Not long now...

I've returned to training after a weeks holiday in Salou with my family and came to the realisation that however prepared I am now is as prepared as I'll ever be for this years Parish Walk! I spent a lot of time whilst on holiday walking around the Portaventura theme park chasing after my daughters (with the occasional bit of pram pushing), so it wasn't all sitting in the sun and relaxing! I did feel guilty that I should have done some meaningful walking, but family time has been rare (with training and work) recently and I needed the time with my wife and girls before going into "Parish Walk Stress Mode" this week and next!

After getting off the place on Sunday lunchtime I fully intended to go out for a walk, but the pull of a BBQ and a cold bottle (or two) of strawberry & lime cider, I postponed it until Monday night instead. So after a manic Monday back in work, I donned my gear and hit the road to Laxey at a consistent, steady pace, this was due to feeling a pull in my groin earlier in the week (if anyone smirked whist reading that last bit, then you have the same sense of humour as me!). The walk was pretty uneventful on the outward journey, but on my way back to Douglas, I caught sight of another walker who was going at a good pace and I was letting him go past when he said hello and asked if I was Paul, the guy writing the Parish Walk blog (so there was one person reading the blog at least!). I said yeah and he introduced himself as Ed Walter (he'd written a PW blog last year, which I'd read to get my fix of the Parish after not entering in 2012). We had a chat and walked the route from the Queens pub to Lonan Church and he seemed to have the same sort of experience with his training (feeling bored and struggling to get motivated sometimes), I thought that it was just me, but maybe everyone else has felt like this during their training. The chat with Ed, although relatively brief, did me the world of good and highlighted the positive effect walking and talking with others can do to lift you and make the time pass more quickly (so wanted to give a big thanks to Ed for that).

I woke up this morning for work and walked into work and felt the previously mentioned groin pull, which I can still feel this evening. My dilemma now is, do I knock the rest of my training schedule on the head and rest as much as possible, or give it a day or so and then try to do a steady 10 mile walk? If anyone has any advice, then I'd really appreciate hearing it (particularly if you are a doctor or some sort of medical professional).

At this point I want to thank my family, and in particular, my very understanding wife, Emma. She has been great with sorting our girls out when I've been out of the house training for hours on end, I think I may have even seen her reading my blog tonight, so that should help my stats!

You may get these blogs a bit more frequently during the next two weeks as I will have a lot of weird and Radom thoughts that come with nerves and this will no doubt be my 'outlet', so I'll apologise in advance now.