When will it end?

Evening all! Movescount is back online so I'm back in business, although unfortunately I've got a poor week's trading to report:

	Distance (miles)	Time (hh:mm)	Energy (kcals)
Since last post (18 Mar 2013)	13.1	03:36	2649
Since records began (27 Dec 2012)	262.3	73:36	46858

The figures are actually correct for the week to Monday, as I haven't done anything since then. Everything was going fine until Friday, but I was brought down by the dreaded lurgy over the weekend and didn't leave the house between coming back from the supermarket on Saturday lunchtime and taking Mrs W to the airport this evening.

The Czech equivalent of Lemsip has finally started having an effect and I've been feeling much better as today has worn on, so I'll probably go back to work tomorrow. I'm pretty keen to get out walking again immediately, but should I let sense prevail and give myself an extra day or two to get back to full fitness? [A dilemma which I put to all you seasoned walkers!] 

It's still winter here, and seemingly everywhere, and it doesn't show signs of improving much until the second week of April. I've never known anything like it. What I've seen from back home is unbelievable: my dad shared a few pictures and I must admit I did glance at the calendar to check it wasn't April 1 already.

Cronk y Voddy. Photo by Andrea Lace.

Dalby from Facebook Page 'Snow Storms - Isle of Man'

I really feel for the farmers who've lost livestock, but it's great to see how many people have rallied round to help. I saw that Manx folk band Barrule have offered up a track from their debut album (aptly 'The Sheep Under The Snow': the lyrics are eerily poignant) in exchange for a donation to the IOM Agricultural Benevolent Trust. Done!  It's a great track, too: you've got yourselves a new fan, lads! Please, give whatever you can afford: for more information click here.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the Easter break!

Normal service will be resumed...

Current message when trying to upload data from watch

Sorry folks: looks like I'll have to write my blog tomorrow. It wouldn't be the same without stats! :)

The winter of our discontent?

Evening all! You know the drill by now... stats first:

	Distance (miles)	Time (hh:mm)	Energy (kcals)
Since last post (11 Mar 2013)	27.6	07:24	4228
Since records began (27 Dec 2012)	249.3	70:00	44209

We've been plunged back into winter. It was freezing all last week, there was a little more snow this evening, and more is forecast for tomorrow. Fortunately there hasn't been much snow (no need to send in the tanks), but it has kept my walks relatively short.

Mrs W has been out of commission with a chest infection since Friday, so I stayed close to home over the weekend. On Saturday part of my route took me through two very large cemeteries (here). We've walked through the larger of the two before, but never the smaller one opposite. I was interested to find within it the Prague War Cemetery, built by the post-war Czechoslovak government according to plans provided by the Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission).

Memorial stone at the entrance to Prague War Cemetery

Graves in the Prague War Cemetery

Central Cross in Prague War Cemetery

I also found a Soviet War Cemetery adjacent. As you might expect it's a little more austere than the Commonwealth cemetery, and there are a staggering number of graves.

Central Memorial in the Soviet War Cemetery

Wider view of Soviet War Cemetery

It's even more sobering when you consider that the graves here represent only a small proportion of those who died liberating Czechoslovakia from Nazi occupation: it's estimated that up to 144,000 Soviet troops lost their lives.

The cold weather is set to continue for yet another week, but I intend to keep on keeping on.

Thanks for reading and have a good week!

The 2013 Prague End to End IKEA Parish Walk

Evening all! Another reasonable showing this week:

	Distance (miles)	Time (hh:mm)	Energy (kcals)
Since last post (4 Mar 2013)	35.6	09:40	5689
Since records began (27 Dec 2012)	221.7	62:36	39981

Mrs W and I successfully completed a walk from one end of Prague's longest underground line to the other (hence 'End to End'). Why 'IKEA Parish Walk'? Well, there's one IKEA at either side of the city very close to each end of the underground, although I grudgingly gave in to my better half and didn't take us half a mile out of our way to touch the doors of each 'church' (or to sample their horsemeat-tainted products... although I suppose a bit of horse is better than the zero meat beef pies found in Iceland).

