Saturday 21st March

Due to Wednesday's blister shenanigans, I decided to skip Friday's 5 mile walk. I knew I had to do 8 miles at the weekend and didn't want to risk making the blister really bad and missing the longer of the two walks.

This weekend I am visiting my mum for Mothers Day so I decided to do the 8 miles on the Saturday once we got here, leaving Sunday free for family duty as we were going out for a meal with my mum and grandparents.

I plotted an 8.4 mile walk on walkjogrun, going along a lot of the roads I used to travel to and from college a good few years ago, and through some of the housing estates that my friends used to live on, I have to say, not a lot has changed in 10 years. Before I set off, mum decided she wanted to come with me. She goes on a few walking holidays but they stroll around and have regular breaks. I explained that it was a power walk, I wouldn't be stopping and wouldn't be slowing down too much but she was adamant. To be fair, she kept up at a reasonable pace for the first half of the walk. Being in Derbyshire, there are lots of hills, some particularly vicious so that slowed me down anyway. Halfway round we went past a Tesco Express, which sits at the bottom of the steepest hill on the route. I bought myself a creme egg and when I got to the top, I ate it as a reward LOL.

Three quarters of the way round my mum really started to struggle. I had spent the last 2 miles walking, stopping, waiting for her to catch up and walking off again. Just after 7 miles we went up another hill and mum had to stop and have a rest. I suggested she rang for a lift, which she did and got picked up from where she stood. I zipped along the last 1.2 miles, and in the end I had done 8.9 miles. It took 2 hours 35 minutes, but considering I'd spent a large amount of time walking slowly, stopping and walking up killer hills, it wasn't too bad - but I would have liked to have completed it a bit faster. But it was nice of mum to come along, and for someone of 63, she did a damn good job to be fair.

When I got back I went in the bath and inspected the damage. I'd gone in my cheap trainers and TWO pairs of 1000 mile socks. But it appeared to do the trick. My big blister was sore, I aggravated a couple of the smaller ones, but I had NO NEW BLISTERS!!! I also worked out a way to stop me drinking too much water (I have a bladder the size of a marble), eat Polos. They are really refreshing in your mouth - definitely going on my survival pack for the night.