Walking will return to my life in 2013

After an absence of many years I plan on reacquainting myself with an old friend, Hill Walking.

Before the kids arrived it was an integral part of my life. Holidays were planned around mountains and wilderness areas. Long weekends were planned in advance to include Irish or UK mountains and almost every weekend included a trip to the hills, indeed when the nights were brighter, we would often squeeze in a midweek walk or two.

The arrival of family life coincided with a number of personal injuries that led to the abandonment of regular mountain forays. I can't blame it entirely on the kids, because some of our walking buddies managed to do everything in the hills with their kids, except give birth. Anyhow, I plan on getting back there this year.

So, on the 7th of January Operation Transformation kicks off in Wicklow in the Grand Hotel at 7pm. I'll be there along with a few friends. I'm not a kid anymore, so I plan on returning to the hills as part of an overall package of wellbeing activities.

I've been training with the Wicklow Hockey Club since September, it has worked wonders for my core strength. I have noticed a huge reduction in the amount of back pain I've suffered from. Unfortunately my experience with hockey has exposed another weakness, I'm about as flexible as a cast iron pipe, I don't bend, I tear, so I need to work hard on that, so I can keep up the hockey.

Also I wouldn't like to tear a hamstring on the hills, at least on a hockey pitch is is just a short hobble to the car and home. On the hills things would be different. So my walking plans will begin with trail walking for the first few months.

Hill walking puts different pressures on muscles than running or playing hockey. Hill walking is a bit like weight lifting for your legs, since you will probably spend a fair bit of your time going uphill. It builds strength and endurance, but little in the line of flexibility. Running is less focused on strength and a bit more flexibility, while hockey, with its sudden bursts of speed, turning and dodging calls for everything.

Hopefully Wicklow's Operation Transformation Group will be able to help me build my platform properly and help me to avoid injuries. Unfortunately, in my fifties, injuries take a bit more out of me than in the past and they take a lot longer than I think to heal. I've already experienced the futility of going back into training too early. I'll not want to do that again, it is such a waste of time.

As an appetiser, I did a few walks during the run in to Christmas. I enjoyed them. I'll post to Facebook when I plan on doing a walk, let me know if you are interested. Walking in groups is much more fun. Sometimes the faster members can be held back by the slower members, but over time the slower ones will pick it up a gear. If there are enough of us, we can always split the group into fast and slow anyway.

By the end of 2013 I plan on being able to trail run and mountain walk. My fitness goals for the year apart from being able to play a full hockey match will be a 10k trail run. I have the route already picked out. Maybe 10k is not ambitious enough, but it is always easier to change your goal when you understand it better.

That's it for now. I have no immediate plans for walking as I'm still dealing with a dose of an apparently genuine flu. But I plan on scheduling a walk for the weekend after next. The walk I'm thinking of is Zimmer Frame Friendly, so there can be no excuses.