Day 2 of London to Brighton Training: After the 14k walk on Sunday, it was time for some strength and aerobic exercise. As I've always hated the gym (boring) and the training guide suggested interval training, I decided to return to martial arts and, after checking out a few such as Aikido and Iaido, returned to my first love of Judo, which was always the most intense workout I remember doing.

...Athough in my mind it was only a few months since I was last on the mat, the way I feel this morning suggests that it was in fact some time in the mid-Seventeenth Century.

The club I joined boasts a number of members of the British Squad and they regularly win a lot of medals in national competitions. However the Sensei was very good and completely understood that I needed to start gently as I work to regain my fitness and that although previously graded, I was wearing a white belt. He paired me with another beginner whose first session was last week, so although I knew more, we were relatively evenly matched. Having said that, he threw me a lot more than I threw him, but then he did have a major advantage in being nearly 10 and, as such, both fitter and with a greater capacity to learn new motor skills.

My fitness wasn't good enough to do all the Randori (free sparring) and I had to sit some of that out, instead working with resistance bands to practice techniques that, oddly, began to come back to me. I guess muscles remember better than brains sometimes - where ARE my keys anyway?

A hot bath when I got home seems to have alleviated most of the aches, although I'd forgotten how much the burn marks from where the suit gets violently rubbed against the skin look like hickeys. However, something seems to have happened to my left knee, which has registered a formal protest and is demanding that I return, forthwith, to my sedentary lifestyle. If knees could type it would, first thing this morning, have put my Judo suit up on eBay and I have no doubt have bid on a LazyBoy recliner with built-in popcorn maker.

However, this does mean that my good-intentioned plan to get up early and get another shortish walk in was, in retrospect, rather optimistic. Liberal application of Tiger Balm and some gentle stretches will hopefully ease it enough to let me walk later - if only to the kitchen for a coffee.

Will I be going back to Judo? You bet. There is a 9-year-old's scalp with my name on it and the honour of his grandad's generation is at stake!See more

Day 1 of London to Brighton training:

We have designed a training plan.

Or rather, A has designed her training plan, whilst I still struggle to come to terms with the need to prepare and be structured and organised, itself a major lifestyle and personality adjustment.  The organisers of the challenge have created a website for the event, which includes details of the route, training suggestions and informs me that there are currently over 1,400 people taking part.

It seems insanity is rife, but there are degrees of insanity.

Some have signed up to do a 56km walk, which I believe is the second half.  These are the mildly delusional.

Some, like me, have signed up to do the full 100km.  We are the certifiably insane.

Some have signed up to RUN the distance, as what the website tells me is called an 'Ultra-Marathon'.

Not being a Psychiatrist, I looked these ones up.

They're barking mad.

So, according to the training plan, it's not enough to just walk, building up my distance over the coming weeks, although that is certainly a part of it.  I have to do other things like strength training to "build my core" and something called "Cross Training". 

Insert Puns Here (I'm sure you don't need me).

However, for now, A's schedule says a longish walk on Sundays, building up the distance and so a walk it is.  The sun is, rather unusually for the UK at the moment, shining on Sunday morning, but it seems the procrastination is still something that needs to be worked on, so it's early afternoon before we get out the door.

I am not yet prepared to wear 'sports' clothing, particularly for walking, as I don't yet feel comfortable enough with being identified with 'them'. Besides, sports clothing looks good if you have the sports body to go with it.  Otherwise you just look like a shrink-wrapped sausage or, if you go for the baggy look, like someone who's just woken up from a binge to find nothing short of a kaftan fits.

Besides, I have, for now, decided to walk in walking boots, and these seem incongruous when teamed with anything with a logo, be it swoosh, slash, leaping animal or whatever.

I bought these boots some time ago, with the intention of, well, walking.  They are big, brown, clumpy and have a sole that I'm sure would, given sufficient incentive, allow me to walk up a wall.

What they are not is forgiving.

