In my wee intro for this blog, I mention the fact that I'm a bit of a frustrated hillwalker. The frustration is due to heel pains I get when out for any distance and which developed, quite suddenly, during a West Highland Way expedition. Despite lots of medical probing, no one has been able to diagnose the problem and/or some up with a decent cure or prevention. As a result, I've been restricted to the odd day walking and certainly no multi-day stuff.
However, my wife has signed up to do an Everest Base Camp walk next spring and I'm now helping her get fit and prepared, so we find ourselves out walking once or twice a week, covering 10-14 miles. I must say I've found the whole thing really rather enjoyable. A quick dab of Voltarol gel on my heels before we set off seems to delay the onset of the pain enough to get through the day and we're discovering little parts of the country we'd always overlooked in the goal to bag the Munros.
The Pentlands are on our doorstep, we've had a couple of lovely walks in the Moorfoots, a very "different" type of walk along the coast in East Lothian and today we were in the Lammermuirs. The latter were particularly impressive, with great tracks cutting over the hills and little off-shoots disappearing to goodness-knows-where. In fact, I've a funny idea I'm gong to be returning very soon - but on two wheels!