I didn’t even have to peek outside to tell the weather was absolutely horrendous on Sunday.
The rain was battering the house from all angles and a wild wind whistled ominously down the chimney.
Under normal circumstances, I might’ve accepted that this was a day to stay indoors and curl up on the sofa with a book and a mug of coffee. But how could I, in the knowledge that the Yomp was just a matter of weeks away?
Up to this point, the weekend hadn’t yielded much in the way of exercise. A trip to Aberdeenshire on Friday night had killed off any chance of walking, and while I’d slotted in a quick hour’s march through a conifer plantation and across some manure-spattered fields on Saturday, that was pretty much it.
The plan, all week, was to do something fairly substantial on Sunday. So it had to happen.
Digging out my warm gear and waterproofs, I headed back to Backwater Reservoir in Glen Isla, a walk which had been scuppered by snow and a hangover in April.
At eight or nine miles, it’s not exactly an ordeal, but it’s a decent leg-stretching jaunt.
Parking up, I crossed the dam and walked up the east side of the reservoir, all the while battling against horizontal rain. Once I’d turned the corner, there was a bit of respite, and I began to enjoy the experience.
The fields skirting the reservoir were dotted with cute wee lambs, and it was a joy to watch them leaping and springing.
The route passes woodland and a byre ringed by a wall of stone before reaching Glenhead Farm and then a derelict cottage.
I then squelched about in a marshy bit of land in a hollow – a test for my Salewa walking boots, which they passed with flying colours – and crossed a rickety wooden bridge to reach the other side.
The path from this point wasn’t clear but eventually I joined onto a more obvious rutted track which ran through woodland and came out at the north end of the reservoir, by which time the sun had deigned to come out.
It’s a tarred track all the way back to the start, passing a wooden fishing hut and a house.
It took a little over two and a half hours to complete the walk, which is a far cry from the five hours Yomp personal trainer Yolanda Gratton had recommended I aim for. Ah well, never mind. There’s always another weekend.
Alas, I’m not convinced I’ll be doing too much walking this weekend as I’m away down south to a wedding – in other words, a three-day extravaganza of eating and drinking! We’ll see…