When younger I wore boots when hiking, so I'm not unfamiliar with them, although I do seem to remember that they used to be easier to tie up.  Or rather, it was easier to bend DOWN to tie them up.  However, after some struggling, I managed to get them on and we set off.

75 yards later I stopped to re-tie them, as they hurt.
400 yards later, I stopped to re-tie them as they were slipping.
300 yards later, I stopped to re-tie them as they were rubbing.

However, finally they were, if not comfortable, at least not something would expect to find being used in Guantanamo Bay to elicit a confession and off we went.

For those familiar with North London, the plan was to walk from Finchley to Hampstead Heath and back, going via the Bishop's Avenue.  This is very famous road in the area, as it consists of some of the most expensive properties in one of the most expensive cities in the world.  The houses are large and elegant and cost many millions of pounds, but in recent years there has been a trend to buy them, knock them down and replace them with new, even larger houses, many of which look like office blocks or prisons, not solely because of the huge amount of security, whilst others look like the architect's 7 year old child has had access to the plans whilst they were away from their desk and have been clicking on the palette of 'Architectural features', adding everything they could find.  This ensures that Greek columns are twinned with a deep-south veranda and a gothic bell-tower topped by an English village weather-cock.

Not so much a design as a collage.

What is interesting is the number of houses that are empty, for sale, sometimes by the official receiver.  It would seem that the recession has hit the mega-rich too, which I am embarrassed to say leads to an expression on my face that could well be used to illustrate 'Schadenfreude' on Wikipedia.

(Incidentally, I still wince every time I don't spell it 'Wikipaedia').

The Challenge website informs me that the walk will be approximately 40% on roads, and 60% on footpaths and bridleways and, therefore, I should train by walking off-road too.  This opportunity presents itself as we reach the Heath, and a diversion is taken down a small footpath.

Now, consider that the last 3 months in the UK have been the wettest since Noah first picked up a hammer, and you may begin to see the issue here.  The path was, all things considered, not that bad.  By which I mean that you neither needed to swim, nor did you find yourself emulating the scene in many a movie where someone sinks to a horrible death in quicksand.

However, for those of you who understand Star Trek analogies, I was very glad I wasn't wearing a red Starfleet uniform.

To maintain the movie theme however, it WAS slippery and slimy enough underfoot for me to do a passable imitation of Bambi during his foray onto the ice.  Now, I have no idea whether windmilling your arms and saying "whoooah" actually has any real benefit in maintaining balance - they don't do it in Cirque du Soleil - but it provides some emotional comfort, as if you're actually doing something to prevent a face-first pratfall into the ooze, rather than relying on fate.  I'm not sure that I can sustain windmill arms for 100km however, as it doesn't seem to feature in any training plans, so if you can find it in your hearts to put in a prayer for dry weather in the run up to the challenge, I would be grateful.

I was feeling fine on the walk and actually feeling quite pleased with myself, until we passed a small shop where, not having had lunch, I decided to stop and buy some soup.  A couple of minutes browsing before resuming the walk seemed to confuse my legs somewhat.

Whether they considered that I had finished and that they had therefore done their part I don't know, but trying to resume what had been, to my mind at least a purposeful and even quite impressive stride proved problematic.  Neither leg seemed particularly keen on resuming their activity and what's worse; they had given up any pretence of team-work, refusing to work in concert with each other or me. Efficient progress does rather depend on your legs either being willing to move alternately or, indeed, at all.  Through force of character (plus the promise of a hot bath) I coaxed them back into motion, but they were as happy as a Teenager being asked to visit an elderly aunt with halitosis and cats on Prom Night.

Given that there are a number of scheduled stops for drinks and food on the walk, this is worrying and I truly believe that if I sit down on this walk, I may never move again.

Now I read that back, it doesn't sound such a bad thing.

