Change of Heart

"I ****ING HATE THE PARISH WALK!". Okay, this might not be the opening line you would expect from this blog but let me explain.

I have lived just off the course in Ballabeg for 20 years now and my first impression of The Parish Walk (PW) was for one Saturday in June every year, to be a nightmare to get to Douglas between the hours of 11am - 1pm. The naughties saw the participating numbers starting to swell which brought more support cars and hassle that made me squawk the opening line. I wince when I write this because it's the truth. I have a right to moan I thought, I am Manx! Then in 2010 the first seed was about to be sown. My wife Hannah and her good friend Wendy decided to enter the PW and targeted the 32.5 miles to Peel. On the day, I went up to the Round Table (cut up through Ronague to avoid the Sloc traffic) to give some encouragement before heading into Peel, to my parents, where I would wait for them to text to say they were a few miles out. What I didn't realise was that it was a tradition of my parents and auntie to go and sit in the church grounds, overlooking the Town Hall, to cheer the walkers coming in for a few hours. I thought okay and went down with my boy Sean. We were too late for the faster walkers but there was a steady stream coming through. I had a seconds thought of what time did I think I could get into Peel. It can't be that hard I thought but then again the furthest I had ever walked before was the 10 miles on the old railway line to Douglas. The pair of them came in just after 5pm and had walked over 9 hours. I remember feeling chuffed that they had achieved what they set out to do. There was no more mention or thoughts of the PW till 2013.....

I had played football for my home "city" of Peel (the Motherland) through the junior levels. After breaking my leg playing at 13 I was able to fully recover and achieved a long term ambition to play for the first team in the early 90s. I picked up a knee injury after a few seasons which I struggled to shake off and I decided to curb the football. This led to an increase in "socialising" which had replaced the regular exercise and inevitably the weight started to slowly but surely pile on over the years. Fast-forward to December 2012 and after talking about it for so long I enrolled in a football refereeing course so I could get back into the football. Shortly after passing the refereeing course, I was in a packed NSC pool just before xmas with Sean and out of nowhere he asked loudly "Dad, why are you so fat?". I chuckled, sucked up my pride and sunk under the water. A few days passed and the balls starting rolling around in my head "is that what my son thinks of me?". Okay, I will probably lose some weight when I do some officiating in early January. The idea was to enjoy the festive season and then get out onto the pitch but first I needed to dust off the trainers. After the first day back at work in January I had decided I would go for a run across the prom. I started opposite the former site of Summerland and did some half arsed stretches before putting in the ear phones, pressing play and heading off. The Empress hotel is where I got to before I was grabbing the railings and bent over nearly throwing up. The first song - "Wild Boys by Duran Duran" hadn't even finished. This song recently came on the car radio and instantly took me back to that moment. Tail between my legs, I walked off towards the Sea Terminal and then turned around and walked back to the car. During that walk the light switch moment had certainly arrived. If I can't run more than a few minutes how can I expect to run 90 minutes in a football match? It was a shock to the ego and a massive wake up call.

I put the refereeing on hold from the fear of embarrassing myself and contacted a friend, that had lost a significant amount of weight a few years before, for some advice. He told me "you need three things; a gym membership, myfitnesspal app and the rest of it is in your heart". So the next day I went to Carrefour got enrolled and set about trying to get fitter. I knew the first month or so were going to be tough but was dedicated enough to hit the gym for an hour each weekday morning at 7am before work. I also took a more healthy approach towards my food & alcohol intake. In the gym I hid away in the dark cardio room and hit the treadmill for the first few weeks. Running was proving particularly tough on my ankles due to my 17 stone frame and I can remember limping into work trying my best to mask the discomfort I was in. I then noticed one of the girls in the gym would walk a mile and then run a mile. I thought that is a good idea to save my ankles until I build some strength up. At the weekends I started to challenge myself to getting out in the fresh air and walking distances out of my comfort zone. The first walk was a 10 miler on a Sunday morning from my home in Ballabeg, up to the Round Table, then down into Dalby and onto Peel to finish at my parents. It was pouring down and cold when I set off and it didn't let up for the whole of the walk. I got to Peel with my joints starting to stiffen plus the onset of cramp in my calves. My parents had actually gone out which resulted in me sat on the doorstep in the rain until Hannah came to pick me up in the car. However, this didn't dampen my spirits as I was now starting to learn about the endorphin's and the feel good factor it was bringing to me. I found I was getting hooked on this new found life style. I would weigh myself on the last Friday of each month at the gym and was genuinely shocked after the first month a stone in weight had been dropped.

The next significant walk was when Hannah was playing hockey at Ramsey Grammar one Saturday afternoon in February. I thought it would be a bit of an adventure if I was to set off from home to walk up through the middle of the island and meet her up there so she could drive me home. I stocked up on food and some juice and headed out not entirely sure of the route to get onto the West Baldwin road up behind Crosby. Sure enough I took the wrong turn and ended up having to get directions from a farmer who instructed me to go across his field (part of the Millenium Way) which got me back on track. Heading up over the near vertical Injebreck and down through Druisdale towards Sulby Reservoir, I got blasted by a snowy winter shower as I was helping myself to my jam sandwiches I had rewarded myself. I still had about 7 miles to go and thought this is insane but the buzz I got literally had me laughing. The laughter was cut short as cramp in my calves was starting to set in big time when I got to Sulby Claddaghs. Then I nearly burst into tears as my phone ran out of battery and realised the whole journey wouldn't be tracked on endomondo! I was now about 30 minutes behind my estimated time to negotiate the 25+ miles. I crawled from Ginger Hall to Ramsey Grammar and collapsed at the car as the players were coming off the pitch. On the journey home, I was feeling good about myself and was thinking that I needed to research into making sure I wasn't cramping up next time. I started to realise these weekend walks were giving me a goal after the training I was doing in the gym each day. Paul Corris who has completed the PW a few times heard about the walk next day at work and said "if you enjoyed that, you should try the Parish". My initial reaction was to think no way, I enjoyed it because I was out by myself and not surrounded by loads of people. It took me a couple of days to realise that excuse was a cop out. I promised myself if I was going to enter, I would attempt to go the full distance. The entry went in and my thirst for knowledge about The Parish Walk began........

Until next week - keep safe out there.