I meant to post this last night but eventually I realised I was both cold and too unfocused to upload the pictures into the post and went to bed instead. But here you are, a slightly frustrated rant about not really being able to do much and pictures from a lovely walk.

I haven’t been running. I haven’t been doing a lot of things. I don’t know whether I have long Covid because I don’t know if I had Covid but I have something. I can do some things but I can’t do all the things. I am getting better at the HIIT sessions and definitely feel fitter for the short burst exercise. I can work a full week, I can even write a little. I can cook and do house stuff, I can read for pleasure and I can go for walks, do yoga and file my admin crap and sort of vaguely function as an adult. What I can’t do is all of that in any sort of consistent way.

I was doing quite well with the fitness stuff. I managed the workouts and some running. Then I went back to work and also had to deal with stuff and my system put the brakes on. I can hear my inner self screaming, well whimpering really, ‘stop, too much’. I have activated my brain again and that feels really good but energy is finite and using energy for brain power stuff takes it away from other areas. Rest becomes an imperative and I have never learned to properly pace myself through a day or a week. Finding a balance between rest and exercise that is calibrated to a very flighty system in hyper-vigilant overdrive is not easy. I realised that I can’t do the Body Coach App 5 sessions and run as well at the moment. I sort of thought I’d prefer running and drop the HIIT sessions accordingly but I’ve felt vulnerable out running, anxious. So I have stayed in and done the sessions. I have also realised that sometimes it is tempting to do sessions on several back to back days. But then it suddenly hits me and I feel exhausted. Maybe 2 days on, 1 off is a better pattern for me right now. Maybe. Today was a workout day and I had every intention of doing it but we went for a walk. It was 5 miles and lovely but it felt much much more tiring than just walking 5 miles. I feel so physically tired after that but it’s too soon to go to bed because my brain is still too active.

We have talked about exploring the footpaths round here ever since we moved in over 15 years ago but we always stick to our same routes that became routine for one reason or another – the route to Kath’s Mum’s, running down to the canal to make use of the flat, the sheep fields where we had our flock, the road up to the moor for the curlews and lapwings and the moor to the stanza stones and trig point via the grumpy grouse. Familiar. But random. So today we went for a walk to explore a footpath loop I have never been on and Kath has been on once, long before we met even. The first mile was just up the hill as if we were heading for the moor but then we turned off following a footpath sign down a track. And we stuck to that track through a farm and followed it until we came to a point where a sign told is that we had to decide whether to keep following it or take a path through a wood on the edge of the glen. Part of the reason for walking this route was to see if it would be runable for Kath and as it was clear the track would be, we went for the wood option.

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It was a lovely trail, slightly undulating and skirting the edge of the glen. You can’t get lost, you just follow the path which is clearly well used although we didn’t see anyone else. Kath had her OS map app open on her phone to see how well it worked and it was actually really fun to see where we were and remind ourselves what things look like on a map. We did miss the original turning (or rather we followed the track and turned when we shouldn’t have done) that was the original route plan but the way we went was actually much more fun. Well into the wood we crossed a little stream with a little waterfall using a little bridge that was less than confidence inspiring and then continued along the woodland path which eventually brought us out just above Sunnydale Reservoir. I had no idea it was even there. I didn’t much like the look of the steps going down to it, they were a bit ‘steps of doom’. Ok, I am being dramatic but they looked in urgent need of some TLC and by TLC I mean rebuild. In spite of the washed out steps we made it safely down. There was someone else enjoying the tranquility and solitude and there was another walker behind us just approaching the steps as we had got down so we didn’t linger.

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We picked up the track again and noted the point at which we would have come out if we had chosen track over wood earlier. Useful to know for another adventure. The track took us through fields and would have been a lovely stretch of the walk had it not been for loads of dead rabbits. There were loads. It seemed particularly disturbing because it felt like someone had hunted down all the world’s easter bunnies. Hm. They must have been hunted or poisoned or something. The track took us to a road at the edge of East Morton. Instead of heading towards the village and home that way, we turned sharp right and up another track, a grass road, called, according to the app, wait for it, yep, Grass Road. It was clearly a well used bridle path and was actually the track we had meant to come down on when we originally decided on what route to walk. We followed it all the way back up to the farm at the start of our adventure and then back onto Ilkley Road. We stopped frequently to watch the lapwings and curlews or just stand and listen.

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As we were out and about having adventures we decided we would check out a footpath we keep missing. We have a footpath at the back of our house which opens into fields and then goes up through a farm and up a road to the main road but we know there’s a footpath that runs up the hill from the farm earlier and would therefore allow us to cut off some of the main road. We just weren’t quite sure where exactly it goes through the farm. As we were coming down the hill, we decided to track it from that end which would make it easier to find and show is where it came out on the farm. Once you know it is actually really easy and obvious! The path took us down through a couple of fields with sheep in and it was lovely to see the lambs bouncing about. Once through the farm we were in familiar territory and on the home stretch. We stopped to watch more lambs and then made our way through the fields and onto the path that took is straight to our back gate. It was a lovely walk.

Lovely as it was though, I felt absolutely shattered. Walking not quite 5 miles with lots of stops to look at things and at a very leisurely pace seemed to have completely tired me out. I haven’t done anything since we got back. I feel physically tired but mentally in over drive. It’s odd and I’d like it to stop.