On getting back, I struggled out of my boots which, I have to confess, made tying them seem trivial and was informed that I needed to stretch.  Apparently this doesn't mean raising your arms above your head and yawning, but rather lying on your back on the floor and using one leg to push the other up your nostril.  I am a novice, so am allowed to push left leg up left nostril, but aspire to the sort of flexibility that will  allow opposite-nostricular insertion.  Who knows, in time I may become flexible enough to stand up afterwards.

A feeling of self-satisfaction ensued, not merely for completing an 8 mile walk, but for having made a start.  Who knows whether this journey (rather than this challenge) will instil in me a love of exercise for its own sake, but as they say, the journey of 100km starts with the first step.

Footnote (no pun intended)

My left thigh feels tighter than an Politicians alibi, to the extent that I'm limping everywhere.

I blame the stretches.  I'm going online to see if I can get an operation to bring my nostrils closer to my knees.  And yes, I know, nature did that for me.

Day 0:

Let me set the scene for you.

As I write this, I am a 51 (I'm not 52 until tomorrow so dammit, I am STILL 51) year old man living just outside London.  I am overweight, asthmatic, lazy, gluten intolerant, disorganised, sedentary, complacent. I leave things to the last minute and sometimes things get completed on a 'satisficing' basis (a wonderful word I learned about on a University course, which means "to just do enough".  I love this word).

And those are my good points.

I have never been what one may call 'enthusiastic' when it came to exercise, certainly not for its own sake.  Although as a child we did activities such as play football, cricket, cowboys and whatever-you're-meant-to-call-Indians-these-days, ride bikes, throw Frisbees (typically at each other, hard) in what is nostalgically known these days as 'outdoors', I have to say I was never really that good at any of them.  But I enjoyed them as I was playing with my friends.

At school, I was the kid who would come home with a huge smile when I got picked one-FROM-last in team sports - even though this typically meant that one of my classmates had broken his leg and, being in plaster from ankle to thigh, was marginally less competent than me.  I was the kid who Games Teachers loved to torment, in the way a pack of wolves will single out the weakest member of the herd.  It didn't help that my asthma was not diagnosed as such until I was nearly 16 (and therefore excused from sports).  Until that  point, I was merely the fat wheezy kid.  With one tiny flourish of the GP's pen, I became the fat wheezy kid who'd forgotten his inhaler.

Actually now I think of it, Games teachers are more like sharks.

Although none of my close family could be considered athletic (with the exception perhaps of my nephew, who is a keen competitive cyclist - but that's mutation for you), my late Father maintained a life-long love affair with football (soccer for those of you in weird parts of the world) and was a qualified referee.  Yes, he did need glasses and no, he did know who his father was.  He came to this fairly late in life and as a consequence, lost a lot of weight and became very fit.  Not long afterwards, he was diagnosed with Cancer and in under two years he was gone.

So much for fitness then.

So, given this background, I was comfortably settled into a life where the closest I got to exercise was jumping to conclusions and was, in all honestly, drifting comfortably towards my first (and possibly last) heart attack.

I have made periodic efforts to lose some weight and, when I put my mind to it, can normally shed a couple of stones (28 pounds or about 5Kg), but then, as stresses, work, kids, money, the weather, where I've put my keys, the result of the rugby match between Madagascar and Burundi or other important things intrude, the weight would gradually creep back on, the way the tide can catch walkers on a beach unaware.  They don't realise they're caught until the water is around their neck and people on the beach are looking horrified/smug. Most of my forays into losing weight have involved dieting, or at least eating less of the bad things, rather than any concerted attempt to become more active.

Just over a year ago, I started dating A. She is a somewhat unlikely partner for me, given that she is a personal trainer and weight-loss coach with a love of exercise and sport.

Actually, thinking about this, I am a rather unlikely partner for HER.

Over the last year, I have nobly supported her in a number of activities.  She ran a half-marathon in Edinburgh and I accompanied her around the course on an adult version of a kids push scooter.  A push scooter that, incidentally I fell off when training with her with the result that I ******** my hand and couldn't ride my motorcycle for several months.  Sympathy? What's that?

