purpose – Page 11 – My Outdoor Living Room

The Cotswold Way. 102 miles of a beautiful, scenic national trail from Chipping Campden in the North Cotswolds all the way down to Bath, following the Cotswolds’ western escarpment. Also known as my nemesis. My obsession, some might say. Definitely one of my purposes.

This is the first post about walking the Cotswold Way, but ties in nicely with my previous posts about Alignment and, well, just search for Cotswolds in the search function and you’ll see how often it creeps up.

As a way (a Cotswold Way) of introduction, not too many years ago as part of a chain reaction of events, inspiration and ambition, I decided to attempt the Cotswold Way Century, an organised ultra marathon along, yes, you guessed it, the Cotswold Way. I successfully recorded my first ever DNF through, once again, a chain reaction of life events, bad preparation and injury, and it’s badgered me ever since. Once the post-event dust settled, I began to dream of attempting it again. A little global pandemic stepped in the way and knocked everything sideways but I always kept it there, knowing it was unfinished business.

When I failed to finish, I nearly made it half way, having to be eliminated by a cut-off at 1am. The path itself was unfamiliar to me after about 40 miles really, so I was in uncharted territory, in the dark, and injured. That place where I folded became a huge mental barrier in my mind. Physically, the town was in a dip, so a hill needed to be climbed to get out and as it was pitch black at the time it only emphasised the unknown out there. I had to set about breaking down the size of it in my mind.

I’ve done this before. Between my second and third attempts of the Fan Dance, I made specific trips to the Brecon Beacons with the purpose of walking bits of the route, revisiting points that were difficult, and just having a normal day out in the mountains. On my first two attempts, the scale of the task and the mountains themselves was intimidating. The whole thing was suffering. When I went back for the third attempt, everything felt less intimidating and much more familiar. I had smoothed off the sharp edges and made it feel like it was my back garden instead of feeling hundreds of miles from home. It worked, and I was able to concentrate on the simple things like putting one foot in front of the other.

I am not sure exactly where the idea came from. I have a habit of having a brief spark of an idea and just deciding to do it (which becomes the purpose) and then afterwards, working out how to get there (alignment). It was probably on a walk where I decided I was going to walk the entire Cotswold Way, completely alone and unsupported, and to do it in a widely unrecommended four days. For me, the challenge wasn’t going to be physical. I already suspected I had the fitness to do it, and I visualised myself doing it and completing it. I was going to make it more of a mental test. Four days completely alone, trying to minimise phone use and have an organic experience and see where my mind and thoughts went. Would I be lonely? Would I miss family? Would I miss creature comforts and technology?

It was going to be my own miniature Camino de Santiago. And I was going to allow it to change me. And it did.

For most of this year at work, the powers that be have been drumming the importance of purpose, values and objectives into us on a weekly basis. Of course, this is mostly a smoke screen, as the Clash put it, to make a load of money and worry about it later. Despite it being very business-driven, I can relate to it and see how I apply something similar in my life.

This thought process began recently when I was thinking through a solo walk that I completed (post to follow, but I walked the 103-mile Cotswold Way). I was wondering about why I had decided to do it, and realised that it was inextricably linked to an objective from four years ago, and generally most of what I do is in alignment with this goal. It gives a tremendous sense of purpose and helps categorise what each specific exercise was for and where it fits in in the grand picture – in short, nothing is for nothing.

Whilst walking, I understood why I was doing it and where it fitted in. It’s refreshing, because as my end objective is to complete the Cotswold Way 100 ultra marathon, you could easily assume that in order to achieve it, I should be focusing solely on running, but not so. Completing the whole route walking, for example, is a huge mental victory, knowing I’ve covered every inch before, reducing the size of the monster in my mind. I employed this same tactic when passing the Fan Dance in 2019. I made trips down to the Brecon Beacons in the months prior just to walk and camp, familiarising myself with the environment instead of associating it with the struggles of the previous two attempts. It turned a previously intimidating environment into somewhere that I knew as intimately as my local hills.

There I was in 2017, looking for a challenge, and I found the Cotswold Way 100. “Great”, I thought, “I’ll get training for that. How hard can it be if I just train loads?” From reading the entry requirements, previous evidence of completed ultra marathons was needed, which I hadn’t got, so I entered two events in 2018. Straight away, my 2017 training and mantra aligned with this goal, which was aligning with the end goal. Most of my training had purpose.

Long term readers will know that I attempted the 2019 edition of the CW100 and failed, which is why I’m still striving to reach that goal. In the years following that, I have added more and more aspects to my training from physical and mental prep, to nutrition and purposeful training sessions which have, to be quite honest, refreshing and enjoyable. Every new habit, or daily exercise feels like all the small grains of sand pouring in-between stones in a bucket until it is completely full.

Why half-invest yourself in multiple goals and risk achieving none, when you can go all out to achieve a massive one? Have a think: quantity vs quality. Most of all, be patient and always believe in yourself. Oh, and don’t worry what everyone else is doing – we’re all as clueless as eachother.