Today was a bad day. I think I gained a little insight into some tired American football clichés – “Play through the pain,” and the admonition to running backs “Just worry about the next first down – not the next touchdown.” During most of the day I was in excruciating pain. I’m not talking about extreme discomfort – I’m talking about sharp pains that literally brought tears to my eyes at times.
The day started quite well. I woke up comfortably at 7 AM and took another shower and an Aleve. I am sure that I won’t have this luxury the next few days when we will all be sharing rooms and bathrooms. We came down for a fantastic English breakfast with corn flakes, bacon (what we would call Canadian bacon), an egg sunny side-up, sausages, buttered toast, marmalade, and coffee. It was delicious and filling. If you ever do the walk, this is a B&B I would heartily recommend. Since our “Ironsign B&B” was down the Hadrian’s path about two miles from our starting point for the day’s walk, we took a cab back to the Houghton North Farm Bunk Barn where everyone else was staying. We realized that we could just leave our backpacks at the B&B and pick it up as we walked past the place two miles after leaving for the morning. When we got back to the Houghton North Farm, we were given our packed lunches. One of the other walkers, Jo, offered to carry my lunch pack since she had her backpack. I agreed.
I got separated from the group barely fifteen minutes into the walk for the day. Archie, my walking companion reminded me that we were fast walkers and that I may not want to get too far ahead of my lunch pack. I agreed and decided to wait for Jo and my lunch before catching up with him. I stopped and waited as all the different walkers went by me with no sign of Jo. About 20 minutes later, she came by with a small group. Unfortunately, her water pack was leaking and they had to stop and fix it. I took my lunch from her and walked on. About twenty minutes later, I walked by the Ironsign B&B and picked up my backpack. By this time, I was at least a mile behind the others (except Jo and her group). It didn’t take me long to realize something was wrong.
As I was walking, I was getting increasingly concerned about my left foot. Right along the left outside edge of the foot was a progressively sharp pain with every step I took. I tried to “shake it off,” but it kept getting worse. About an hour into the walk, I was starting to wince with every step I took. Another mile later, I was wondering if I was going to make it. The pain just kept getting worse and I was noticeably limping by this time. Every step sent a sharp pain along my foot. Within another half hour, each step was sending a sharp pain up my leg. By 11 o’clock, I was in such unbearable pain that I occasionally had tears fill my eyes. I just decided to focus on taking one step at a time. I had fleeting thoughts of calling a cab, calling off the walk, finding a ride to the next destination, etc. I really couldn’t imagine how I was going to walk all the way in this excruciating pain. But, having no choice, I just kept going. “Walk through the pain,” I told myself. I tried different gaits, different limps, transferring all the weight to my right foot, etc. Some of these tricks worked for a while but the pain always came back. I dreaded stopping because it would mess up some gait that was working.
I had decided in the morning that I would stop for lunch at 1 PM. At about 12:45, I passed by a bench and decided to stop and was just about to take my backpack off when I glanced at my watch and saw it read “12:46.” I thought it would be cheating if I stopped early (and it would make my post-lunch walk longer) and so decided to soldier on. “Walk through the pain …” I finally ran into Dan and the rest of a fairly large group at The Errington Arms, a nice looking pub. I stopped for lunch and asked Dan for a bandage. I took off my shoes and thought that if I bound my left foot tight with a bandage, it may help with the pain. So, I tried to bind my foot as tightly as I could. Dan had a map and during their conversation, I discovered that not only were we still about 8-9 miles away, but that our B&B was quite a bit outside of Walwick (pronounced “Wallick,” of course). Apparently, it was a lot more than 16 miles we had to do today.
The packed lunch was actually quite excellent – egg and tomato sandwich (It’s tom-ah-toe, not tom-aye-toe), lemon drizzle cake, sausage pastry, an apple, and orange juice. I ate lunch, drank a diet coke, and I popped two ibuprofen before setting out again after about a 25-minute break. It was still extremely painful. I just wanted to get to the destination. I think it helped that I walked alone all day – I would have had a hard time not complaining about the pain if there was someone to listen.
I also encountered my first chunk of the wall. All along, we’ve been following the “Hadrian’s Wall Pathway,” but have seen very little of the wall. Finally, I encountered a nice 15-foot section of the wall that was marked. I tried to set up the self-timer and took a few photos. I think I tried to smile – but given my foot pain, I don’t know if I managed it.