I have been designated driver and support person for Triathlons.  I have walked in solitary silence several meters behind at Golf competitions.  I have worn a false moustache at 5K charity runs.  And throughout, I have managed to avoid the need for Lycra, taped muscles, deep heat or energy drinks, which I have been told does not include coffee.

Who knew?

So, when some months ago, she announced her latest challenge was a walk from London to Brighton, I was not phased in the least.  I girded my loins, took a deep breath and prepared to book the hotel.

For those of you who don't know, Brighton is on the south coast of England, a distance of some 100km/62 miles from London.  Every year, I act as a motorcycle marshall for a big London to Brighton charity cycle event and even that is tiring.  Shortly before the end, the route has to climb over a ridge known as the 'Devil's Dyke' which reduces many of the cyclists to tears and it's not unheard of for bike marshalls to give weary cyclists a tow to the top.

When we met, I explained that I don't run.  I don't run from choice.  I don't run if there's a bus pulling out - my philosophy allows me to believe that another will come, one day.  I don't run if someone is shouting at me to run.  Well, not unless they're shouting at me to run because there's a leopard behind me.

I like leopards, but do not want to find out the answer to the question.  I suspect I know what it will be.

However, I did say I liked to walk. 

Now, this is true.  I like to walk.  In my youth, I loved the Lake District in North West England and often went on walking holidays there with my family.  I love walking along the cliffs of Cornwall and even did some back-packing there in my teens.  I am happy to spend several hours walking around large shopping malls filled with shiny objects and coffee bars.  I have even spent some happy hours watching TV programs about marathon walks up Everest, to the South Pole, Kilimanjaro or even just walks around the UK.  On occasion, this has led to the ubiquitous Google search and a little wistful thinking, but that's as far as it has gone.

So, given all this background, it seems somewhat unlikely that, despite a lifetime's preparation for facing the challenge of declining, I found myself signing up for this walk.  The fact that it gave me the opportunity to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Care, a charity dear to my heart who supported my family when my Dad was dying helped but in truth, I can't say I was fuelled by altruism. 

So why?

I have a feeling this is a question I will be asking myself a great deal throughout the course of the next few months and, through the medium of this blog, perhaps someone will supply the answer which is eluding me at the moment.

Perhaps this is a mid-life crisis, although I have certainly had more than my share of things falling into that category.  I would like to say it's a sudden realisation that I need to change my life for a more positive and healthy one, but the siren-call of the sofa I can see out of the corner of my eye as I write seems to contradict that. Perhaps I just want to see if I can truly rise to a challenge?

Or maybe I just want something to blog about.

Whatever the reason, I did nothing about the walk for several months after signing up.  It was 'next year' and therefore far enough away to be 'in the future' and, given my propensity for last-minute panic completion, not something to bother about now.  However, the start of the new year suddenly makes the whole thing rather more real and the horror stories that others rejoice in relating when you tell them what you are going to do convinced me that, for once in my life, I couldn't just go with the flow and it would be ok.  A wonderful cruise holiday over the new year allowed me to indulge in eating too much and taking things easy but I returned to the realisation that I really, REALLY needed to start preparing for this challenge, particularly as all who know me look at me with horror/pity/shock/amazement/ridicule/bemusement/all of the above.*

(*Delete as applicable)

And so my journey begins.  I posted a couple of updates on Facebook and some friends have suggested that I maintain this as a Blog, and so, dear reader, I welcome you to "One does not simply WALK into Brighton".

I cannot claim that this will be as well-written (or popular) as the book from which I stole that phrase (The Lord of the Rings for those that don't recognise it) and I certainly have about as much optimism of success as the characters, but this blog will chart my encounters with my own personal Orcs and Trolls in my quest.

If nothing else, I hope it will bring a smile to your face and if it encourages you to get up from your chair, put on some training shoes or walking boots and get out there to exercise, then I can only apologise.