January has come and gone and I’m now about 12 weeks away from starting the Skye Trail. I’ve been really busy this last month though – losing weight and getting fitter, in preparation for what is likely to be quite a tough week walking the length of Skye.
As followers of this blog will know, I struggle with my weight – always have done and I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I always will. I’ll never have a six-pack, rather I strive to achieve a party-seven and be fit underneath the blubber. I started the month at a rather embarrassing 20st 1lb – almost the heaviest I’ve been since I started losing weigh back in 2004/05 – but a combination of strict food intake and regular walking has dropped that to a more acceptable 18st 7lb.
In order to achieve that I’ve been restricting myself to about 1100 calories a day – made up of a balance of fat, protein and carbs and I’ve walked as often as I can. I totted all the walks up yesterday and I’ve done 106 miles in January. Most of that has been lunch time or early evening training walks of about 4 or 5 miles, but I’ve also been out every Saturday in January doing some longer walks with hills in them.
The result is a much slimmer and fitter feeling Lone Walker, with a platform to continue the weight loss and the fitness increase. I now feel much more confident about being able to complete the dreaded Trotternish ridge.
Getting blown about on Birks Fell
I’m also looking into a number of day walks for the second week of my stay on Skye – perhaps with a couple of days on Raasay and / or Rum. I won’t have my brother for taxi driver in the second week, so I need to choose circular walks or incorporate a bus service into the route. If anyone has any ideas on day walks then please let me know. I’m looking for semi-challenging walks of up to 15 miles. I don’t consider myself technical enough to take on the Cuillins, but I do fancy tackling Bla Bheinn and Glamaig, both appear to be relatively accessible.
I’ve ordered a couple of books from Amazon that include day walks on the island; the first one is:
- 50 Best Routes on Skye and Raasay by Ralph Storer and the other one is:
- Isle of Skye: 40 Coast and Country Walks by Paul and Helen Webster
The first one seems to be an older publication with some quite challenging walks in, it also includes a couple of walks on Raasay which is useful. The second book seems to be the most popular book on Amazon for walks on Skye, so I’m a little worried it may be full of tourist bimbles rather than proper hill walks. I may post a separate review for these books.