Day 1: Muff to Greencastle (15 miles)

It started like any other except much, much earlier.  Alarms are never a pleasant way to wake and this one rang at 03:30am. There was no lounging about  - we had to be on the road by 4. Stanstead was heaving with half term travelers. We boarded the flight and then we waited for what felt like an age. It probably wasn't, but I was anxious to get on.  My husband, Tim, came with me. He's staying with me tonight and heading home tomorrow. Then it'll be just me, my rucksack and the road.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous.

Tim dropped me in Muff some time after 10am. The nice thing about having a support car is that I didn't have to carry a heavy backback.  I brought a much smaller one to carry some essentials and Tim's hire car did the heavy lifting. I'm so glad that I was able to do that because today was the first day that I walked 15 miles in the same day ... and it really hurt. The first part of the journey went very well: the road was wide and flat and the scenery was amazing. Then the road got narrow and twisty and was almost entirely uphill. It was busy and the traffic was going very fast. It was hard going.On top of that there was literally NOWHERE to stop.  I had to keep walking the whole way to Moville which was 20km (12.5 miles) down the road. Tim texted me that he was already there (having had a drive around to the route). I texted back that I was nearly there and then my battery went flat.  By this time my legs were aching, the blister on my big toe was screaming and my back and left shoulder were in a lot of pain. Even though it was small, the backpack I was wearing was really aggravating my spine so as I walked I was listing off the things that I had in my big backpack that I could live without. Tim is going to be going home tomorrow with a few more things than he came with.  Thankfully the design of my big backpack is excellent and I'm hopeful today's issues won't repeat - especially if I get the weight down. As I write this I'm close to falling asleep so apologies if it's a bit flat. Tomorrow  will be brighter!

Arriving in Moville, desperate to sit down and take the backpack off I went on a hunt for a public phone box so I could find Tim, who of course, had no idea I had a flat battery. Surprise, surprise -when I found the public phone it was vandalized so I had to wander around the town trying to find my husband.  On my second run up the main street I spotted the car. The relief!! Finally sitting down, eating and drinking and more importantly, going to the bathroom! After having a delicious seafood chowder and a long cold drink I headed back to the road to do the final 4km. Thankfully the road was wider and I felt a lot safer. Greencastle was the most welcome sight of the day. It was hard work but I am so proud of myself.

Now even though it was really tough in the end, I don't want you to be under the misapprehension that is was all difficult.  There were loads of positives: #1 Our hire car man was the friendliest, most helpful man in Ireland. Not only did we get an upgrade, he told us where we could buy a good breakfast and then gave me the number of a cabbie for my return to Derry airport next week.  #2 Along the way the sun came out, the biting, cold wind eased off considerably and the sun on Lough Foyle was magical.  #3 I met an old man - probably well into his 80s - who was repairing a dry-stone wall.  He smiled at me marching along and wished me well and we both agreed that being out on a day like today was an absolute joy.  And finally #4 the scenery ...

Donegal is beautiful.



Total miles to date: 15 miles.

Oh You Guys!

I have the loveliest of friends. This week I have received so much love and encouragement. It gives a girl the warm fuzzies I tell ya.  Whether it's going for walks with me, sending me hiking 'clothes', bathing me in Reiki, calling round for tea with a gorgeous card to wish me well, giving me lots of messages on Facebook or doing ridiculously adorable things like this ...

                



I love you guys.  You're the best.



I have the loveliest of families.  I have the most generous and supportive husband in the world (no really - Science says so - I have a science degree so I can say that!) who has gone above and beyond the call of duty in ensuring I am ready to take on this challenge.  He's had to interact with Windows 8.1 this week which was a great sacrifice I can tell you.  We now know all the swear words and how to use them in interesting combinations. And of course there's my children who are cheering me all the way and stepping up to do there bit so that I can go gallivanting around the wild and windy western half of Ireland.

I love you guys.  You are the best.

So tomorrow it all starts.  Hold onto your orange ponchos!

Nothing done but still pretty chill.

Two days to go and still counting.  I still haven't made a proper list although I have added sun screen and moisturiser to the vague one in my head.  There are bits of equipment and whatnot all over the place and none of my laundry has been done yet.  Ryanair reminded me this morning that I need to check in. So much urgency!

