50 experiences and challenges to welcome and embrace the new decade of my life…
As my personal challenge to walk 1050 miles in 2018 is now complete I’m going to up the ante and aim for 2050 miles! I love walking and pushing myself and having a goal is motivating.
This is an update for the last 3 weeks:
Total miles walked so far in 2018 at the end of week 27: 1045
Miles walked in week 28: 45
Miles walked in week 29: 41
Miles walked in week 30: 56
Running total in 2018: (1045 + 45 + 41 + 56) = 1,187
So, my husband Chris and I did do our 24 mile bike ride yesterday! While I am still up for a cycling weekend somewhere, as this is the longest bike ride I’ve ever done I’m going to tick this challenge off as being ‘complete’.
Much of the route was on dedicated cycle paths and bridleways and also fairly flat so the terrain was great for cycling. However as it was really windy we had to peddle hard! We set off in the sun but twice got soaked to the skin in a couple of heavy downpours! The second happened when we were only a couple of miles from home so we arrived back tired, hungry and soaking wet…
Note to self: take a rain coat next time…
We did both feel a sense of achievement and are keen to do more longer weekend cycling and continue our short evening cycle trips during the summer.
Just a short progress update to mention that I’ve completed a session at my work gym every day that I’ve been in the office so far this year. This means getting up at 5:30 am each time I commute into London in order to do my gym session before work. I work in London 2 – 3 days a week so other than when I’ve been away I’ve kept this up and am on track to complete this challenge by the end of 2018!
My hour long gym routine hasn’t changed much as follows:
I usually burn 450 calories each time and this, together with an average of walking another 6 or 7 miles each day and swimming once or twice a week is really helping me to maintain my weight!
Having done a huge amount of walking and trekking this year I was keen to do some cycling and get some practice for a more lengthy bike ride later on. Chris and I hadn’t ridden our bikes for about 3 years and they sat forlornly outside under a cover slowly rusting away and getting covered in spiders webs!
We recently dusted them down, oiled them up and have spent some of the recent gorgeous summer evenings out and about exploring our local countryside. With our mountain bikes we always stick to tracks and try to avoid roads as much as we can.
One of our favourite expeditions is a 4 mile trip across the fields where we stop and dine in a fabulous local Indian restaurant before cycling the 4 miles back across the fields again!
We are hoping to go further afield later today with a 24 mile round trip to a larger town! I say ‘hoping’ because we are currently experiencing the first rain in about 3 months on this Saturday morning. In contrast to most years the UK has experienced an ongoing heatwave with many records being broken for example, the hottest London Marathon in April, the hottest May Bank Holiday and one of the driest Junes and July’s, as explained by Wikipedia.
I’m happy to hike in the rain but I don’t fancy riding a bike for a rainy and possibly thundery 24 miles not when more sunny weather is forecast for the next couple of weeks into August!
Hurrah! I completed 1050 miles of 2018 walking yesterday, Monday 9th July!
The final mile was completed during a fabulously warm 30 degrees summer evening during a short local walk near to my home. As Google Maps (above) shows, this is almost as far as walking from London to Rome!
Here are a few stats:
Average miles per day: (1050 miles / 192 days) = 5.5 miles
Average miles per week: (1050 miles / 27 weeks) = 39 miles
Average miles per month: (1050 miles / 6.3 months) = 167 miles
Keeping a record of all of these extra miles walked has been really motivating and has encouraged me to walk more miles each day and has definitely helped to keep my weight down… I’m planning to continue totting up my daily and weekly mileage and will post updates from time to time… maybe I can reach 2000 miles within these 12 months?
Having just returned from a week of all inclusive indulgence in Cuba I was a bit anxious about this month’s weigh-in… however… I have managed to maintain my weight of 8 st 3 lb!!! Yay!!! How did this happen???
I spent last week consuming numerous cocktails each day, lazing around reading books on a sunbed and doing virtually no exercise… on the basis that any excess calories over the 1650 necessary to keep my weight at 8 st 3 lb, and given I was probably averaging a calorie consumption of around 3000 a day, in theory I should have put on about 3-4 lb… but no! I didn’t put on a single lb!!! Hurrah!!!
I’m not sure if this is a delayed reaction and I’ll suddenly expand at some point this week so I’ve gone back to my usual routine of not over eating and doing lots of exercise… all is good so far… and this was my gym weight this morning i.e. on heavy duty ‘proper’ scales, after breakfast and with my clothes on…
Given that I’ve managed to stay at 8 st 3 lb I’ll soon amend this challenge with the aim of sticking to 8 st 3 lb throughout the rest of 2018. This is a weight I am comfortable with and while I either have to stick to 1650 calories each day or do a large amount of extra exercise to enable me to eat more, it is all manageable at the moment…
Week 26 walking progress:
Nearly there… I did quite a bit of evening walking this week… the lovely warm summer evenings continue in the UK which makes it a real pleasure to spend them walking!
Week 27 walking progress:
So close to reaching my target but only around 12 miles walked for the duration of this week… I was on a relaxing holiday in Cuba! A couple of these miles were walked during a short guided hike from the hotel (above pic) and another couple were walked in the gorgeous Havana… I did a local walk on the Sunday evening when I returned but the rest of the time my walking consisted of to the pool; to the beach and to one of the numerous dotted bars around the hotel!
A short mid week update as today I passed the 1000th mile walked so far in 2018 🙂
The weather in the UK has been awesome this week… temperatures up to 30 degrees C and endless blue skies… perfect for clocking up several miles in these gorgeous evenings.
I walked a total 16 miles today:
These miles don’t include miles when I am milling around the office or popping out to get some lunch or wandering around at home. They are miles walked over and above what is necessary to conduct my day to day life. I wasn’t originally going to include gym miles but as I work so hard to achieve them I felt they should be included. I estimate that around 25% (or 250 miles) would have been gym miles.
As of today I’ve walked a total of 1,007 miles so only 43 off my personal target of walking 1050 extra miles this year and in only 6 months rather than 12!
I’m doing more and more miles each week and its getting easier and easier to walk around 15 miles some days… I haven’t been this fit in years, if not decades! Previously, after a 10 mile hike I would collapse on the sofa for the rest of the evening. Now, after 15 miles I feel I could keep going on and on and with no aching muscles in the mornings. (Although this would be a different story if my hikes included hills or mountains… the area in which I live is very flat…)
Week 25 walking progress:
Under 100 miles to go! Yay! And I completed the most miles this week so far this year 🙂
To achieve a total of 71 miles walked in one week:
The weather has been cracking this week… beautiful and sunny and during this time of the year, it doesn’t get dark until around 10 pm. I’ve therefore been making the most of being outside and increasing my walking mileage! Today, I had made plans to continue decluttering and tidying up around my home this afternoon but instead decided to go for a second lengthy walk of over 9 miles in the sun! Decluttering can wait for a rainy day 🙂
Week 23 walking progress:
Week 24 walking progress:
I’m very pleased with my walking progress and only have 140 miles left to walk in 2018 until I reach my target! Woohoo 🙂
The weather in the UK has been really pleasant throughout the last couple of weeks and several of these miles were walked near to my home… making an extra effort to walk extra miles and make the most of the lovely weather. The wild flower photos below were all taken on recent local wanders…
Fifty at Fifty 