On our 'End to End' we covered 16.3 miles in 4h24m. Here's a route map:

Yellow line is our route, light blue line is the city boundary

Evidently the training is paying off: my legs were a bit stiff the next day, but otherwise no ill effects. Mrs W, with rather less miles under her belt, had a few blisters by the end. Still, it gave us both some confidence that, even if the Parish Walk were tomorrow, we should at least be able to make it to the first natural stopping point at Rushen (19 miles)... but (to mangle Chris Tarrant's catchphrase) we don't want to settle for that!

The weather in the last week has been great: relatively warm with plenty of clear blue skies. It certainly wasn't difficult to get out each day. After seeing snowdrops in the park I thought Spring was definitely on the way.

Spring is here... or is it? Snowdrops in Vitkov Park on Saturday.

Unfortunately I jinxed it: there was a dusting of snow overnight last night, and now we're set for at least another week of sub-zero temperatures. Oh well... after more-or-less two months of face-numbing coldness I don't think another week of it will kill me!

Thanks for reading and have a good week!

Back in black

Evening all! After last week's washout I've got some better figures to report this week:

	Distance (miles)	Time (hh:mm)	Energy (kcals)
Since last post (25 Feb 2013)	30.2	08:11	5103
Since records began (27 Dec 2012)	186.1	52:56	34292

I put in 5.2 miles on the way home from work this evening to pass the psychologically important 30 mile marker for the week. Unfortunately I made it hard for myself by leaving my trainers at home this morning: five miles doesn't sound that far, but in my office shoes it felt like a marathon! If I'd had more sense I would have walked directly home, changed to my trainers and gone back out. Still, beating my previous best was worth it!

I had hoped to go further over the weekend. The weather is much milder in the city now and the snow has all but vanished, so we thought a walk in the countryside might go down well. We headed out to Konopiště: the home of Archie Duke before he shot an ostrich when he got hungry, precipitating the First World War. [I always think of Blackadder when we go there!] It's a beautiful spot for a walk, but the temperatures had stayed a bit lower, so there was still a lot of snow on the ground and much of the lake was frozen over.

Konopiště château, with frozen lake in the foreground

Some of the paved paths around the estate had been cleared, but the unpaved paths through the woodland and around the lake were icy, so it was rather tough going. We completed one circuit relatively comfortably (albeit slowly), but decided against a second lap.

Stepping up a gear

January and February have come and gone, so it's time to check progress against my plan again. I'm now over a third of the way between day zero and race day. Aside from last week, I think I've stuck fairly closely to the plan: building up regular mileage, and putting in a couple of longer walks during the month.

I'm cautiously optimistic that I can stick to my original target for March of at least one longer walk a week, and that I can start steadily building the distance of those longer walks. One idea for next weekend is to cross the city from one end of the longest metro line to the other: about 15 miles. So far, I've found that keeping variety in the longer routes has helped keep me interested and motivated.

My aim for the shorter walks during March is to inject a bit more pace. It wasn't considered in my original plan but, per the comments on a recent post, I'm also going to start building other exercises and sports into my schedule.

Thanks for reading and have a good week!

P.S. From the Parish Walk Facebook page I see that congratulations are in order to regular contributor Michael George for his win in the Ascot Hotel 20km Walk on Saturday. What a pace!

Snowpocalypse!

Evening all! I'm afraid I haven't covered myself in glory this week. Here are the stats:

	Distance (miles)	Time (hh:mm)	Energy (kcals)
Since last post (18 Feb 2013)	6.3	01:44	1071
Since records began (27 Dec 2012)	155.9	44:44	29189

I'd break down the difference against last week's 30 miles as follows:

[1] Work-related disruptions: -6 miles [Tue am/pm and Wed am]
[2] Pure laziness: -4 miles [Wed pm and Thu am]
[3] Weather-related disruptions: -13.7 miles [Fri pm, Sat, Sun, Mon am]

Categories [1] and [3] were somewhat out of my control, but I'm a bit disappointed with myself for category [2] - those 4 miles would at least have tipped me over the 10 mile mark.

