Click on NOTE CATEGORIES to browse by topic, read through the entire archives, or type a topic in the search box.Biomechanist Katy Bowman talks to biologist Jeannette Loram about her recent multi-day hike across England. Katy, with her sister Mary, walked from east coast to west coast along the length of Hadrian’s Wall.
Katy and Jeannette talk about Katy’s physical preparation for the walk; the (four pairs!) of shoes Katy selected and when she used them; the changing terrain and gait patterns she adopted; how she felt over the course of the trip and how she kept aches and fatigue at bay. Finally Katy shares the physical, and philosophical insights she gained along the way.
OVERVIEW
(time codes are approximate)
00:04:45 - Prewalk Preparations (Jump to section)
00:11:25 - Shoes (Jump to section)
00:23:25 - Katy’s Thoughts about the Walk (Jump to section)
00:29:10 - Terrain (Jump to section)
00:36:40 - Pace (Jump to section)
00:48:10 - What About Mary? (Jump to section)
00:49:30 - More About Shoes (Jump to section)
00:52:50 - More About Terrain (Jump to section)
00:55:15 - Other Insights (Jump to section)
LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
(Theme Music)
This is the Move Your DNA podcast, a show where movement science meets your everyday life. I'm KATY Bowman, biomechanist, author, and I just walked 100 miles in six days. And I'm Jeanette Loram, biologist, movement teacher. And while Katy was I was mostly swimming. Every body is welcome here. Let's get started.
(Music fades)
KATY: All right, I'm back.
JEANNETTE: You're back. Welcome back.
KATY: Welcome back. to you too.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. Although, funnily enough, I should say goodbye because we actually saw each other for a brief moment.
KATY: I know. I just can't believe that one of the times that I'm dropping into your backyard, you are not there. However we did manage a wonderful overlap. We fit in a walk.
JEANNETTE: We did. And a cup of coffee.
KATY: We had a cup of coffee. And we also had a gift exchange. I think our gift exchange is going to come up a little bit later. Maybe. I haven't talked to you about how it did. But I don't know, it's nice to exchange gifts when you see your friends.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: And I was wondering what to bring you. And I always like to try to bring you something local, something from where I live. So I found a really nice local herbalist. She's got an amazing store here. And she makes a blend of herbs for the throat. And she calls it, is it Singer's Tea?
JEANNETTE: Singer's Tea. I have it with me because I have a cup. I have a cup here.
KATY: And I crossed it off. Did you see that?
JEANNETTE: Yes. Yes, I did. I don't know if the camera will pick it up.
KATY: No, And for those of you not ... listening only…
JEANNETTE: No, that's right.
KATY: It says ...
JEANNETTE: Podcaster's Tea
KATY: Podcaster's Tea because it's the same.
JEANNETTE: And it's delicious.
KATY: Do you love it?
JEANNETTE: I love it. It's delicious. And it's quite unusual because it has a blend that I have not had before with Irish moss. And it's amazing. Yet it's delicious.
KATY: What's in it?
JEANNETTE: It's hyssop. I think it's red raspberry leaf. Definitely the Irish moss. Oh, and sage. And slippery elm.
KATY: And I got myself a bag as well. And I don't know. I actually got a compliment from somebody saying your voice sounds so much better. And it really does. And I've been doing herbal things and hydration things and lots of stretches.
JEANNETTE: Mm.
KATY: For the platysma and the throat. I just realized that that has been an area that I've been neglecting. And then I just thought it was lovely when you handed me your gift, which was Scottish honey.
JEANNETTE: Right. Just from down the road which followed on from our coughing podcast. And also I felt it would be good for you to have something vaguely local with the immunity aspect of honey. Just to give you that little boost.
KATY: I really appreciated it. It turned out to be something that my walk, which we're going to talk about, really was positively affected by. So I just thought it was really funny that we ended up exchanging this little bit of, we had just done the coughing episode. So sort of, immune boosting, body care, throat and chest lung care. Anyway, that was just very sweet.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. Great minds, as they say.
KATY: Exactly. And I will post a picture of us together probably in my next newsletter. So if you don't get that, sign up for it. Because we did capture some photos of us in front of the sign. What did it say? Mobility Station?
JEANNETTE: I think it was center. I think it was mobility station, and we kind of tried to get some of the nice architecture in at the same time.
KATY: At the Glasgow Central Station.
JEANNETTE: That's right.
KATY: That's where we were. And Mobility Station is really for people who need mobility support for disability. Right?
JEANNETTE: That's right.
