Nice reflections on Samaritans volunteering from a fellow blogger...
What's making me feel good today?: Coming out....: I’ve mentioned a few times that I do some voluntary work through in Falkirk on a fairly regular basis but I’ve never actually said what that...
About Me
- andrewalking
- Walsall, West Midlands, United Kingdom
- Fifty-something male re-discovering walking!
Sunday, 2 October 2011
Monday, 1 August 2011
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Sunday, 5 June 2011
We're Glad It's All Over...
Whooooops!
I've done it again!
And its a new “Personal Best” of......well it's still over 3 hours! But I'm just glad to have completed the
Great Midlands Fun Run!
Friday, 3 June 2011
Talk about the weather...
It's the weekend of the big event. Last Monday turned out to be a washout weatherwise. My walking practice was confined to a walk across town in search of some lotion for my mother. Four pharmacies had been unable to supply it and I was assured that the town's largest retail chemist would surely have it in stock....in fact there was none on the shelf, but eventually the pharmacist remembered seeing a soltary bottle somewhere in the back stock room. So not an entirely fruitless journey!
Sunday, 29 May 2011
Don't Panic
Only a week to go till the big day, and I just haven't done the preparation at all this year!
Admittedly I haven't felt too well for the last few days (getting better now!) but that doesn't really explain the rest of the time.
Being a bank holiday weekend I thought that, freed from the usual Sunday afternoon preparations for the week at work (which will be delayed til Monday!) I might have a bit of a walk today - well I suppose I did have quite a walk, but it was along the corridors of our local hospital, accompanying my poor old mom, who was suffering terribly with an allergic rash. I hope that, combined with a bit of up and down the loft ladder will suffice. Meanwhile, I learn that my co-participant brother has been out for a six mile run today!
During the week, the Fun Run pack arrived - this years number, timing tag etc. Really no pressure!
Seen the doc again this week - reminded him about my foot pain, and he noted that the anti-depressants had little effect....not depressed feet then!!! Can anything else be done .? Well I'm now booked in for a fasting blood test, and while I recognise the value of being screened for diabetes, this actually seems like more of carry out a standard test to rule out common diseases and doesn't seem to have much to do with investigating my specific symptoms. At least the blood pressure has settled down now (didn't tell the doc my medication had run out the previous weekend, and I had had only one dose split between two days at the start of the week, and nothing for the last three days!
My plan for this week? Well maybe I'll squeeze a little walk in tomorrow...For the rest of the week, apart from my gainful employment, I've set myself the task of providing half a dozen little flower displays for the Samaritans Centre to mark Volunteers Week which starts on June 1st, and doing two Information Events for potential volunteers, so I suppose my "training" will be more cerebral than physical.
A week from now, the Fun Run will have been and gone. I am certain I will complete it - I simply have to!
Admittedly I haven't felt too well for the last few days (getting better now!) but that doesn't really explain the rest of the time.
Being a bank holiday weekend I thought that, freed from the usual Sunday afternoon preparations for the week at work (which will be delayed til Monday!) I might have a bit of a walk today - well I suppose I did have quite a walk, but it was along the corridors of our local hospital, accompanying my poor old mom, who was suffering terribly with an allergic rash. I hope that, combined with a bit of up and down the loft ladder will suffice. Meanwhile, I learn that my co-participant brother has been out for a six mile run today!
During the week, the Fun Run pack arrived - this years number, timing tag etc. Really no pressure!
Seen the doc again this week - reminded him about my foot pain, and he noted that the anti-depressants had little effect....not depressed feet then!!! Can anything else be done .? Well I'm now booked in for a fasting blood test, and while I recognise the value of being screened for diabetes, this actually seems like more of carry out a standard test to rule out common diseases and doesn't seem to have much to do with investigating my specific symptoms. At least the blood pressure has settled down now (didn't tell the doc my medication had run out the previous weekend, and I had had only one dose split between two days at the start of the week, and nothing for the last three days!
My plan for this week? Well maybe I'll squeeze a little walk in tomorrow...For the rest of the week, apart from my gainful employment, I've set myself the task of providing half a dozen little flower displays for the Samaritans Centre to mark Volunteers Week which starts on June 1st, and doing two Information Events for potential volunteers, so I suppose my "training" will be more cerebral than physical.