The scenery was beautiful. It varied from vast meadows and fields of grain dotted with sheep to picturesque trails through some woods. I tried hard to enjoy the scenery. It wasn’t too bad since the scenery changed every now and then – it wasn’t constantly changing. So, I had enough stretches of the same view that I could put my head down and make progress (that’s all I was
focused on). The pathway goes through many, many pastures that belong to private owners. So, there are a variety of “styles” of turnstiles – most of which need to be climbed over. And, it isn’t always an easy climb. There are sometimes as many as four or five steps down from the turnstile you’ve just climbed. At one point, I had to walk right past a bull that was sitting on the path. I was nervous because there was a story about a lady doing the walk recently who was killed by a bull. She was walking with a dog that barked at the bull and it charged.
Unbelievably, by about 4:30, the pain in my foot turned into a dull ache. This actually helped a lot. The sharp pains were much worse. I think my foot was so swollen that the shoe was acting as a sort of tourniquet that helped ease the pain a little. Or, it may have taken a couple of hours for the ibuprofen to really kick in. At one time, I was going downhill and discovered that the pain went down as I speeded up down hill. After that, I actually started running down every down slope so I could make some painless progress. Any points where the pain was down, I would speed up.
I finally made it to the Greencarts Bunk Barn at about 5:30 PM. Given the long out-of-the-way walk to get to this place, it should have been better. This is really rustic. The barn where we are all staying is, well, a barn! It just has a bunch
of bunk beds moved into the barn. When I went for a shower, the water just stopped after ten minutes. Since I was still covered with soap, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I found that if I turned off the water for about 30 seconds and quickly turned it back on, I would get one quick spurt of water. Since I just wanted to get the soap off, I did this several times and managed to get most of the soap off. I then went into one of the other bathrooms and used the sink to wash out my socks and underwear. My T-shirt of the day gets left behind here. I really should have brought some flip flops. It’s a pain to get my shoes on every time I need to walk to the bathroom (which is in a neighboring building). If you’re ever on Hadrian’s Walk, my advice to you is to skip Greencarts Bunk Barn.
It wasn’t all bad. Dinner was actually quite good. But then again, when you’re that hungry, anything tastes great. There’s a tiny TV on a table here (the picture keeps disappearing every now and then), but the crowd is watching the Netherlands play Uruguay in the World Cup semis. We have two Dutch walkers in the group and one of them, Arjan, has brought a flag and even painted his face. The mood is good now as Holland is up 1-0.
My foot isn’t hurting at all now. But every time I get up from the chair my knee hurts and my entire body aches. If anyone needs to know that I am suffering through this walk for a sense of schadenfreude, they can smile now.
I bet tomorrow will be a better day.
The day started quite well. I woke up comfortably at 7 AM and took another shower and an Aleve. I am sure that I won’t have this luxury the next few days when we will all be sharing rooms and bathrooms. We came down for a fantastic English breakfast with corn flakes, bacon (what we would call Canadian bacon), an egg sunny side-up, sausages, buttered toast, marmalade, and coffee. It was delicious and filling. If you ever do the walk, this is a B&B I would heartily recommend. Since our “Ironsign B&B” was down the Hadrian’s path about two miles from our starting point for the day’s walk, we took a cab back to the Houghton North Farm Bunk Barn where everyone else was staying. We realized that we could just leave our backpacks at the B&B and pick it up as we walked past the place two miles after leaving for the morning. When we got back to the Houghton North Farm, we were given our packed lunches. One of the other walkers, Jo, offered to carry my lunch pack since she had her backpack. I agreed.
I got separated from the group barely fifteen minutes into the walk for the day. Archie, my walking companion reminded me that we were fast walkers and that I may not want to get too far ahead of my lunch pack. I agreed and decided to wait for Jo and my lunch before catching up with him. I stopped and waited as all the different walkers went by me with no sign of Jo. About 20 minutes later, she came by with a small group. Unfortunately, her water pack was leaking and they had to stop and fix it. I took my lunch from her and walked on. About twenty minutes later, I walked by the Ironsign B&B and picked up my backpack. By this time, I was at least a mile behind the others (except Jo and her group). It didn’t take me long to realize something was wrong.
