Daunted by the 3 hour drive around the course, this really gave a shock purely on the distance of the walk and the kick I need to spur myself on. As it is less than 2 months until we are off I think it is time to really put in some hard yards!
Therefore I didn’t think twice about spinning on Monday and put as much in as I could for both that and the gym session straight after. Tuesday night was in Peel again for my second kayaking session, something I’ve realised is not an easy skill! It involves a lot of hip work and there are so many things to think about technically it’s really difficult to master! After numerous capsizes (some deliberate, some definitely not!) I was pleased with the session and certainly slept well!
With the week in full swing and going well I managed to get through football and hockey training with no problems, although no squash again due to people away etc. The week finished with the standard gym session at Mount Murray, which was good as I wasn’t feeling as shattered as usual! I think I need to push myself a bit more in the gym as I didn’t really work to exhaustion….I will push it up next week!
Pretty happy after a decent full working week of training, we had our final hockey match of the season against the team who haven’t even dropped a point all season and won every game. However with our full team out and everybody putting in sterling performances we managed to recover from a goal down at half time to draw 2-2. Dale was back in the goals with 2 great strikes and it was the most enjoyable game I’ve played, we even could’ve nicked it at the end and 2-2 felt a bit like a defeat at the final whistle, but in hindsight a draw was probably a fair result! Celebrated with a chilled out barbecue in Ballasalla and some pitch black cricket!
For the past few times we’ve done the sloc, Bratt has often mentioned that it is not too bad but wondered how hard it would be after a 20 mile walk aka on Parish Walk day. I always nodded along, with little knowledge of the fact that he actually planned to do the sloc after we’d already done 20 miles! Therefore we set off about 10:45am from Douglas and headed to Marown Church on the exact Parish Walk route. Despite a few miscalculations and going a bit off track (and therefore adding a mile or two to the distance) we made our way to the bottom of the sloc and somehow successfully to the top! It was about a 31 mile walk after going back down to Ronague and a big jump from our previous longest walk.
It was successful in the fact that mentally I am prepared that I can do the sloc after walking the 20 miles, and although I picked up a blister the size of Gibraltar en route, I wasn’t feeling too bad and the blister I feel was manageable. My legs are pretty stiff now after the walk but there wasn’t anything that suggested I wanted to stop. I think it's mainly in the mind because the last couple of miles my legs get tired but I think it is because they know the finish is close...I just have to convince them that we are going to make it to the finish and so they won’t go wobbly until after 83 miles!
With a really decent week of training and a long walk under my belt, I haven’t felt more confident of climbing the mountain and giving the Parish Walk my best. After all, once you’ve done 30 miles there really is only another 55 to go....
Dave.
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