New Year – a time for making resolutions:
- Lose weight
- Get fit
- Eat better
- Get out more
- Make new friends
- Save money
By the middle of next week some of those will already be broken and we will be hard pushed to keep the others going for more than a few months.
I know – I’ve tried!
By midday on 1st January I had not made a resolution for this year.
Then I saw an intriguing tweet from Country Walking magazine containing the #walk1000miles.
The initial page I found related to last year’s challenge. Then I found an update for this year.
This was just what I needed – a single challenge to focus on, which would probably encompass the earlier six resolutions! I could do this – and put on my walking shoes for a 3-mile walk from home around my local area.
I had just set up my new Fitbit and so was able to track my walk (3.11 miles – more than the daily required mileage). Although it was overcast I got some fresh air, time to think and a walk along part of a local path I had never previously been down!
I had seen a 1000 miles challenge page for running, but my left knee doesn’t enjoy that sort of battering any more.
I knew that walking is often seen as driving off into the hills and striding with purpose to the top. But I live in Suffolk – one of our flatter counties (though I did walk up and down a bit of a hill!). Walking should be enjoyable, shared with friends, stopping to take in the wider views (often familiar ones)
Winter fields in Suffolk.
or look closer at nature in its detail.
Signs of Spring?
So I want this to be a challenge I take with my friends – those I walk with along local paths and tracks and those I share with my online friends through their words, experiences and photographs.
Last summer I took part in a round-Britain charity relay. I walked my six miles in Suffolk, but felt I was part of something so much bigger. I want to keep the spirit of fun, camaraderie and great support of those four months last summer to help me and hopefully many others complete the challenge of walking 1000 miles in 2015.
Do you want to join me in this challenge?
Please leave me a comment below (I will need to approve all new comments to stop spam getting through unfortunately) and sign up in the box on the side of the page, so that I can send you updates.
This is a brand new blog and I am still in the process of setting everything up, so if things don’t quite work the first time, please let me know and I’ll try to sort them out. This is definitely a work in progress!
I would love to hear from you, whether you are going to take up the full challenge or you just want to enjoy Walking with Friends.
Well done on starting on this blog and an even more so well done on starting on this challenge… I am also going to do this challenge this year, like you I want to get fitter this year, I am already quite fit, but there is lots of room for improvement… I shall look forward to reading your experiences on your blog.. good luck with your challenge you can do it… we both can do it .
Thanks Jan. The idea behind this challenge for me was that it would be fun and maybe slightly quirky.
I have tried to keep New Year’s Resolutions in the past, but if they are too serious or competitive it has proved to be much more difficult.
I love the idea of meeting new poeple and making new friends through this as well as finding new places to walk.
With this in mind I am sure that we, and many others, can do this. I look forward to it all!
Well done for this blog Hilary, it’s a great idea. I shall certainly follow it with interest and, hopefully, it will inspire me to walking further this year than before.