So this morning was a brisk 9km loop, trainers really helping with the briskness because their bouncy foot cushioning reduced knee tiredness. Walking without any distractions this morning – no phone, no headphones. It meant that I was much more aware of the mechanics of walking – I could feel the stretch and contraction of my hip flexors and the power to my stride that gets generated by my glutes rather than my calves. At times I could actually feel some of the misalignment across my hips which is what gives me sciatica and lower back pain.

Interestingly it was probably about 30 mins until I was relaxed enough into the walk to reach this level of body awareness. The first 20 minutes or so were taken up with a mind buzzing around lots of distracted thoughts. Things that need arranging, future plans, worries, hopes, practicalities. This is the stuff that you escape from by having a podcast on headphones – but then you don’t get through it and manage to reach that state of physical self awareness.

Sadly – for the last 20 minutes of a 90 minute walk it was raining. And cold. So physical awareness turned into just cranking up the pace-rate to get back into the warm and dry faster. Shame that my knees are so shot that I can’t run!