The Walker With Heart

I need your help... Honest, I do... For most of the last 18months I've been pounding the streets and hills of the UK, writing to magazines and papers to try and raise as much awareness as I can about congenital heart defects and the real impact they can have. I say real, because I don't tend to focus on one aspect, awareness should be about the diversity our community has. To focus on any one element gives an unbalanced portrayal , either too positive for some or too negative for others. But I have one story, mine... And I can only talk in abstract about the range of ways that congenital heart disease affects those born with it, their parents and families and loved ones. Taking our stories out and getting them into the public domain is never easy, and need a hook... something to sell them to newspapers and more magazines. So I'm prepared to do the hook, the coast-2-coast walk is 190miles from St Bee's Head to Robin Hood's Bay, walking through the Lake District, the...

Originally published in GUCH New Winter 2010 (if you don't get it sign up here: http://www.guch.guidecat.org.uk/lists/?p=subscribe) You’re going walking? Don’t all of your lot have heart conditions? So said the unsuspecting person in the office the other day when my antics for the weekend were discussed. This got me thinking that maybe people have the wrong idea about the GUCH Walking Club (GWC). It shouldn’t come as such as surprise to people who’ve sponsored me for marathons, seen me jog at lunchtimes and generally muck about in the great outdoors, that the GUCH Walking Club is not an elite group made up of super-fit athletes. We are just a group of like-minded individuals who enjoy coming together to share a bit of gentle exercise and to push our boundaries in small but achievable ways. Simply put, we have fun, a natter and enjoy an amble/ramble/stroll as the group sees fit. We see the most beautiful of places, either outdoors or indoors if the weather is bad, and work up health...

:-) Yeah, I'm 39! :-( Boo, I'm getting older! :-) Yeah, I've outlived all expectations! :-( Shit, how long can this go on for! :-) Yeah, I'm fitter than I've ever been! :-( So if I slow down is that age or the dicky -ticker? :-) Yeah, I've lots of good friends hitting significant birthdays (some on the same day as me) :-( Fuck it, I've lost lots of good friends who will never have another birthday (some of whose birthdays were the same day as me) :-) new tent! My birthday present to myself :-( means I need a new rucksack (look its my birthday and therefore my logic... ) :-) new rucksack... shiny (my eyesight too) :-( it'll have to be my Christmas present to myself :-) the next 3 weekends I'm walking; GUCH Walking Club, a BHF Challenge walk and leading a team from work on what will turn into a 124mile walk (in 10 stages... 10months) :-( I have friends I'd love to walk with again, who won't be there. So lay-in and birthday breakfast had, pot...