JOGLE Week 1

226.7k (mostly) along the John O’Groats Trail

Well that was quite a week! It was immediately preceded by a rather unusual prologue in the form of a drinks reception at the DFE to meet (no longer shadow!) Education Secretary Bridget Philipson for about the fourth time as well as the heads of Ofsted and the NEU. Plus I got to meet the most prolific teacher on social media, Mr P. Mingling done, I hot footed it to Ollie’s house where I exchanged my suit for running gear and backpack, then headed into London again to catch a train to Rugby.

When I woke up at my brother Jon’s house, I felt pretty tired and still a bit sore from surgery. But I would soon discover that this was barely registering on the exhaustion scale. There are different kinds of endurance and the sitting in a car kind is not my forte. But I had to get used to it as we were in for one hell of a road trip. We pretty much ate our way to John O’Groats including the hearty indulgence of giant sausage rolls from Tebay services. To recover from over ten hours of driving, we continued the feasting with a big hotel dinner and I guess that was me starting as I meant to go on. One more sleep until showtime!

Except – of course – nervous energy stopped me sleeping. But nonetheless the first day of the big National traverse had arrived. After some obligatory photos, we took to the trail, which was great – at least when it was a trail and not horrendously overgrown or downright nonexistent. We made slow progress on a planned 25 miles and cut out a chunk of headland by taking the A9 to the northerly town of Wick, where Jon cycled over an hour into the wind and back to his car at the start. I got us fish and chips and that feast was the most welcome of the weekend, which Jon finished by driving back home. His was quite a mission to accomplish, because without the impetus of a lift, I’m not sure when I’d have got started.

The shooting pain in my side was definitely receding on day 2 and despite the huge backpack full of stoma supplies, I broke into a run a few times. But I stopped for a bit to talk to a bird spotter braced against the wind opposite a really exposed cliff arch. Apparently most the nesting pairs had given up on summer and flown somewhere warmer. But I suppose those are pretty good conditions for running, even if it’s a recipe for shin splints.

It’s true my shins were complaining as was a  slowly developing blister on my smallest left toe. But my legs started to get used to the effort as on day 3 I took to the roads to avoid another nonexistent costal path with river crossings and barbed wire fences. But that meant I’d have to do a lot of pavement pounding and traffic dodging. This was fine but I soon realised that a shorter walking stride means more steps and ground contact time, which all equated to pretty bad foot pain. Most long distance walkers will recognise this. I guess it’s the cost of doing business and covering the distance easily enough to not be wiped out the next day.

It was useful I’d resolved to conserve energy because I met up with the local rowing club courtesy of Laura who mobilised friends and family to provide three nights’ accommodation and a lot of people to talk to…in addition to me agreeing to go out in a boat and repeatedly heave an oar through the water…twice!  But it was actually fine and using the tired leg muscles in different ways didn’t feel too bad.

After the rowing village of Golspie, the trail turned inland to country lanes and forest tracks and after a couple of stunning bridge crossings, I found myself in Inverness. It did matter that the last two miles were through an industrial estate. I’d made it and I celebrated with a huge pizza.

I’d kinda hoped this experience would return me to my ultra slim runner’s build but no – if anything, it’s going the other way. I’m trying to console myself that this means the cancer has probably not aggressively returned with the symptom of unexplained weight loss. I’m definitely not wasting away!

More takes of food and footsteps in another week or so!