KATY: Like, you know, there's I don't know if it's people, but certainly carts or wheelchairs to be able to move you around. But I like the word mobility in there anyway.
JEANNETTE: Right. And it was apt.
KATY: Exactly.
JEANNETTE: So we are both back in our respective homes.
KATY: Mm-hmm. Yes.
JEANNETTE: And we're going to talk about your trip and your walk.
KATY: I always like to debrief walking because I - people listening, they've known me for a long time - if you're a long time listener. If not, you're maybe thinking about some of the nuance to movement. And I really do find when you want to learn the nuance of something, a movement, do it for a hundred miles. Do it for a week exclusively and a lot more of the nuance is going to be, not only in your mind, but it really, for me and my body, that was the one thing that I really liked about it.
KATY: Well, it was a little tricky because I had been sick. I had been sick for maybe the month before. And it wasn't too heavy of a sickness. But it was a very sleepy sickness. And so I didn't have very much energy. It was a lot of sleeping. I wasn't even doing my normal basic walk of three to five miles, let alone longer training walks. Probably the longest walk that I had taken before I left in October was a nine-mile backpacking trip that was straight up a hill. That was a couple thousand feet. So that was intense and I knew I could do that. But I was just around to my daily mileage, you know, around five miles a day. But I wasn't particularly ... I was a little concerned about it. But not too much because I do spend a lot of time on my feet. Even if I wasn't getting my mileage in, most of my work has been done standing almost to a fault at this point. Which is a topic for another podcast. But...
JEANNETTE: I think I'm with you on that.
KATY: Yes, I really have found that standing to do work has become the easiest position for me to slip into making other hip motions, actually more challenging now. I'm too strong in the standing. Just like someone might be too strong in sitting.
JEANNETTE: That's very interesting because I think the same goes for me. And in fact, when I'm podcasting with you, I sit on the floor just because of the setup. And I actually find it, I'm like, itching to stand up. I'm watching you stand up and I'm thinking, Oh, I would be so much happier standing. So it's become a limitation for me too.
KATY: Right. I know. Okay. So we're going to pin that and we will have a full bit of time because there's a lot going on that we can unpack that. But, I do think that being on my feet for seven or eight hours was no problem. And that really became helpful to me for walking, which was logging many hours on my feet. My feet - the feet, the ankles and the feet are always the part I think that, for many people doing long walks, are the most vulnerable part. So I was training my feet, even though I wasn't walking.
JEANNETTE: They were weight-bearing for hours every day.
KATY: For hours every day. So, that's where I went into. And then I got sick as I began the walk. So I actually did the walk - which is why your honey was so helpful. Because I was without any sort of support. You're not in your home. All the things that you would normally have and honey became the main thing that I had. Which was great. So, I like honey for coughing anyway. So the fact that I had my own jar. And everywhere that I went, always, bless people in England had a kettle. There was always a kettle. So there was always hot water and I could just take honey to soothe myself. It was also a really nice way to get a little energy boost if I needed it. So thank you for that. You had a premonition. Whether you knew it or not, you really made the first three or four days of my walk that much easier on my body.
JEANNETTE: Oh good. I'm so glad.
KATY: And then I did the walk with my sister. And so my sister, just to round it out a little bit, my sister is also - she's a professional server. And she's on her feet, too, all of the time. And she's also an avid walker.. She had done one 20 mile walk, her first 20 mile walk. And then she walks ...oh... we were talking about this a little bit on our walk. I would say, you know, she's getting five to seven miles. She's getting around 90 minutes of walking most days. In addition to the fact she's actually the person that I modeled in My Perfect Movement Plan. I had done some sample plans. And you can see her. She's very dynamic. And her movement diet is very balanced. And she's in her early 60s. And it was really nice to see how we did compared to what our movement diet was going into the walk. I just found the whole thing fascinating just from a movement analysis perspective. So, that's, that's how we were prepped.
JEANNETTE: Okay, and so just to, just to clarify, Mary walks normally 60 to 90 minutes on top of her serving job.
KATY: On top of being on her feet and actually walking for five or six to seven hours. For, I think, four days or maybe five days a week. And also she walks dogs. She's very active. So it's just really nice. I don't think she's doing a ton of cardio, per se, or strength training. But she's very active, which is really important, on her feet.
JEANNETTE: Yes. Okay.
KATY: Even if someone had really great cycling capacity or was an excellent swimmer, could be very fit, being on your feet for this many hours is no joke. So if there's some spot in the foot, I felt like it was more that upright on your foot time would carry over better than just physical fitness level.