As I was walking, I was getting increasingly concerned about my left foot. Right along the left outside edge of the foot was a progressively sharp pain with every step I took. I tried to “shake it off,” but it kept getting worse. About an hour into the walk, I was starting to wince with every step I took. Another mile later, I was wondering if I was going to make it. The pain just kept getting worse and I was noticeably limping by this time. Every step sent a sharp pain along my foot. Within another half hour, each step was sending a sharp pain up my leg. By 11 o’clock, I was in such unbearable pain that I occasionally had tears fill my eyes. I just decided to focus on taking one step at a time. I had fleeting thoughts of calling a cab, calling off the walk, finding a ride to the next destination, etc. I really couldn’t imagine how I was going to walk all the way in this excruciating pain. But, having no choice, I just kept going. “Walk through the pain,” I told myself. I tried different gaits, different limps, transferring all the weight to my right foot, etc. Some of these tricks worked for a while but the pain always came back. I dreaded stopping because it would mess up some gait that was working.I had decided in the morning that I would stop for lunch at 1 PM. At about 12:45, I passed by a bench and decided to stop and was just about to take my backpack off when I glanced at my watch and saw it read “12:46.” I thought it would be cheating if I stopped early (and it would make my post-lunch walk longer) and so decided to soldier on. “Walk through the pain …” I finally ran into Dan and the rest of a fairly large group at The Errington Arms, a nice looking pub. I stopped for lunch and asked Dan for a bandage. I took off my shoes and thought that if I bound my left foot tight with a bandage, it may help with the pain. So, I tried to bind my foot as tightly as I could. Dan had a map and during their conversation, I discovered that not only were we still about 8-9 miles away, but that our B&B was quite a bit outside of Walwick (pronounced “Wallick,” of course). Apparently, it was a lot more than 16 miles we had to do today.
The packed lunch was actually quite excellent – egg and tomato sandwich (It’s tom-ah-toe, not tom-aye-toe), lemon drizzle cake, sausage pastry, an apple, and orange juice. I ate lunch, drank a diet coke, and I popped two ibuprofen before setting out again after about a 25-minute break. It was still extremely painful. I just wanted to get to the destination. I think it helped that I walked alone all day – I would have had a hard time not complaining about the pain if there was someone to listen.
I also encountered my first chunk of the wall. All along, we’ve been following the “Hadrian’s Wall Pathway,” but have seen very little of the wall. Finally, I encountered a nice 15-foot section of the wall that was marked. I tried to set up the self-timer and took a few photos. I think I tried to smile – but given my foot pain, I don’t know if I managed it.The scenery was beautiful. It varied from vast meadows and fields of grain dotted with sheep to picturesque trails through some woods. I tried hard to enjoy the scenery. It wasn’t too bad since the scenery changed every now and then – it wasn’t constantly changing. So, I had enough stretches of the same view that I could put my head down and make progress (that’s all I was
focused on). The pathway goes through many, many pastures that belong to private owners. So, there are a variety of “styles” of turnstiles – most of which need to be climbed over. And, it isn’t always an easy climb. There are sometimes as many as four or five steps down from the turnstile you’ve just climbed. At one point, I had to walk right past a bull that was sitting on the path. I was nervous because there was a story about a lady doing the walk recently who was killed by a bull. She was walking with a dog that barked at the bull and it charged.
Unbelievably, by about 4:30, the pain in my foot turned into a dull ache. This actually helped a lot. The sharp pains were much worse. I think my foot was so swollen that the shoe was acting as a sort of tourniquet that helped ease the pain a little. Or, it may have taken a couple of hours for the ibuprofen to really kick in. At one time, I was going downhill and discovered that the pain went down as I speeded up down hill. After that, I actually started running down every down slope so I could make some painless progress. Any points where the pain was down, I would speed up.I finally made it to the Greencarts Bunk Barn at about 5:30 PM. Given the long out-of-the-way walk to get to this place, it should have been better. This is really rustic. The barn where we are all staying is, well, a barn! It just has a bunch
of bunk beds moved into the barn. When I went for a shower, the water just stopped after ten minutes. Since I was still covered with soap, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I found that if I turned off the water for about 30 seconds and quickly turned it back on, I would get one quick spurt of water. Since I just wanted to get the soap off, I did this several times and managed to get most of the soap off. I then went into one of the other bathrooms and used the sink to wash out my socks and underwear. My T-shirt of the day gets left behind here. I really should have brought some flip flops. It’s a pain to get my shoes on every time I need to walk to the bathroom (which is in a neighboring building). If you’re ever on Hadrian’s Walk, my advice to you is to skip Greencarts Bunk Barn.It wasn’t all bad. Dinner was actually quite good. But then again, when you’re that hungry, anything tastes great. There’s a tiny TV on a table here (the picture keeps disappearing every now and then), but the crowd is watching the Netherlands play Uruguay in the World Cup semis. We have two Dutch walkers in the group and one of them, Arjan, has brought a flag and even painted his face. The mood is good now as Holland is up 1-0.
My foot isn’t hurting at all now. But every time I get up from the chair my knee hurts and my entire body aches. If anyone needs to know that I am suffering through this walk for a sense of schadenfreude, they can smile now.
I bet tomorrow will be a better day.
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