A week from now, the Fun Run will have been and gone. I am certain I will complete it - I simply have to!
Sunday, 22 May 2011
Oh Dear!
The plan to really beef things up with a walk longer than the Fun Run on the third "training session" really fell apart when Steve fell down some steps having drunk, he says, only enough to stop himself trying to save himself, which probably means that he didn't break an arm in the process. He was pretty sore, but better now and walking the canal towpaths. Me, I've really let things go, though a week off work when we had extra insulation put in the loft provided quite a bit of exercise carrying things up and down the loft ladder - that loft was really full and it all had to come out .... and a lot of it had to go back in again!
So I'm really doing much less than last year - on the other hand, I've proabably remained more active, and I'm following my doctor's advice to shed a little weight. I did manage that "walk to the supermarket" thing yesterday!
Talking of the doc, he decided to try treating my foot pains with anti-depressants! I'd never heard of it, but looking up on-line it is a known treatment, though not what the drugs are licensed for. There's been a lot of guffawing about depressed feet, yet I think it does have some effect, like toning down a feeling of feet being clamped in a vice to one of feet being bound up very tightly (Think old skool Chinese style).
The treatment is still under review anyway, as is the blood pressure management - a medication change has relieved the ankle and foot oedema caused by the previous régime but that didn't make any difference to the way my feet felt - which is how we got to the antidepressants (it's a lower dose than used to treat depression), ironic that as someone who does have to cope with what I think they call "mild to moderate" depression, I've definitely had the least depressed winter for many a year, and feeling quite buoyant at the time when I was put on those pills. Now I've swapped the oedema for a return to the Renaud's which precipitated my last change of blood pressure medication. I've reported the return of my "cold hand", which was quite rapid when I swapped to the new tablets, but neither the doctor or pharmacist at my current medical practice seem to think its anything - I haven't mentioned the R word to them - I assume its in my medical notes - they are thrown off the scent perhaps by the fact that I exhibit the symptoms asymmetrically, which is less common (who wants to be common?!) but known. Well for the moment the weather is warm so the symptoms are not too extreme and I'm trying to help by reducing my caffeine intake. I do like coffee and drink a fair bit, especially at work, so I now make the biggest part of my coffee drinking decaffeinated.
Well, you can see now why I've blogged so infrequently - I suppose I could change the name to "Walking and not walking" Still the Big Day is a whole two weeks away! (Gulp!!!) I will be there, I will walk, I will finish!
So I'm really doing much less than last year - on the other hand, I've proabably remained more active, and I'm following my doctor's advice to shed a little weight. I did manage that "walk to the supermarket" thing yesterday!
Talking of the doc, he decided to try treating my foot pains with anti-depressants! I'd never heard of it, but looking up on-line it is a known treatment, though not what the drugs are licensed for. There's been a lot of guffawing about depressed feet, yet I think it does have some effect, like toning down a feeling of feet being clamped in a vice to one of feet being bound up very tightly (Think old skool Chinese style).
The treatment is still under review anyway, as is the blood pressure management - a medication change has relieved the ankle and foot oedema caused by the previous régime but that didn't make any difference to the way my feet felt - which is how we got to the antidepressants (it's a lower dose than used to treat depression), ironic that as someone who does have to cope with what I think they call "mild to moderate" depression, I've definitely had the least depressed winter for many a year, and feeling quite buoyant at the time when I was put on those pills. Now I've swapped the oedema for a return to the Renaud's which precipitated my last change of blood pressure medication. I've reported the return of my "cold hand", which was quite rapid when I swapped to the new tablets, but neither the doctor or pharmacist at my current medical practice seem to think its anything - I haven't mentioned the R word to them - I assume its in my medical notes - they are thrown off the scent perhaps by the fact that I exhibit the symptoms asymmetrically, which is less common (who wants to be common?!) but known. Well for the moment the weather is warm so the symptoms are not too extreme and I'm trying to help by reducing my caffeine intake. I do like coffee and drink a fair bit, especially at work, so I now make the biggest part of my coffee drinking decaffeinated.