JEANNETTE: Yeah, I actually got a message during one of my client's holidays and she's very fit and very skilled in tennis and swimming and gym. But she got a blister walking the West Highland way, which is another walk in Scotland this time.
KATY: How long is it? Should I do that one?
JEANNETTE: Yes, do it. It's actually shorter. It's usually about four days. But she got blisters and it was wretched. So it can really, really - the skin on your feet can ruin a trip.
KATY: And you can't go around it. That's the thing with the blister. You can't really motor - muscle through it. It is amazing to me what a dime sized patch of skin can undo as far as your whole body is concerned, you know, in that situation.
KATY: So when I was trying to make a list of recapping some of the things that I learned on this walk. And I definitely put shoes in its own full category. Because I think that just like, as I was saying, the state of your feet is so essential to doing something like this. And footwear is a big part of how your feet end up experiencing the walk that you're doing. So I was in a bit of a pickle because I was walking in on terrain - it's not so much the terrain. It was mostly the weather. I'll have to say that it was the weather. It was the state of wet and long distance that was going to be new to me. Now I live in the Pacific Northwest. I'm used to wet walking. And I know what to put on my feet given any weather that I see outside to do one 20 mile walk. What I wasn't as sure of is doing six consecutive all day walks. When I also wasn't sure how well what I brought would be able to dry out. There's so much uncontrolled in that situation. And I was like, what's going to happen if ... You know, when I'm at my house, I can easily swap new socks. I can make sure that my shoes dry thoroughly overnight. I can have a backup pair of shoes. But I didn't have that real ability. So I tried to fake it as much as possible. So I ended up bringing four pairs of shoes. I am at the end of my good weather season here. And so I am still walking long distance and backpacking in Earthrunners, which are a minimal sandal. My feet are really well adapted to those right now. And I noticed that there's a difference between my summer feet and my winter feet. I don't know, do you have the same?
JEANNETTE: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I have to say that it's always wet in Scotland. So there are times that I would like to be in something like an earthrunner or a xero sandal, but I can't because it's so wet. You would slip. So I think I probably have less of a dichotomy.
KATY: Mm-hmm.
JEANNETTE: I don't always have summer shoes in the summer. I'll often switch to something like a water shoe though.
KATY: Yeah.
JEANNETTE: So it's still a lot more minimal than my ...
KATY: Than a boot.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. And it's interesting because I've been away somewhere warm where really I haven't had to wear shoes at all or just a very thin sandal. And I can instantly feel the difference now I've been in boots. It's just a different experience. So, yes. I can completely relate to summer and winter feet.
KATY: Yeah. And for me the difference between the two feels akin to going between a zero rise and a positive heel. Meaning I can, when I'm really in my summer feet and I switch to something that's more structured, it really is jolting for me. And so that's kind of a lead into the other pair of shoes that I was going to bring. So I was looking for basically a boot. So the boots that I tend to walk in here are a Vivo barefoot. They're like a Chelsea boot. They have a different boot. That's called a Chelsea that's a bit more structured. They have this lace-less structured shoe. I'm so sorry that I don't know the name of it. I'll put it in the show notes. It's a slip on Chelsea looking boot. I think it's Tavi. T A V I. But that could be completely wrong. And I like them because they don't really bind around my ankles. So they're a boot but I have a lot of ankle freedom which I really like. I don't really like lace up shoes that hold my foot particularly tightly. And so because I have walked so many 20 mile walks in those, I wanted to bring them. But they are water resistant and I did seal them up extra. But they're not really a rain boot. And because they don't bind well around the ankle, I didn't know what kind of weather I was getting. People were saying, you know, be prepared to be stuck in a rainstorm. And so again, that water thing sort of threw me. So I put it out on Social Media, just asking people what they liked for the walk that I was going to do. And I got a lot of feedback from people in the area of the walk. So from the Northumberland area, people who are in Northern England overall, who are used to the wet and who are in the minimal community. And they recommended Freet - F R E E T.
JEANNETTE Right.
KATY: I had never worn Freet. And so I asked the company, given this walk that I'm doing, what would be the shoes that you recommend? And they recommended a couple. I chose one and I ordered that pair. I always pay for my own shoes. So I'm not getting free shoes. And I will tell you, it was, especially coming from summer feet, it was more shoe than I was used to.
JEANNETTE: Mm.
KATY: Do you wear Freet?
