing a mile - I'll be doing 133. The bulk will done when I walk the He...