Nemo / Pixabay

It is so easy not to go out. To hibernate almost in January.

But when you do make yourself lear the housework and busyness behind for the day, you never know what you are going to find…

It was not the greatest weather. We were not super motivated. But experiences and opportunities only occur when you open your door to them, as this particular day attested.

THE WALK

Having looked on stridingedge.net, a beautiful walkers site, we had found a walk from Grasmere to Easdale Tarn and back over Silver How. According to the site, this walk would take us 2-3 hours, leaving plenty of time for tea and Gingerbread in Grasmere.

The initial walk up to the tarn was lovely. Easy to follow paths with gorgeous scenery, waterfalls and snow. Our real adventure for the day began as we headed past the Tarn to look for the path, which was clearly marked on the map, back over the hills to Silver How. This is where we learned that paths are much harder to find and follow when they are under a foot of snow!

JOINING FORCES

In our attempts to locate our path, with ended up joining forces with a man visiting from America, who was looking for the same walk. Where we may have previously been tempted to turn around, this teaming up brought our all our bravado and stupidity – so we headed on.
What a great decision.

NEW EXPERIENCES

The American – Mark – turned out to be a photographer. So there we are, Wednesday afternoon, between school runs, on top of a mountain, in the snow – having a photoshoot!!

Luckily Mark was also a great navigator, with a compass, so he helped to make sure we got back to Grasmere, if not in time for Gingerbread, in time to head back for the kids.

Remember – life will always be busy. Its hard to find the time – but so much richer and more rewarding for doing so.  Go on – Grab Opportunities

The post Grab Opportunities appeared first on Karmaplace.

MemoryCatcher / Pixabay

In August this year, with our friend Yvonne and Jenny’s husband, Earle, we are going to take on Oxfams Trailtrekker challenge.

This is a 100k walk through the Yorkshire Dales. It needs to be completed under 30 hours.

Its complete madness – luckily, we are always up for a bit of that!

WHY…

True to form – we like to take something that we love and take it to the next level. We loved walking. We wanted to keep doing it – we needed a reason -this gave us a big one.

There is a fear that we will grow to hate walking as much as Jenny now hates the pulp album that she played almost constantly for 6 months back when she bought it.

We hope this does not happen, we will be detailing our training for this event over the coming months – and we shall see…

SELF AWARENESS…

We also seem to have an innate need to feel challenged. We’ve never taken on a job, without aiming for the top job. We’ve never actually been satisfied with the level we were at – do this, but more/better.

When I am not challenged I tend to get bored or become unfocussed. Being challenged helps us to focus on and work at something.

We have made huge changes over the last year. We have paid more attention to the ‘soup for our souls’, But at the start of the new year – we felt the need for something which is measured.

its like: “I know I am happy, but i need an actual goal, that I actually tick off, so I am actually succeeding. Its not enough just to feel happy and successful – I need a certificate and medal to PROVE it!!!”

Luckily we recognise this about ourselves and are able to laugh at ourselves and each other.

Luckier still we found two other people equally stupidly competitive and challenge focussed to share this experience with.

We are walking the walk – literally – lets hope its not another Pulp!

If you want to support us we have a Facebook page:
Facebook
and a just giving page:
Just Giving

The post Oxfam TrailTrekker appeared first on Karmaplace.

22 Miles – Ambleside to Coniston and back.

AKA: WHY DID WE THINK IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO LISTEN TO THE IRON MAN TRIATHLETE AT THE GYM CHRISTMAS PARTY?

Never ones to shy away from a challenge – 5.30am Sunday 19th April, found us heading towards Ambleside to take on Spring in Lakeland – something which had been suggested by an iron man triathlete we had met at our gym christmas party!  It was also an opportunity to get our team together and get a good idea of whether we are even going to be able to complete the 100KM when we do our oxfam trailtrekker challenge.

For those not familiar with the event, Spring in Lakeland is a 22 mile walk, organised by the LDWA, walking from Ambleside to Coniston and back – over some beautiful Lakeland passes and through some gorgeous scenery.

Also with us today we had the third member of our team for Trailtrekker – Yvonne – who we had recruited for her insanity and fitness – she regularly chooses to spend her Sundays running half marathons.