JEANNETTE: I do wear Freet. For the winter I use the Freet Tundra. Which is just a little bit higher. They have the Mudee. You might've got the Mudee or the Tundra. And the Tundra is just a little bit higher, which helps with the water. They have a decent amount of tread, which is useful. They're very wide, which is great for my feet. I find them, and in fact, my eldest son does not like them because of the way the ankle fits. He finds it kind of digs in a little bit. But I have found they're the best in terms of waterproofing.
KATY: And I think that's why I felt like I wanted to have them. Now, they were hands down out of all what I would consider waterproof. I mean, I was looking at other waterproof type shoes. And those were way more shoes. Then what these were. These were really minimal. They were very sleek. They were very light. They were very flexible. Just me coming from summer feet, I was like, Oh my gosh, it's so much. But, they fit like a charm. I walked maybe three or four, five mile walks in them. And there was absolutely no rubbing. I would put them on all day. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna, I would not recommend taking a shoe that you have not walked a lot in on a walk like this. But I had my backups. I had done some walking. I'm really aware of my gait. I wouldn't let a small patch be like, I'm okay with that little bit of rub. I wouldn't tolerate that. So those are my three shoes. And then I had also ordered a pair of - Wildlings has a new Chelsea boot. So again, I really liked the Chelsea boot, I guess. And that one - super comfortable - but it was, like the Vivo, a slip on and you kind of move around in it a little bit. And I did not want that for that many miles. But it was really, really comfortable, super minimal, packed up really well. So I thought this will be a really great in between walking shoe.
JEANNETTE: And is the Wildling boot waterproof on the bottom? Because my Wildlings have fabric on the bottom.
KATY: They have changed that. They have changed that. And I love Wildlings. And that's always been a big thing for me. Again, I live where it's really wet. And they used to have a fabric sole. And so they were wonderful for dry weather hiking, but not so much for wet. Well, this is waterproof wool on the inside. Wool on the outside. But it's not just like the walk that you're going to do in the fit of the shoe. I was going to be walking through mud. I was going to be walking through dung mixed with mud and rain. And so there's just a degree of even cleanability that I wanted. And so that's why I chose not to wear my Wildlings on the actual walk. Because they're so beautiful and fabric on the sides. I'm like, I do not want to be slopping, you know, mud on this. But the Freets were really cleanable.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: These are really made for that use. And so anyway, that's what I brought. And how I ended up wearing them was we actually got fabulous weather, which you might have been monitoring.
JEANNETTE: Yes. I did see that. It was nice. And you only had, I think, only right at the last day. Last day. Amazing. Yeah.
KATY: Amazing. To only have rain at the end. So I had worn my sandals for the first day or so. And I will talk more coming up about how my body felt. So my shoes definitely reflected, you know, how my body felt. And then I went to the boot.
JEANNETTE: Mm-hmm.
KATY: The, sorry, the, Oh shoot. So I made a mistake with the shoes. I'm just realizing. The shoes, the Chelsea-like boot that I was taking was not Vivo Barefoot. It's Zero. It's the Zero Tari. T A R I, not Tavi. T A V I. So I had my sandals that I was able to wear the first day. And then just because of the terrain I switched to - and the temperature and some of the mud - I switched to the Zero. And then for reasons we'll talk about when we get to how my body was feeling, I went to the Freet. And that was the way that I used them, with my Wildlings in between.
JEANNETTE: Right. And you use the Wildlings more when you were in dry, even, like city ...
KATY: It was never in the city. Well, the one aha moment I had about shoes and I could see, you know, we were in Pubs and hostels and bed and breakfasts with people also doing it. This walk is not like, you know, the Camino Santiago. It's not as popular as that. And we were also in the tail end of the season. So we only saw a handful of other walkers, but maybe 10 other walkers. And one thing that we would see at the end of the evening is everyone would put on a recovery shoe.
JEANNETTE: Right. Something super comfy.
KATY: Yes. And it would be really cushion-y, like a Croc. My sister had brought some clogs that are, like they're gardening clogs that are really squishy. And it's sort of like walking on clouds. And that was really, you know, the fatigued part at the end of the day was the feet are like, we can't bear any more load. We need some cushion. Well, I didn't have anything with a cushion at all. So the Wildlings were at least not the shoe that I have been wearing all day. And they were nice and flexible. But yeah. Certainly during the first part of the walk, I was sort of craving foot clouds.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: Either that or just not walk at all.
JEANNETTE: Some slippers, yes.
KATY: Just something with a little bit of squish. So I paired really thick wool socks, which I did not walk in, with my Wildlings. And so I had the warmth and the, you know, if we had to walk around a little bit.
KATY: Yes, exactly. Something like that, that I had that was able to do that. So that's my footwear story. And that took up almost all the episode because footwear is always...