I'm sure it'll be fine.  Last week the internet tried to convince me they'd be snow - this week it's saying blue skies. It doesn't matter.  I have a superwarm coat if it snows and I have a ridiculous Hi-viz poncho if it's pissing with rain.  I have spares in case I get soaked and I have lovely places to stay along the way to warm up and dry off.  So there's no need to panic.





Remind me of that tomorrow.

T Minus 3 and Counting

Three days to the kick-off of my walk.  I'm flying out at the crack of sparrows on Saturday morning and I should be standing at the outskirts of Muff (...so many jokes...) at about 9am, ready to begin.  I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm not even remotely ready.

I've actually walked less in the last week that I had been doing beforehand. I've been walking faster and I've been increasing my fitness but just not as much as I'd hoped. But hey! It's all good! I'm going to make up for that next week.  Next week it's going to be all about the journey. All other distractions of normal life will be left at home and it'll be just me and the road.

And possibly severe Atlantic winds, lashing rain and the odd chance of snow.  Possibly. To date the weather forecast is only confident that it can't predict with any accuracy.  What I can be sure of though, is that the normal Irish weather conditions - i.e. four seasons in every hour - is likely to be the order of the day. 

So waterproofs and warm layers will be my constant companions. I will take pictures to share with you.  With any luck and a following wind we might even get a little sunshine!

Getting to the foot of the matter.

Feet are weird.

I don't much like the look of them (they can be horribly ugly - unless you're a small child, in which case they are utterly adorable). Mine are especially sensitive: they're quite small, they hate any form of heel on footwear (they pretty much hate footwear actually), they blister ridiculously easily and they don't seem to have a setting that's between freezing and boiling. My biggest hurdle in preparing for this walk was to make sure that I kept my feet happy.  If my feet aren't happy then the rest of me is miserable too. The thing is, they are soft - like a baby's - which is why they blister at the slightest thing and they quickly go back to being soft again once the blister heals. This is not good when you have to walk for 15 miles a day.  You need gnarly, hard, calloused skin. You need to be tough and resilient. You need the kind of feet that make people say: "For F%&K"S SAKE! PUT THEM AWAY!" if they inadvertently catch sight of them, say - on a beach, or some such place that the sight of the naked foot would not be unusual. I actually, for the purposes of this walk, want that.  Of course if they ever did become like that, I wouldn't be able to look at them myself because they'd make me want to puke.

So far I've done alright. A few of the blisters that have appeared there have developed into callouses. I'm proud of them. They are a symbol of my hard work and perseverance. Luckily I can't see them unless I manipulate my foot, so my dinner is staying put for now. The heel on my right foot though is proving to be a bit of a nuisance.  I think it must be its shape. All shoes rub on it and I have had to resort to wearing blister plasters* (like Compeed (the link is for information only- not for advertising)).  These work remarkably well but my heel isn't toughening up.  I decided to go without yesterday and the result was red and raw and nasty so the blister plaster went back on again.  It's not cheap keeping me in plasters but they are as much a part of the necessary kit I need as are waterproofs and walking shoes.  Without them my sensitive feet could scupper the whole trip.

Which would be annoying and a bit of a weird reason to bail.


* A plaster is often referred to as a Band Aid in other parts of the world but actually Band Aid is a trademarked name for a plaster. I just thought I'd throw that in there for the purposes of global clarity. You're welcome.

Shit Just Got Real.

Well going public was so exciting I couldn't get to sleep last night.  So obvs I couldn't get up this morning and my plan of setting out at 7:15 to walk to work and then walking home again this afternoon was ditched.  That's the thing about walking - it takes bloody ages. So if you've got to be somewhere by a certain time, you really do have to leave promptly.  Dragging yourself bleary-eyed out of bed at 7:30 won't cut it.  I managed to get three miles on the treadmill done before I had to leave but it was a frustrating way to start the countdown to Day 1. Must. Do. Better.  I will try to get 5 or 6 miles done on the treadmill this afternoon and then by golly it'll be an early night for me so I can get a proper road walk in tomorrow!

It's all getting a bit real now. During the day time I find myself making mental lists, day dreaming, strategising ... well, you know the drill.  Then I go to bed at night and the lists get longer and even when sleep overtakes me, weird and anxiety-inducing dreams wake me up at 4:30 am (why is always 4:30?).  The thing is, I'm not actually worried.  I'm really looking forward to it. However clearly the reason my demeanour is so chilled out and stupidly enthusiastic is because my subconscious is doing all the heavy lifting during my REM sleep.

