Big thanks, big walks, and big yawns.

Yesterday I went out on an 18 mile training walk. Not the longest I've done, but the longest in a while, s I thought I'd give you a bit of a blow by blow account of my day.

But first I want to say a massive thank you to my lovely best friend Linzi who made the day so much easier for me. You see Linzi decided to get a new mp3 player and, in exchange for the promise of an awesome evening out in the future, she decided to send me her old one.

He hasn't got a name yet (this one's a he - I can tell) so if anyone has got a good one, let me know.

Anyway, back to the training. Here's how everything happened.

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6.50am The alarm goes off. David has a scrabble tournament and I've decided to get up at the same time and set out early.

8.00am I'm back at the flat after walking with David to the newsagents and bringing back half the Sunday paper. I sit down at the laptop and start moving music files from my external hard drive onto the laptop then onto the lovely new iPod.

08.43am I log onto Twitter and make a comment about getting ready to leave the house for the walk.

11.15am I finally leave the house and walk over the road to the bus stop.

11.24am I get on a bus and pull out the Observer magazine to help the journey go faster.

11.48am I arrive at Grove Park station, travel sick from reading the paper, and start walking towards the start point for Walk Three of the Capital Ring. It takes 10 minutes. I start the first leg towards Crystal Palace with an obvious spring in my step.



1.19pm I can see the Crystal Palace transmitter! I get a bit over excited.

1.38pm I sit down at a bench overlooking Dinosaur Lake in Crystal Palace. I have a snack. It's a Delicatoboll. Suddenly I'm very happy that we went to IKEA on Saturday.

2.19pm I walk past a very posh house. There's an empty Ab Circle Pro box waiting to be picked up with the recycling.

3.09pm Amazing campervan. No badge on the front. Instead it is replaced by a Greene King IPA pump badge.

3.41pm I bring out the big guns and start eating honey to push me through the last few miles. No, seriously.

4.33pm I arrive at Wimbledon Park. The 18 miles are over. I've done it in good time and I'm grinning. I have to wait for a tube.

6.05pm I arrive at Lewisham station. My legs are starting to ache and I decide to get a bus back down the road. I pull out the Observer magazine for the journey.

6.09pm I arrive home, travel sick from reading the paper and aching all over. I start running a bath and make myself some squash.

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Reading that back I realise how uneventful this sort of walking is. I could have included all the times I started thinking about this twinge or that, or all the times I considered opening the honey earlier and then deciding not to, but it's barely interesting as it is. It makes you focus inward, notice every little ache in your body and random thought in your head. It basically makes you a bit boring. Sorry about that.

Motivation.

This week's training has been a bit of a struggle - a busy and somewhat difficult week at work left the motivation a little low. This is not the first week that this has happened but this week I learned how to cope with it and, eventually, get over it.

On Saturday I had a 12 miler scheduled. I had my route worked out, and was all set to go, but my mind was not on the task and I wasn't exactly looking forward to 3 hours alone with just me and my thoughts. So I did something that I probably shouldn't be doing. I binned the walk.

Instead, I indulged in a little bit of stretching and pilates and then went out for a quick 4 miler.

By Sunday I was feeling a lot better. My lovely husband, David, lent me his iPod and I completed the 12 miles. In fact, it turned out to be a beautiful walk as I travelled from Lewisham to Crystal Palace, then back home via Dulwich and Crofton Park. The hills were rather steep in places, but I bounded over them quite happily.

Yesterday I was rather stiff and, perhaps foolishly, attempted my usual Monday 4 mile. Not having a day's rest was A Bad Idea and I cut the walk in half. Feeling bad about this, I jumped on a train at London Bridge and sped home.

Then, as I was unlocking my front door, my phone rang. It was a woman from the hospital that looked after me when I tore my PCL a couple of years back. Apparently they want to show my leg off to some students as I have 'a really interesting knee'. Puzzlingly, she wasn't able to tell me what was quite so exciting about it, but my knee is basking in its new-found celebrity today.

Mission Control? This is Katy speaking.

To help me visualise the task ahead, I've started turning my kitchen into Ward Walks London: Mission Control.



As you can see, that's one big map. I've started adding what I think are the most important points of the walk to remember...the toilets... Soon I'll be adding things like hourly targets and volunteers. More on that later.

In actual walking news, I'm back up on my feet and out on the road. Yesterday was a perfectly beautiful day and which helped the 9 miles fly past. Could do with some more weather like that to help the training.