JEANNETTE: But everyone loves ... yeah, it's always tricky. And people are always interested because they can learn from others' experiences. So shall we go on to how you felt? So really how the walking went? Yeah.
KATY: I expected that I'd be able to do the entire thing. And I expected it to become progressively more challenging. You know, like, the first day you would be tired. And then the second day you would be sore. And the third day you would be very achy and push through it. And that really the fatigue and the achiness would just progress until it reached its max at the end of the walk. Sort of like the way a very... You know, if I'm going to walk 30 miles, that's the arc of a 30 miles. You kind of push through it and you can feel this accumulated fatigue and soreness. And then you're sort of, like, almost ... limping is too strong of a word. But You're hobbling a little bit at the end.
JEANNETTE: You're ready for it to be done.
KATY: And heaven forbid if you sit down for 20 minutes at any point, you know, 15 or 18 miles in. And then you have to (straining noise) get back up and start again. And that's not how it was. So, the first day, it was like that. It had that arc. And when I walk a lot, and I would love to know your experience too when you do something like 20, you know, a large bulk of mileage. For me, it's like the parts of my body that are, I wouldn't say they're the weakest. I would say that they're the part that are being used the most for that type of activity. They really begin to light up for me. And I can feel their deep fatigue and their ache. And so for me - it's my subtalar joint. It's not the ankle proper. It's not any particular part on my foot. That's not true. I could feel the part of my foot around where it had been injured - not the injury itself, but just kind of spread out around that foot. That foot's definitely weaker. And then in my subtalar joint. So right where the heel sort of wobbles on the parts above for those that - like the shin above. So in there. We can just call it the ankle. And my hips. I can just stand and push my thumbs into my hip joints and I could feel those ache. And that first day, you know, did it. And then this is just an ode to the power of sleep and the repair cycle that happens when you sleep. And then in the next day being like, Ooh, I'm sore. You know? So I would say that the way that I expected it to go really happened for the first few days. But on the fourth day - we had figured out - I had figured out, but I think the both of us were doing this too - was what stretches I needed to do along the way to deal with sort of achy bits along the way. And as soon as I did the stretch, the soreness or the ache would be done. And I could continue on fresh. And then I'd start to feel achy again, you know, maybe another 90 minutes, another three hours. It just depended on the day and the terrain. Another set of stretching for two or three minutes and back at it. But what was really helpful was a morning stretch session. Really doing 20 minutes of stretching of the feet and the legs. We were just marveling. We're like, why do we feel so good? And then day four or five and six, it was like, we got stronger. We got stronger and faster the second half. So I was like, Oh, we are watching ourselves adapt. I had never done anything more than one long big piece and then sort of recover - went back to my normal amount of exercise. But not that harder thing day after day. And my body just really rose to the occasion. And I felt like all those sore bits filled in. I felt like my subtalar joints and my hips filled in. It's the only way I can explain it. I felt like the anatomy in those areas was like, Oh, you're going to keep doing that. Then we'll, I don't know, hydrate more. I don't think anything was growing necessarily. But we'll just recruit more. And I was really pleasantly surprised that it went that way.
JEANNETTE: Mm. That's interesting. And it's a pretty quick, I mean, that's a pretty quick adaptation.
KATY: Adaptation. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I don't feel like it was my mind. Because I think I'm pretty good at observing when something - I'm not good at pushing body sensation out of my body. And I like to experience what's going on. But I don't know if it was that those stretch sessions were so focused that it really just - there was something in those areas that never quite got dealt with because I don't walk at that volume for so many days in a row and do so much intense stretching for just those parts so many days in a row that really, I just loosened things up in a way that I never have before.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: So I don't think anything really grew or muscle mass was laid down necessarily. Although I'm not sure, but we both felt really good. And we had a backpack on. You had asked about backpack - just a simple backpack. I was not carrying all of my stuff.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: There's a company that sort of, probably multiple companies, that moves your bigger luggage to the next place that you're going to stop.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: So we just had maybe 15, 18 pounds on our body.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. Which is nice for, you know, that you don't have to, well, especially when you're coming from abroad, it's almost impossible to do it with...
KATY: I had four pairs of shoes! If I had to carry my own stuff, I would have paired it down to a single shoe.
JEANNETTE: So you'd have had to.
KATY: And if I did bring a single shoe, I think I probably would have.
KATY: West to east. We went from Carlisle to Newcastle.
JEANNETTE: Yes. West to east. So, did the terrain change? Do you think that earlier - was there any difference in the terrain?
