First day of a long walk.

Miles: 15.5

Elevation gain: 3373 ft

We woke this morning to glorious sunshine which our hostess was quite surprised by. So we also shared in her surprise. Sunny and cool.

Lots of people have asked me why. Why would we hike 100 miles in five days. It seems crazy. Sometimes I say that Brits love walking holidays. And it’s true, they do. But our reason is a bit more complicated I’d say.

When a person grows up with a lots of chaos, their body becomes accustomed to it. It gets in our being. One of my favorite books The Body Keeps Score talks about this. Our biology actually changes to accommodate chaos. And then we have trouble resting, being. We overwork. Get chronic illness. We become anxious. One way to heal is moving your body. When I asked Ric to do a long walk it was because we both individually and together were at a place. First, you don’t even notice the chaos held in your body. Then you know it’s there, but decide there’s nothing to be done about it. And then, you decide to do something about it. Long walks is what we decided to do to do something about it.

To learn to be, rhythmic, slow and quiet while we walk. To notice each other’s patterns and be with them. To learn to rest. Can we say we’ve done it? Well, today is the first day of our long walk. We have been training since April. Of course it changes things. And that cannot be bad. And over the long term, it can only enhance. No downside.

Tonight we sat next to a couple who walk. They were probably in their 80s. They’re doing the same trail we are. They passed us today about 3pm and then walked two extra miles to our pub. I just hope we we still walking when we are in our 80s.

The beginning of the Pennine Way in Edale.

A few miles in we crossed a packhorse bridge that was used during medieval times as part of a salt and cheese transport.

We submitted three peaks today, around 1900 feet. Not so much a peak but hills. The highlight was really the ruggedness and variety of terrain we covered. None of it was easy. Through the peat bogs on floating stones, through creeks and across the moors. It was a 16.5 mile day.