There's so much I won't really know until I start - for example: How much of a factor will the weather be in how far I can walk comfortably in a given day? Donegal in February could be pleasant and spring-like or it could be howling gales and driving rain or worse still - snow.  I've decided to plan for the worst and expect the best.  Seems like a good strategy.  When I decided to go in February I also decided that I was going to stay in comfortable B&Bs and not take my camping gear.  I'm a wildly optimistic person but I'm not a feckin' eejit. The walking might be harder going at this time of year but knowing there's going to be a warm bed, a hot shower and somewhere to dry myself off will keep me going. Experiencing the amazing landscape and the music and craic of the county is going to be the icing on the cake.

And so it begins...

Last August I was looking at pictures of a friend's holiday in Ireland on Facebook. She was driving around the Wild Atlantic Way, a newly launched driving route that runs the entire length of the West of Ireland - from Donegal in the North to Cork in the South - and the weather was fairly foul. The thought occurred to me that all that beauty could be missed as you sped by in a car and wouldn't it be better to walk it.  It was an idea that seeded itself in my mind and grew and took hold of me and I was unable to shake it. I found myself pondering on how plausible it would be to take off from my life - my job, my family and home - and go for a really, really long stroll.  I mean it's 1500 miles long.  How long would that take?  How many miles would I be able to walk in a day? How many days could I walk in a row? Where the hell would I sleep? I started looking at websites, measuring out distances on google maps, daydreaming about what it all would involve. I figured out it would take four months.

The more I thought it through, the more I realised that for the first time in twenty-one years, since I had my first child, that I might be able to wangle it.  I could take a sabbatical from work. My kids were old enough to take a sabbatical from me. I knew my husband, who is awesome, would support me. I actually could do it. But on my own? Now I had doubts.  So I broached the subject with two of my dearest friends.  Maybe we could do it together? Alas taking four months out of your life is not easily managed.  Maybe we could just do a bit together? Or cycle it for a week to cover more ground? But I wanted to walk and I wanted to walk it all.  

So I started to go for hikes across the South Downs gauging what it did to my body (in particular my feet!) and slowly building up my fitness. I'm 49 and overweight and haven't done much exercise in ... well, donkey's years, and every attempt at fitness - running, cycling, even yoga - resulted in injury. So I took it slowly and carefully. I started to buy equipment. I got a tent for my birthday, a backpack for Christmas. I bought base layers and hiking shoes and waterproofs and fleeces. I went for walks - lots of walks. At first I'd have to have two hour hot baths in epsom salts afterwards - just to be able to move again. Every muscle ached. My body creaked. I sweated (and not in an attractive glowy way - rather in a pink-faced, swollen, looks-like-I'm-having-a-coronary way. But the weirdest thing happened - I LOVED IT!

I'm not sure when I made the actual decision to go. It just sort of morphed from an idea to reality by osmosis. Telling my family back in Ireland and getting permission to take the time off work made it concrete. I was doing it.  I AM doing it. This year. I'm going to walk 1500 miles around the western coast of Ireland.

These are the stats as they currently stand: I figure it'll take 16 or 17 weeks to do, walking 15 miles a day, 6 days a week. This is an optimistic estimate. I'm an optimistic kinda girl. I'm also practical, so I've built in a bit of contingency for getting knackered or pissed off or wanting to take a week off and go home and hug my husband, my kids and the dogs. I figured I'd need to start at the beginning of May if I was going to be finished by September. The only problem with that was that the busiest time for my job was the first three weeks of May.  I couldn't just take those off. That's when I had the fantastic idea of doing the walk in stages. I have a week off in February and two weeks off over the Easter Break.  I can walk the first bit of my walk in two parts then do the rest from May 21st to the end of August. That's right.  I'm starting of my walk in the Inishowen Peninsula in the wilds of Donegal in FEBRUARY.

So there you have it. In just under two weeks it's all kicking off. The adventure will be unfolding here and on Facebook. I'll be sharing how I'm getting on with my training; what I'm hoping to achieve; my thousands of reasons for doing this, as well as raising a bit of money and awareness for a great charity: The RNLI. Please stop by and join me here as I wander. I'd love the company.