KATY: Absolutely changed. So it started, I would say, the ends of the Hadrian's Wall path are both in more populated areas. You start on the coast. Well, obviously you start- you're walking coast to coast. It's a path, but it's a real firm path. And I think that there's a lot of people who come to just do portions.
JEANNETTE: For sure.
KATY: You know, I drove my car...
JEANNETTE: We've done that as a family, driving. We've driven to one of the historical sites and just walked.
KATY: They make little paths.
JEANNETTE: That's right.
KATY: So it was fairly flat when we were on the coastal ends, because, you know, things are coming down. And the second day the way that the terrain changed ... So you're on the coastal end, you're on the coastal flat. But also because they're more populated, you're interacting with a little bit more pavement. In fact, on the last day, the walk, the shape of it and also the flora on it, you know, all the plants that were there looked identical to where I log most of my miles on the Olympic discovery trail here in The Pacific Northwest. It's mostly been used to kind of create a major biking accessible trail for about 20 miles of it. The last 20 miles of it are all like that. And on the other side, it's a little bit more dirt path. But there are some parts where you're going on the road. So it just felt more like everyday. So that was like the first day and the sixth day. On the second day, there's quite a bit of walking just through pasture: grazing fields, grazing land. And that has some texture to it. A little bit of contour. Not too much. Towards the end of the second day, there was quite a bit of uphill. And I feel like the highest point of that is 300 meters…
JEANNETTE: Okay. Yep.
KATY: A thousand feet. It's a little bit more than that - maybe like 340 meters, 12-1400 feet. That's the peak height. So you're never going higher than that. But that middle section - So the hardest day was day three and four. I am almost embarrassingly unprepared. I'm like, it's going to be what it's going to be. And I'm going to do it. I'm not going to worry about it more than that. We ate breakfast. We ate dinner. We always took one power bar For lunch. And I mean, I don't eat three meals a day. My brain's a thing that sucks up most of my dietary calories. And I was taking my brain on a vacation.
JEANNETTE: For a holiday.
KATY: Yes. Yes. I was really going, wow, I am barely hungry at all for walking this. The middle section, we walked past this gentleman digging a hole in his yard. And he said, Oh, where are you from? You're from America. Yes. Do you know what's coming up? No, I don't know. And he's like ok...
JEANNETTE: That's a terrible thing to say.
KATY: I know, I know he's just sitting there, you know, rubbing his hands together. And it was, you know, he's like, you know, make sure you fill up with water here. Because really there was nothing in the middle except a series of rolling hills that were each 300 ... 200 to 300 meters tall. And I had no idea. It was just unbelievably challenging. So the walking is not technical.
JEANNETTE: Mm-hmm.
KATY: It's not particularly, you know, I'll walk up 2000 feet...
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: ...you know, carrying 50 pounds. But there's just something so different about two days of never ending hills. And it's beautiful. And it's amazing. And I think I would have felt completely different if it was pouring rain the entire time.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: But yeah, that was mental. Because there actually is a large portion of the wall that's intact there. Have you ever been to that middle section?
JEANNETTE: I have. I've been to Housesteads which is more on the east. And that's the section which has a Roman fort. Which is really nice. But I haven't done the middle section.
KATY: It was really great. But the thing that I really appreciated ... Do you know what a fartlek is? Okay, so for those listening, it is actually, it's fartlek, L E K. Is it a Swedish word?
JEANNETTE: It might be.
KATY: It means speed play. And it's a training technique that long distance runners will use where you are, you know, you're running and then you're walking. But it's more than that. You're playing with different - maybe you're doing a little sprinting and then walking. And then maybe you're doing kind of a jog. You're playing around with the speeds and those intervals as well. So it's not just that it's intermittent running walk run combo. You're playing around with that. And what I realized was the contour of this middle section was like a natural fartlek. That I didn't have to prepare. It was just me walking over it gave me like, as soon as I would get to the top, it would be right at the point you're going, Oh my gosh. And they'd be so steep and so fast and you'd get to kind of your peak effort and your fatigue, but then, Oh, I'm at the top now. And that's just a natural built in recovery with some downhill. And just when you were feeling all good and completely relaxed and like, no problem doing this for seven more hours, there you go up a hill again. And so just that shape. And I was like, oh, this is the shape of that kind of training.
JEANNETTE: Mm.
KATY: It was beautiful to see people who just lived in that area. And they were almost always older people. 70 and 80. And they'd be like, Oh, I'm just walking from my house. And they always had a dog. They always had a dog.
