As a child, I was fascinated by the notion of endurance; from the Le Mans 24 Hours, the Peking to Paris race, the first aerial circumnavigation, the Long Range Desert Group raids far behind enemy lines. Long-distance journeys – expeditions, treks, these inspired me greatly. I'd re-enact these feats with Lego in our back garden that served as ocean and tundra. Getting ready, taking everything that you need, but no unnecessary baggage.
Physical endurance – getting into your stride, getting into the groove and getting on with it, hour after hour, day after day. As they pass, mile after mile of ocean or steppe, a comforting monotony is established. You settle into it. Distance ceases to be the enemy.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. My daily walks, which average more than 8km or five miles, are never easy to start. The lazy side of my brain is telling me that I've already chalked up a good series of walks this week, and that today I can afford to have a shorter walk. But once I get going, once I'm in the groove, it gets easier. The temptation to take the easy option passes.
When I started at Gunnersbury Grammar aged 11, my parents applied for a local authority travel pass, for children who lived three miles or more from school. A man with an opisometer at the town hall showed my mother on a map that we lived a few hundred yards short. And so my parents' application failed. [I have tested this with Google Maps and indeed, this is the case.]
This shows that in the late 1960s, it was considered acceptable for children to walk three miles to school. This is about an hour's brisk walk. Slightly longer than the walk to the beach from Maison Maternelle and the Polish cub-scouts' barracks in Stella-Plage on my summer holiday in 1969.
Long walks have not held terrors for me since the cub-scout camps that I attended since I was seven. There was always something interesting to look forward to at the end of the walk; boredom is often what stifles the ability to endure.
One walk I remember well; Polish scout camp in Hampshire, 1970. I was 12. We were on a long route march, early start. I'd skipped breakfast; the scrambled egg was too runny. After several miles walking with a heavy rucksack, I started feeling unwell. I did not know it, but my blood-sugar level was dangerously low. I felt ill – nauseous and wobbly; I had to stop and sit down. I'd never experienced this before. Someone offered me a boiled sweet. A single orange-barley drop. Once I'd popped it in my mouth and the sugar began to dissolve and enter my bloodstream – I felt miraculously better. From that day on, I came to understand the importance of preparation for sustained physical effort – above all, food and water, and proper clothing, protection against heat and cold and wet.
My first real test of endurance was at the age of 28, cycling from the Santander on the north coast of Spain to Faro on the south coast of Portugal. I covered 1,100 kilometres in ten days' cycling. Some days I'd rack up over 180km. This journey, well-planned in advance, was one of the most important events in my life. It gave me a perspective as to what's physically doable.
Physical endurance is mostly mental. Mind over matter. Overcoming doubt, laziness, boredom, and knowing that you will prevail. Once you reach a goal, that challenge, that distance, becomes a milestone by which to measure future endeavours.
Somehow physical endurance comes easier than the mental stamina needed to stay focused on a given subject (especially a none-too-pleasant or boring one) such as revising for an exam. But it does create a framework within which to measure mental endurance.
This time last year:
Łódź for the weekend
This time two years ago:
Wes Anderson's Asteroid City
This time six year:
A tale of two orchards
This time eight years ago:
My 20 years in Poland
This time nine years ago:
PiS, Brexit, Trump and cognitive bias
This time 12 years ago:
Portmeirion, revisited, again
[My last summer holiday - not had one since!]
This time 13 years ago:
Beach day, Llyn Peninsula
This time 14 years ago:
Down with cars in city centres!
This time 15 years ago:
8am and 26C already
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