Best boots, calorie counting, frustrating forecast and rear reducing, not necessarily in that order

(The calories and the rear are not necessarily connected in this particular post!)

The frustrating forecast forced my favourite friend and I to forego our foray into the fresh air until next week, if the forecast is more favourable.

(On a roll!)

The slippery, slushy conditions have caused me to concentrate considerably on every step, thus producing a rear reducing regime.

(I’m bored now.)

I have also been spending time on subjects more Challenge related.

I am determined to wear my Merrells on the Challenge next May, but every day I walk in my Brashers and I love them so much, I am expecting a little wobble come D day! Every day I put them on and it’s like the bestest, comfiest slippers. They are just my favourite footwear, but I know there’s a good chance of a repeat mega blister on my tricky heel, so I must wear my Merrells, equally comfortable, lighter and they will dry more quickly in any wet conditions I ‘might’ encounter. Merrells it must be. But I do love my Brashers!

(I feel disloyal.)

Calorie counting has become a little bit of an obsession. Not from a rear reducing point of view, I might add! After my Challenge in May, I realised I had a couple of days, well, a few maybe, when my mood had been affected by ‘something’. As I thought about this in more detail, I realised a common theme.

The first day I’d noticed a downer was day two, the day dear Hugh enquired as to how my day was going and I burst into tears!

“Do you have any chocolate? Eat chocolate!” was his advice and whilst I had initial misgivings, he was, of course, proved correct as my mood improved.

Half way through day five, I suffered another downer, just as I met David and my replacement rucksack. The reaction of my TTS? to feed me. Mushroom soup, Baby Bel, fruit salad and Jaffa Cakes. A short while later my fighting spirit had returned (although, initially it was a determination to prove my shoulder hurt too much, ahem) and I strode off into the distance, a spring in my step.

Our arrival at Tarfside was another obvious food failure day, despite having stopped for hot soup at lunch, along with my lunch staples. We stepped into the teeth of the storm with renewed vigour, but didn’t have shelter enough to snack on the way and arrived at Tarfside decidedly droopy. The mug of hot soup thrust into my hands to warm them soon filled the hole in my tummy before I launched into my evening meal which perked me up.

So, I have been looking more closely at my body fuel and decided it is lacking, but finding the right things that I might fancy and eat (rather than lug across Scotland because they’d be good for me) is proving tricky. I’ve currently totted up 2323 Kcals per day weighing in at 1.579kg for two days, plus the next day’s lunch and snack. So I’m still working on another 700 Kcals per day, preferably without adding too much to the grams!

It’s important though, so I’ll not be skimping. Maybe just imaginative.