JEANNETTE: Always. Yeah.
KATY: And if that dog was over 12 and they had two dogs and the other one was a puppy, you know. It was such a great, such a great formula.
JEANNETTE: The British people and their dogs.
KATY: I loved it. I mean, not to promote a stereotype, but that's it felt like I was in all these books that I had read: James Harriot's and all. And they're like, just walk from the house. But there'd be no houses for miles and they are just out for their 12 mile walk in the hills with their stick. And I just felt, you know, it's like, wow, there's a lot of, you know, just outdoor living here, especially in this middle section, which was quite rural.
JEANNETTE: I think that's one of the beauties of England and Scotland. In certain parts, it's so easy to get out and walk.
KATY: Walk all day. Or walk for four hours.
KATY: Don't bring it up. It's so ... do it, do it, do it, ask
JEANNETTE: Well, because I imagine your pace at the coasts was probably like what your normal, regular pace. How was it in the middle - those fartleks sections?
KATY: So I do think that, you know, my sister and I we're avid walkers and we're fast walkers.
JEANNETTE: Yes. You're a very fast walker.
KATY: 15 minute mile. Right. So, we'd be looking at this map going, okay, great. We've got 18 miles to go. And I know that I'll walk 20 miles in ... six hours. And that gives me a 30 minute lunch break. I just know what I'm going to do on the Olympic discovery trail that's right here.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: And of course things are a little bit different. You know, we're walking all day. It's not like I'm trying to cram this longer walk into family life and work life and, you know, getting up early to do all these other things. It just had a different, like luxurious feel to it. But we had sort of prepared mentally assuming, okay, well, then maybe we'll walk 18 minute miles, 20 minute miles.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: And then you're stopping and you're taking pictures of things. And one of the things that's interesting about this trail is it's tricky navigation sometimes. And I don't mean tricky. It is extremely well laid out. There's no guesswork. But there are places where it's a bit of a puzzle. And it took us like three and a half days to learn the way the trail signs would behave when there wasn't something immediately visible, like the next portion of it. Because sometimes you would walk in a completely wrong direction. Like there's some trickiness to it. And so we definitely logged some miles in the wrong direction. And we got a little bit savvy probably on the last day where it was like, okay, hold on. Maybe it was on the fifth day, when I was like, the fact that we are having this exact same conversation. means that we are going in the wrong way. This has now become the cue to know that we are heading in the wrong way. You know, and my sister says something like, but there was no, no thing. And I was like, there's always a thing. That's the one thing we've learned is we just missed it. Like we want to stop saying that there's not there because it's there and we just missed it. And you'd go back and hunt for it. Sometimes it'd be an optical illusion. Because the trail does wind through Hamlets.
JEANNETTE: Mmm
KATY: And you know, you'd be coming around and then you would just be - have you ever seen the movie Labyrinth? With David Bowie. All Right.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: So there's one section where you get to the wall and she's, like, there's no way through. And it just happens to be an optical illusion where the way through ... there were at least two of those on this trail where you're like standing there. You're just at a tire repair shop in Newcastle and you're like, I don't...there's no trail here. There's nowhere to go. And there'd be like 60 guys and they're like it's that way. And so you kind of walk where it looks like, you're just walking into the alley of the repair shop.
JEANNETTE: The building.
KATY: And there it is. And there's a tiny acorn and you're like, I didn't even know this here. So there was an element of puzzle solving that I really like. So all of that definitely slowed us down. We had no digital support map wise. We really wanted to do it with the old map, which kind of became my security blanket. And I was like, okay, here we are. And trying to figure out how many hours per page. Like we have to walk four pages today. And I was always trying to do math, you know, along the way to figure out what was going on. But we were clocking overall ... I mean, the reason I hate to say it is like, I feel like there were actually some measurement challenges on the way that the distance - I was like, there's no way that this is the mileage that they say it is. I know how fast we're walking. I know how much time has gone by, but around a mile and a half an hour.
JEANNETTE: Right. Mm.
KATY: What? Unbelievable. So I was...
JEANNETTE: Yeah, not to me, but yes.
KATY: Yes. You know? And I even know, like I've done backpacking trips and it's like, Wow, it took us an hour to go a mile. But we were walking so fast and I just, I don't know where the time went, but yes, much slower. I had all this narrative around when we get to where we're going, you know, we'll be able to go check this out. And no. We were walking nine hours a day.
JEANNETTE: Yeah.
KATY: So I guess if it's nine hours a day, then it was more like maybe 2 miles...
JEANNETTE: maybe two,
KATY: ...an hour.
