The Isle of Wight Challenge Walk : Part 4

June 15, 2021

We are thrown a lifeline, then I suffer a blow!!!

So what has a picture of the side entrance to Spire Hospital Portsmouth that heads this post got to do with the IOW Challenge Walk 2021??? you may well wonder. In part 3 I wrote about how worried I was with the coronavirus restrictions imposing a drastic limit on the recreational time of both myself and my daughter. That limit permitted around an hour in the open air, which equated to around 3.3 miles per walk at my pace. Not really the kind of mileage that will fortify you for the 65 miles that we had signed up to do. I also wrote that it was my wish that the date of the Walk could be delayed until later. If this were the case it would have allowed us more time to get back onto the sort of training regime that I’d had in mind when I first had the idea of taking on this challenge back in 2020.

Well my prayers were answered. The event date did get moved back from May 1/2 to the weekend of July 10/11 and the restriction on the 1 hour recreation time was also lifted. Mathematicians amongst you will quickly deduce that this gave us a precious 10 weeks to get back into a training programme that would have a target of at least 1 walk of 25 mile length before July 10.

To commence this programme of getting back into ‘shape’ I planned an easy starter of 6 miles on March 21, which was the first time my daughter and I had been out together since December 31 last year. The walk passed by ok which we both had hoped would be the case. The following week I went out one late afternoon (Mar 25) for a 1 hour walk. Less than 30 minutes into this walk I began to feel a more intense than usual pain in my left knee’s LCL (lateral collateral ligament). Instead of heading straight back home via the shortest possible route I persisted in completing the 3.3 mile route that one hour’s walking equates to at my relaxed pace. Because it is after all quite a short distance I made it back but the ligament really did ache. In fact shortly afterwards it seized up. For the remainder of that evening I had to rely on a walking stick to get around the house.

LCL Problems

I have had some problems in the fairly recent past with the lateral collateral ligament (LCL )ligament. During the past 6 years or so it has seized up on five occasions. On each of these occasions the condition flared up with little or no warning. However for a number of years I have been aware that after walking for several miles an ‘ache’ has built up in what I used to refer to as the ‘stringy’ ligament (which I now know is referred to as the LCL) that runs down the back of the knee joint along the outer edge of each knee. The ache has always receded a couple of hours after walking. I had never sought any kind of medical treatment for this. Instead I’ve shrugged off the problem hoping it would somehow go away. I was worried in the lead up to the Camino in 2019 that this could be a potential problem and should have sought medical advice before embarking upon it. But I didn’t. In fact I never had any mobility problems whatsoever on the Camino. Incredible? Lucky?..but True!!! But since the return from the Camino all my walks have been affected to various degrees by this ache in the LCL ligaments. Though I was always able to complete all of them, none have felt comfortable. But after the ligament seized up, as described above, I did what I ought to have done years ago and signed up with an orthopaedic knee consultant. Time to take my head out of the sand and face up to reality. At this time of writing I have had two consultations with him. The first was on April 16. There was a follow up consultation on May 25. Both of my knees were comprehensively X-rayed just before this second consultation. To cut a longish story short the outcome is that the X-rays do show the onset of some age-related arthritis and that for both knee joints there is somewhat less cartilage at the inner part than the outer part.

And so….???

Despite these revelations the consultant doesn’t as yet see any reason whatsoever to prescribe any kind of invasive medical intervention. Instead he is pleased with my progress over the last couple of months and recommended that I continue with the muscle strengthening exercises that I started doing after left knee ligament seized up. The exercises are specifically aimed at treating the IT band syndrome. But I have found them to be quite effective for relieving, albeit temporarily, much of the ache that builds up in both of my LCLs at various times. In fact he wished me well for the forthcoming IOW Challenge Walk!!! But he did say ‘listen to your body…and don’t kill yourself doing it….and use walking poles.’ Hmm wise words indeed.

The radically amended training plan.

At this moment of writing there are 4 weeks and 2 days remaining until the start of the Challenge Walk. Yesterday’s walk was almost 4.2 miles in length. It has taken me since the seizure of the ligament, at the start of April, to push the distance out to this quite modest length. At least there have been no repetition of the intense pain that I felt back then. The ligament especially the left knee still aches at times more than I would like though. Especially considering the magnitude of the challenge that lies not too far ahead. It’s all a matter of degree. During the time that still remains I am intending to increase the distance by 0.2 miles every second day, which should get me up to around 7.3 in that penultimate week. My constant worry is that if I do too much it may trigger another seizure of one or both ligaments and all the slow but steady recent progress will be reset to zero. There was a time when I thought I might not even make it to the Start Line. I

have been out walking twice with my daughter very recently. On one very recent occasion the total mileage was just over 9.3 though we did have a refreshment break at the halfway point. From reflections on this fact there was born a new idea!!! If I am currently able to do 8 miles without too many problems, then why not treat the entire walk as a series of 8-mile walks. Eight 8-miles almost tallies up to 65! In fact given the situation I’m in it’s probably the only way of approaching the challenge that gives me the remotest chance of a successful outcome. It looks like it’s all going to depend on how much the knees will be able to repair and recover at the eight rest stops that are provided along the Walk.

We get the details of The Walk, finally….

The organisers of the Walk have now released details such as our start times (08:00) on July 10 and where the eight refreshment stops are located along the route. Because of the restrictions and delays this year the Walk has undergone a couple of substantial transitions. It now has a different start/finish location than has been the custom. But in my opinion the biggest change is that it is being walked in an ANTICLOCKWISE manner. It has always been done clockwise! The immediate practical consequence of this is that the first refreshment point is 9.4 miles from the start, the second refreshment point is 10.2 miles beyond that one. But after that the next three occur at less than 8 mile intervals. Such is life!

Having these details allows me to amend my strategy slightly. In the time that remains I am going to undertake walks of 5 miles length during the week and a walk of 10 miles (which will consist of two 5 mile walks with a half hour break in between each one at a café or pub) on one of the weekend days. In this way I hope to be accustomed to the distances that separate the first two refreshment points. If we are successful getting to the second refreshment point (which is almost 20 miles from the start) in reasonable shape I then hope that this achievement will be a massive confidence builder for the rest of that walk. After all there’ll only be 45 miles left after that! Tee Hee!!

2 comments

  1. Comment by Cindy Villanueva

    Cindy Villanueva Reply July 11, 2021 at 9:22 am

    I wish you and your daughter the best!!

  2. Comment by Cindy Villanueva

    Cindy Villanueva Reply July 11, 2021 at 9:47 am

    Importantly, enjoy you walk with your daughter!! I hope for beautiful sunny weather!! Build beautiful memories of you and your daughter!! I hope you both have lots of laughter and and smiles!!!

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