2004-09-04 - 12:29 p.m.

Well, I feel sufficiently recovered to share with you the nightmare that was my latest attempt at raising my fitness levels. I am still suffering, I can barely walk and my dogs are still looking at me as tho I'm the biggest bastard that ever dared litter the face of this planet.

Where shall I start? This is quite humiliating to share really, especially as one of my on-line friends is dead fit and has walked up mountains and the like in far away places. Basically, my friend Fit Lynne works for the local Tourist Information Centre and loves to go for long walks. Fine. Great in fact, I'll come and my dogs'll LOVE it. We got a cartoony map which gave us directions for the Sunshine Trail - 12 miles of bridle paths, disused railway lines, cycle paths etc etc. taking in the sunniest parts of the Island.

We went on Thursday and figured it would take us 4 hours tops. Lynne had to be back around 5pm anyway as Thursday was also Ryde Carnival and she was a part of the procession (in an enormous spider costume). We drove to one of the start points and set off. It was a beautiful day and we walked along chattering and pondering on how beautiful the area was. We said hello to cyclists, other walkers and stroked dogs whilst marvelling at the flora and fauna. By the end of the walk we had fallen into a miserable silence with Lynne walking on ahead with my fit dog and me trailing miserably behind with my fat, stupid dog who had felt the need to collapse and lie in a giant muddy puddle when we passed the pig farm. I didn't think he would get up again and had visions of me having to try and carry him.

I think that one of the problems was that it was indeed a Sunshine Trail - there was no shelter from the heat. I took 2 bottles of water which I had to ration and share with 2 dogs and they just lapped it up whenever they had the opportunity. My feet had started to hurt a bit after 4 miles which is bloody NOTHING! I've walked farther than that pissed and in heels when I lived in the West Midlands - AND THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN UP HILL!

I really don't know what went wrong.

Lynne had a pedometer on which told us how far we'd walked. At 6 miles we made a detour and stopped for drinks at the only real area of life we'd pass. We were still happy at this point altho I could feel that my feet were starting to suffer and couldn't imagine having to walk the same distance again to get back to the car. We set off and my feet had seriously started to complain. Every step was an agony yet I carried on. The dogs had slowed right down too, I think that they were suffering from the heat.

By the 7 and a half mile limit we were lost. The trail signs were shit and the map had been designed by a feckin' cartoonist and didn't actually explain very much. I felt that we'd gone wrong in an area called Wroxall when we were forced to walk along a country road with no pavements and traffic whizzing past at all speeds. I was seriously miserable by now but we got back onto the proper track after asking some bloke where the old railway line was.

Then we got lost again.

Lynne decided that we had to climb a hill. I collapsed and after a bit decided that I had to walk barefoot in order to utilise different parts of my feet. It worked for a while until we hit gravelly bits again and I had to put my shoes back on. We came to another main road. I admitted that I couldn't carry on. My will stretched to 12 miles and knowing that every step had taken me closer to my destination kept me going. Unfortunately we were now lost and the 12 miles was out of the window. It might be further than that back to the car, who knows?

Here's the most shameful bit.

After 6 hours and on my say so, we walked along the next pavementless fast road until we came to a landmark. From there I called Phoe to get me a taxi and when she found one that would take dogs I lay in dirt at the side of the road until it came for us. We'd only completed 11 miles.

I had to physically lift my dogs into the back of the taxi and when we set off, the fat stupid one (Roswell) couldn't even sit and collapsed onto the floor leaving one leg sticking up like a flag pole. Lynne made it home just in time to rush back out to attend the carnival parade but I think that I've infected her with my inherent laziness and she thought 'fuck it' and stayed home. She's not usually like that.....

When I got home I couldn't walk and had a bath. I've got 3 enormous duck egg sized blisters on the flat of my feet which is still making walking painful. The dogs stiffened up after they'd rested and were walking around the house like extras from the doggie version of the Thriller video. I took them for their normal walk yesterday in the park and they were still slow. I was walking like I'd cacked myself and then fell down a feckin' hole which has caused me to have painful knees and wrists now too.

Great innit, this keeping fit lark? Phoe is never going to let me live this down. Having to get a taxi home from a simple country walk. It really is too embarrassing, especially as we didn't actually walk very far.

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