The Walker With Heart

It wasn't meant to be a thousand miles in 2011... My stated aim at the begining of the year was to do 100km a month, coming in at 1200km - 745miles... A good loading for anyone, and one I wasn't sure I was going to make given the various competing pressures for my time. But with 11 miles and c24h to go, I think I'm going to make it... I'll go for a stroll this evening and then tomorrow walk along another section of a new Long Distance Path - the Wirral Circular Path. This bit will take in industrial archeology, Napoleanic defenses, battles of the US Civil War and finish near one of my favourite nature reserves - Hilbre Island. This thousand hasn't been quite as structured as the last one, which has meant when it became a possibility I was left with more miles than I normally would've wanted to do in a month. November was the crux - and the challenge for £40 to do 4 whttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifeeks of 40km for my 40th. That bought me to within 140 mil...

First off, apologies to my pure-bred disability activist friends this is going to look like its steeped in the medico-legal model rather than the evolved social model... But you may like seeing where I go with it... I was asked by a colleague about whether there was any training for a relative on handling their recently diagnosed diabetes... and after the usual nudges towards Diabetes UK, I started reflecting on the stages of being a patient, and though I'm sure there's a lot written by psychologists I thought I'd throw my tuppence into cyberspace... A Pure Patient When we discover we're a patient we're just that a patient - we need to go to a doctor, find out our prognosis, what we can do to help mediate our conditions - we're pure, we may have some previous experience of others with our condition but as it affects us, none... An Informed Patient We've joined the support group, we've read the information pack, we're carrying the passport/wallet/ sos...

A promise to a number of beautiful ladies (Ladies, I'm expecting sponsorship for that one ;-))... The big events so far signed up for for 2012... Excalibur Marathon - a 26.2 mile challenge walk (my companion in arms for this one a) denies I ever said it was a marathon and b) swore a lot when I suggested jogging any of it c) needs to man up... ;-)) - 12 hours time limit, 4600ft of up and down - 31 March Belfast Marathon - a normal 26.2 marathon - 7 May Nottingham Ultra - a 31mile ultramarathon - 7 Oct These are the big ones, there's the usual scattering of 10ks and local runs that I'll do for fun, and enjoyment. Doesn't mean I won't push myself, does mean I won't jeopardise the overall fitness on one of these runs. My training for the 1st 2 is going to overlap, and then provides the springboard for the 3rd. All of my distance runs (anything over a half) are based on a simple strategy - first distance then speed. The best advice I was ever given was always protec...

Ok , part of my OU course on poetry is to create an anthology of poems, culled from an anthology of animal orientated poetry... The Bear - Frost (p23 - 24) beautiful imagery, hidden in a simple rhyming structure (though the repetition of Greek amuses, its as if he runs out of words) Blue Moles - Plath (p39 - 40) more beautiful imagery, though perhaps vivid would be a better description I have a Gentle Cock - Anon (p 126 - 127) made me laugh, and the switch between the straight description of the animal and then innuendo of the last line is stunning:-) On a Dog of Lord Eglinton's - Burns (p188) the simile of a dog's life is pointedly made Widgeon - Heaney (284) - Euwwww In the Introduction to the Book of Beasts, the anthologist describes anthologists as despots, and maybe I am... My anthology is based on what attracted me in a single scan read through. So they tend to be shorter, punchier and cause an immediate emotional reaction - be that a smile in Frost description of the...