Not Just a Granny

Post Hike Blues!!! Who knew?? I didn’t think this was a real thing, but after reading a facebook post on one of the long-distance walking pages, it appears that it is indeed a ‘real’ thing and not just me being nuts LOL

I had it bad this time. I have been so down and so ‘blue’ the last 2 weeks and it’s been a real struggle to keep my head above water so to speak. Not helped by the fact that a couple of days after getting back from my marathon excursion, I found that the booking I was due to start a week later, had been cancelled. The client’s family had decided to keep the current carer on for the immediate future. Major panic!! That was a £700 booking. The agency were and have been unable to find another. So my already blue mood dipped into the red…

But I was comforted to know that having the blues post hike was something other people also experienced. I guess if you’ve been walking for 21 days and experiencing the freedom that comes with that; reaching and discovering new and exciting places as well as just being free of any real time-constraints, or responsibility, coming back into the insanity of ‘civilisation’ can be a huge adjustment.

I spoke to my daughter about it, and although I had forgotten, she assured me that I did indeed have the blues after my other walks….only this time, I think it was exacerbated by the loss of income, the panic of not getting a replacement booking and having to draw down from my savings to pay my rent etc.

But on the bright side, I fly to Ireland today to meet up with my sister and her hubby for her 50th birthday celebrations. Although this seems contrary to the previous paragraph, the flight and accommodation were planned and paid for (in full) before I lost the work booking. Fortunately I had come in £189 below budget from my NCP and HWW walks, and so that has covered the costs. I also received my new TMC which I had forgotten about and found that I have 189 euro in the account left over from my 2017 Camino. Quite a serendipitous co-incidence in the numbers there! I also found 84 euros in cash in my travel purse from 2017!!! LOL So Ireland is covered…thankfully, coz I really do not need that added financial stress.

Once I realised that what I was feeling was a real thing, I did some research and found a couple of really interesting articles “You have to acknowledge what your body just went through and will go through post-trail. If you’re a thru hiker, you just spent all day, every day backpacking! Burning calories, releasing endorphins, building muscles, nurturing your brain by being out in nature and having new, challenging experiences every day… and then?” And then you get back to the humdrum of life….which is what you do when you’re not walking!! read more here https://www.youradventurecoach.com/post-trail-depression/

I remember reaching the outskirts of Carlisle on the 17th September and crossing the M6. The traffic was horrendous…literally bumper to bumper for as far as my eyes could see. It filled me with a sense of panic and stress….I could not bear to face that. Thankfully I don’t own a car!!!

But just the thought of the noise levels which were already increasing, and my whole being just wanted to turn around and head back to the fields and lanes, the quiet and peace. I would even have been happy to climb those dastardly ridges of Hadrian’s Wall Way once again – just to find the quiet.

So what did I do, once I realised it was a real thing…..? I started planning the next trail. LOL Yes, I bought a couple of notebooks, pulled out my Cicerone Guide Book and started planning for the South Downs Way for April/May 2022.

I also pushed up my Conqueror Challenges km target for 2021 from 2600 kms to 3200 kms.

Nothing like a bit of pressure then!!! So I’m out most days walking, walking, walking….my daily target 10.8kms. Some days I get in a little more, others a little less. But it gets me out my room and into the fresh air. And I do love walking.

I’ve also put dates into my diary to do another 4 stages of the Thames Path and the last stage of the north section of the Saxon Shore Way. I have however, postponed my next few stages of the England Coast Path till 2022, only because the days are shorter now and the path requires cliff walking and long distances. So I’ll save those for March 2022 when the days start getting longer. I thought as well that since the SDW is a 10 day hike at most; Winchester to Eastbourne, I will probably add on another few days and continue up the coast from Eastbourne to Rye – which is where I will have ended off my current stages, and easily done in 2 days of walking. This of course is finances dependent….but it’s part of the plan. And apparently if you state your intentions to the Universe, then it delivers….so, here’s to that then!

In this article the writer talks about feeling sad. About how we expect to feel exhilarated and excited to finish, but in fact we sometimes find that we are sad at the thought of the journey ending and returning to ‘real life’, and I can so identify with that. I remember reaching the 10km marker on the Camino in 2017 and sitting there for hours just crying…I didn’t want it to end. I know only too well the expectation of feeling exhilarated when I reached The Banks at Bowness-on-Solway at the end of Hadrian’s Wall….but I didn’t. I just felt flat 😑😑….so to fix that, I phoned my daughter! Seeing her on video and speaking to her cheered me up enormously and her humour soon restored mine. We laughed and joked and she took a photo of me via the phone…and yes, I was really looking forward to seeing her and my little family again. I had missed them all.

Oh, and I’ve also been binge watching Homeland from the very beginning. I missed a lot of episodes due to work, so I’m enjoying filling in the blanks.

Have you experienced post-hike blues? I’d love to hear more about how you deal with them! What tools do you use to overcome the flatness…? If you haven’t experienced post-hike blues, I’d also like to hear about that…what is different, do you think?

I love that I now understand that what I feel is not just me being silly, but that enough people feel that way for articles to be written about the subject.

Sorry I’ve been so tardy about writing up my walks, but I simply did not have the head space 🤪🤪 but I’ll get onto it soon.