CAR PARK BREAKFAST

Sign on for the event was 7am – (we had got out of bed at 5am to avoid the traffic, which surprisingly enough was non existent at 5.30 on a Sunday morning).  7.30am found us in Amblesdie football club car park having our breakfast.

Sara eating her £1.50 booths instant porridge.

Both of us deluding ourselves that although Yvonne was fit – she wasn’t a walker like us – so we were going to show her how it was done today.  A further delusion was that we would easily be back before all the ‘old folk’ donning their gators around us.

We were feeling surprisingly professional for this walk, having purchased for ourselves (matching) Aldi walking trousers – with vents!  All in all the day started with a great deal of optimism, delusion and sunshine – only one of the three remained at the end of the day.

Feeling optimistic, excited and delusional, with new team member – Yvonne,  before we started.

Identify SOMEONE to get past…

Our first lesson was learned as we set off – all the gatored ‘old folk’ charged off at a hell of a pace – although obviously we believed at that point they would quickly burn out – we would be taking them later.  However, when we found ourselves being dropped at an alarming rate as we climbed the first hill we decided to scale down our ambitions – Sara identified a limping man ahead and stated that we HAD to get past him – and stay past.   This was achieved only by the skin of our teeth – and with much puffing and panting.  This brought about a realisation that walking with a large group of other people was exposing our competitiveness – leading to this being one of the fastest walks we had done to date.  It also caused much disappointment that actually we were nowhere near as ‘walk fit’ as many of the others out there.

 Limping man is ahead – heads down we march to overtake him – with much effort.

Having reset our benchmark at beat the limping man, we then had to come to terms with the fact that the newest member of our team was significantly fitter than us – we had to watch her backside disappear before us at every hill we climbed and simply put out heads down to try and catch up at the top.  All the while looking over our shoulders as we struggled to stay ahead of the limping man!

Yvonne – the mountain climbing machine – ahead of us, as was the norm for the day.

It was an absolutely lovely day, the lake district was at its best, bathed in sunshine with stunning views around every corner – one of the main reasons we love walking there so much.  However, the hard part of being out there on such a beautiful day was walking past pubs and some of our favourite cafes – like chesters –  with cold shandies, cakes and tea shouting at us as we did so.

Beautiful Lake District scenery 

THE LESSONS OF THE DAY

• Vasaline is vital to prevent blistering.  The one victory we had over Yvonne was that she had scoffed at Saras vaseline on the feet suggestion and she was the only one to end up with blisters!

VASALINE!

• We are not as good as we think we are
• Dont underestimate old people in Gators or marathon runners (or limping men)
• Check your equipment before heading off, taking your 11 year old daughters coat is not going to be any good if it rains, is it Jenny.

Its the wrong coat!

• Walking past pubs and tea rooms is heartbreaking
• 22 miles on the flat is nothing compared to 22 miles over hills and fells
• WE BLOODY LOVED IT DESPITE ALL OF THIS.

What a great day, with great friends.

PAIN IS TEMPORARY, PRIDE LASTS FOREVER

If we are honest at the end of the day we were all doubting whether we would actually be able to complete the 100KM challenge.  This day, rather than reenforcing our belief in our ability to complete the trail trekker challenge made us fear that each of us would back out.  If  our feet and legs were really sore after 22 miles, what sort of state would we be in after 60? The thought of walking the course two more times seemed not only unbearable but also impossible.

However, reliving the day with our families.  Looking through all the pictures we had taken.  Discussing the high and low points of the day and  soothing the aches with a glass of wine made us realise how much we had enjoyed ourselves.   We were proud of what we had achieved, our families and children were proud of what we had accomplished.  We wanted more – we just need to train more, stay positive and believe in ourselves and if all else fails…head back to our lovely delusions – after all ignorance is bliss.

Proud and Happy – also we were not LAST!! There were at least 10-15 people (ok out of 150) behind us!

NOTE: the next morning was not as bad as we had feared.  The pain was indeed temporary, so we headed off to circuit training as usual and put our heads firmly back into the clouds.

The post Spring in Lakeland appeared first on Karmaplace.