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Like most things, it started with an idea. And like most ideas, it was a good one.... At the time.
I had spent the last year managing a pub in the centre of Nottingham, and had six weeks holiday to take that year. I didn't want to go away anywhere, because I hardly had a penny to my name and besides, I was supposed to be saving for my next travel adventure.
And then the idea came. I'd always like the idea of walking the Pennine Way, the 268 mile long path that connects Edale in Derbyshire (just up the road) to Kirk Yetholm, just over the Scottish border. It seemed like a perfect way to have some time off work, transfer my responsibilites from a big building open to drunk members of the public to an average sized backpack, and see some of the more pleasant areas of the country before leaving it for several years. Along the way I could get in shape and, it turned out, put the lean on my friends and customers to raise some money for a local charity group.
So I got on the phone and recruited Karim - he of the journey around Europe fame. Surprisingly enough he was all for it - perhaps I wan't explaining it right.
Before we knew it, we were set. The time off work was booked, the sponsorship forms were filling up nicely, and the brewery I worked for had bought me a brand spanking new backpack.
The more I read about the Pennine Way, the more I scared myself. You see, we were going to be camping the whole way, as to book into Youth Hostels or B&Bs would blow our miniscule budget straight away. So we were to be carrying our tent, cooking equipment, sleeping bags, food, kithen sink, on our backs up and down dale.... According to what I had read online, this was a practise advised only for 'experienced walkers'.
Now, if I have given you, the reader, the idea that I was an experienced walker then I apologise. At the time we were planning the trip I was overweight, drank too much, smoked 40 a day, and considered getting a taxi from one point in Nottingham's small city centre to another point a 'conservation of drinking time'.
So I hit the gym. Four, sometimes five times a week for six weeks. And I hate going to the gym. You can't smoke there, you get all sweaty, and what's worse is they charge you £40 a month for the priveledge.... I wish I could have been one of those people who got a buzz out of it but I wasn't. It was horrible. The only satisfaction I got was that within two weeks I was noticebly fitter. During my first session I did hardly anything and after my first session I felt like I wanted to die. Then I ran my first mile on the treadmill without throwing up blood... Then I ran three miles... And so on. The fact that it was working kept me going back. That, and the fact that I had raised over a grand for charity on the condition that I actually completed my journey....
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