Well, you can see now why I've blogged so infrequently - I suppose I could change the name to "Walking and not walking" Still the Big Day is a whole two weeks away! (Gulp!!!) I will be there, I will walk, I will finish!
Tuesday, 26 April 2011
Back to the Chase
Easter Monday found me revisiting the Cannock Chase walk that we undertook last year. We started from a different point this time and may have actually gone a bit further, taking a scenic detour to avoid some road-walking. It was a warm and sunny day, and in fact today I'm wondering if the bad headache I've had all day is from too much sun, or maybe exposure to a lot of tree pollen.
Last year this walk was our final warm up before the main event, and I'm wondering if it was wise to do so much so early. I'm certainly moving stiffly today, and my partner says I'm banned from entering any more Fun Runs! The terrain, I think is perhaps more hilly than the Fun Run location.
There were plenty of people out enjoying the bank holiday weather - walkers, runners, horse-riders, canal-boaters and some people splashing about in the river - its either the Trent or one of its tributaries that runs past Shugborough and the Haywoods (Great and Little).
We were walking I think for over three hours, so I'm guessing we won't be smashing any records on June 5th!
Last year this walk was our final warm up before the main event, and I'm wondering if it was wise to do so much so early. I'm certainly moving stiffly today, and my partner says I'm banned from entering any more Fun Runs! The terrain, I think is perhaps more hilly than the Fun Run location.
There were plenty of people out enjoying the bank holiday weather - walkers, runners, horse-riders, canal-boaters and some people splashing about in the river - its either the Trent or one of its tributaries that runs past Shugborough and the Haywoods (Great and Little).
We were walking I think for over three hours, so I'm guessing we won't be smashing any records on June 5th!
Monday, 18 April 2011
First Steps
At last the day of the London marathon arrived. So what, I thought - I'm off for a couple of miles walk around Sandwell Valley!
We met brother Steve on one of the car parks. It was a great day, bright, warm and dry. This was pretty much the same walk we did to start off last year, but where we had a choice, say of going one way round a pool or another, we tried to do the opposite (if we could remember) of what we did last year - nothing if not adventurous!
The walking is reasonably easy - proper paths, the ground is dry anyway, there are some slopes, but nothing too steep. However, by the end of the walk I'm moving noticeably slower that the pace I started out at.
As we arrive back at the car park we hear a terrific thud! closely followed by another. Coming out from among the trees we see a three vehicle shunt on the lane. It looks as though the first car stopped for some cyclists and pedestrians crossing between two car parks. A woman in the third car, which has the worst damage gets out and the air turns blue with her voluble cursing of the first driver. I know, as someone who isn't as nifty and nimble as in my youth, which driver I would prefer to be bearing down on me if I was crossing there!
By the end of the day I'm foot- knee- and hip-sore, yes after just a couple of miles walk. Next day I'm weary and stiff jointed. There's some way to go yet!
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Ooops! I've done it again...
I probably should know better but I've gone and signed up for the Great Midlands Fun Run again!
Once more Walsall Samaritans will benefit from my efforts to get round that 8.5 mile route - and just to leave you in no doubt, it will definitely be at a walking pace!
After last year's event, my brother Steve asked - "Do we keep on with the walking?" I replied that I thought we would, perhaps once a month......so a month after the event, we did go for another walk - I can't remember where!
Since then.......
Well, you know how it is....good intentions and all that!
But here we are, we've both registered again and tomorrow is scheduled for the start of our "training" and we plan to repeat our trip to Sandwell Valley which started the big build up last year. If it is a day like today, it will be perfect walking weather - bright and clear and not too warm.
So I'll be digging out the walking shoes and the knee supports, and the Walking Poles will see action again (probably incognito at this stage - Pawel and Kamil haven't yet decided whether they will be making any guest appearances this year).
So I hope its all going to be worthwhile - I've got of to a good start with a generous £20 donation and about £4 raised through "Give as You Live". If your reading this and would like to help me turn my leg-work into money for the Walsall & District branch of Samaritans, please click through to my fundraising page - if you're unable to make a donation, you can still help by doing some searches or online shopping from my page - the good folks at Everyclick collect money for the cause from the sites you visit - even if you're not shopping every two searches you make earns a penny for the charity!
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