'Snowpocalypse' isn't much of an exaggeration.

Saturday morning - view down our street as I prepare to excavate the car

Saturday morning - on our way to Tesco, with beautiful views of Prague Castle 

Sunday morning - about 2ft deep on our window ledge after a second night of heavy snow

Sunday morning - snow laying round about our terrace, deep and crisp and even

As you'll see from my posts over the last few weeks I'm quite prepared to walk around in the snow and in sub-zero temperatures, but not when I'm up to my shins in the stuff.

A lot of the weekend snow turned to slush overnight, so I gave it a miss again this morning. By the evening the worst of the slush had melted or been scraped to the kerbs, so I got back out. The forecast for the rest of the week looks more promising, so I'm hoping I'll have much better news to report next week.

Handling setbacks

Reading Paul Callow's blog it seems I'm not the only one struggling a bit this week. I like his point that realising our shortcomings can help spur us on to greater efforts. My relative failure in this last week will certainly be a strong motivator for me in the coming week.

Tony's comment to the effect that 'Spring is on the way' is both a heartening thought (better weather, lighter evenings) and a reminder that the Parish Walk is drawing closer: less than four months to go now!

Thanks for reading and have a good week!

0 to 30 in 6 weeks

Evening all! This post is brought to you courtesy of the free WiFi at Prague and Warsaw airports and at Angelo Airporthotel Bucharest... and (in the fine tradition of Sesame Street) by the letters R and O and by the number 30 :) Here are the obligatory stats:

	Distance (miles)	Time (hh:mm)	Energy (kcals)
Since last post (11 Feb 2013)	30.0	08:33	5394
Since records began (27 Dec 2012)	149.6	43:00	28118

I walked an improbably precise 30.00 miles this week: for consistency I'm only showing one decimal place in the table, but movescount actually shows it as 30.00 miles. It would have been just over 31 miles if I hadn't been called away during the day, thus missing out on my walk home this evening.

Excepting today, I've walked to and from work each day in the last week, including the extended morning route. We got quite a lot of snow last Tuesday and Wednesday, which has gradually been melting away in the days since, but even a pretty heavy snowfall on Wednesday morning wasn't enough to curb my enthusiasm. I think we can safely say that the walking habit has now been successfully ingrained!

I didn't do anything on Saturday, but covered just over 11 miles on Sunday, buoyed by some podcasts (following James Bassett's suggestion on a recent post, so thanks James!). Again, I forged a route through some parts of the city I'm not familiar with, setting myself a goal of reaching my original home in Prague, which is out on the edge of the city near the airport. In the absence of a walking partner (Mrs W was out shopping with a friend) I found that the combination of the podcasts and some unfamiliar territory made a fairly long walk (just over 3 hours) fly past.

Other training activities

I was interested to read in Tony McNally's latest post that he's including some running as part of his training. My dad also mentioned to me recently that he's considering doing some gym work this year as part of his preparation, having been convinced of the benefits by a past finisher. My current plan doesn't include anything except walks of varying lengths (and, hopefully, increasing pace), but, as Paul Callow mentions in his latest post, plans shouldn't be set in stone and can be revised as needed.

Clearly a mixed training plan isn't that uncommon, but my main concern in introducing jogging or running would be the higher impact (on joints and feet) and what I perceive as a greater chance of getting injured. I can certainly see that higher intensity exercise might help me to build my fitness faster, but I'm wary that the gain could be at the expense of potentially putting me out of commission for weeks or even months. Although I'm pretty ungainly I can just about avoid daft stuff like falling in ditches and tripping over paving stones at a walking pace, but I doubt I could do the same while jogging or running.

Am I being excessively paranoid and missing out on significant training benefits or should I trust my instincts?

Thanks for reading and have a good week!

P.S. Happy Birthday Ed! I hear from my spies that you got in an epic training walk at the weekend!