JEANNETTE: Two miles an hour, which, yeah. I have a story about this too. I think it was 2020. It was in a break in lockdown and my brother, who's an avid walker and camper, was coming up to visit. And he decided we were going to do, it's called a Five Peaks Walk. And it was from a place a couple of hours north from here called Glenfinnan. And you take in two Monroe's. And a Monroe for North American listeners is a mountain that's 3000 feet or above. So like 900 meters. And it's from sea level. And there were five of them. Three of them were not Monroe's. Two of them were. And he had at the time a nine year old daughter that was going to come along. And I said, that's a lot. That's a big walk. That's a big walk and there's three adults, two kids. I wasn't going to take my youngest. I took my oldest. And he said, no, no, no, no, no, no. We've been doing 15 mile walks. I was like, yeah, but not in Scotland.
KATY: Yes.
JEANNETTE: Not in Scotland. So, at the end of the walk, my husband said to me, why do our hikes look like Lord of the Rings and everyone else's look like the Sound of Music. But it was hard. Like it's really hard terrain. And I think we did, my brother was estimating, two miles per hour. And we did one and actually only two of us made it.
JEANNETTE: No, they turned around. They turned round. So, my brother and his daughter, who was only nine, turned around before we'd done the first peak.
KATY: Yeah.
JEANNETTE: Then we got to the stage. I think we'd done three. And I have to say it, the conditions suited me perfectly because it was the hottest day of the year in Scotland. So I was happy as a clam.
KATY: Everyone else was withering.
JEANNETTE: Everyone else was withering. Yes, Ben was withering. And he said to me, I can do no more up. That's it. So the second Monroe you had to do a detour. So the others were all kind of in chain. But the second Monroe was a little detour. My eldest son said there was no way I'm coming up here and not doing that. So he and I took the detour. My husband stayed at the bottom and then we picked it up and went down. But I don't think my brother coming ... he lives in Yorkshire. He had no idea of the terrain - that it's, you know, so hard. It's so slow. So yeah, but everyone was fine. Everyone enjoyed the bits that they did. But it's crazy to think a 16 mile walk took us pretty much all day.
KATY: A whole day of walking. Yeah, until you live it, you're like, oh, right, this is a thing. And as far as, you know, gate patterns go, there were times where ... Have you read the Last Greatest Walk?
JEANNETTE: No, I haven't. And I will have to.
KATY: It's a great book. So it's about in the early 1900s. It used to be a sport walking across North America - walking across the United States. And then the newspapers would interview the person and publish where the person was. And so you would sort of follow these people doing this long walk. And in the book they're talking about the man who did the last one. And he was walking like 50 miles a day, every day for months. And I just couldn't even imagine it. But one of the things that talked about was that he would switch up his gait patterns a little bit. And a couple of the things that really got me through this walk was changing up my gait pattern. For example, I found myself when I would be at my most tired or most sore taking really specific types of steps. And I'm like, well, let me just change the way I'm stepping. So I actually would stride farther and really sort of push myself more. And that made me less tired and less sore. It was like the muscles that were in this one stride length that I was taking were all done. But by stretching beyond it a little bit more I just got some fresh legs, even though they were still my legs. And then some of that field walking because it's wet and because the animals are probably using those trails as well, they get etched down pretty well. But they're pretty narrow.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. Little sheep tracks and things.
KATY: They are like sheep tracks. And so walking on that's pretty technical as well because we don't walk one foot in front of the other. We don't have that as our gait pattern. It was almost like the path had been worn to a V with the sheep track at the bottom of the V. Now that's very complicated walking for a human. So I had to either straddle the path, which would be too wide for my hips or walk on the inside of the V. So if you've ever walked in the slope of a beach, you know how your ankles are angled one way. But I would be walking on a, on a beach that sloped to the right and to the left at the same time with a V in the middle. Also not practical walking and if it had rained at night, it would be muddy and slippery and full of, you know, dung. So I created this way of walking, which was sort of taking two steps over the trail and the other side. So I was inventing gait patterns that allowed me my most efficient forward motion on the track that I was given. And I think that that's really interesting given this idea of gate and how you efficiently navigate a terrain. When terrain becomes shaped in a certain way, there's just certain adaptations or adjustments you make to have that fast flow. Because we're still walking, I would say pretty quickly. It felt pretty quickly. It must have been a lot slower than I realized. But,yeah.
JEANNETTE: I recognize that we have the same kind of thing up here. I find I kind of bound off one side...
KATY: Yes, exactly.
JEANNETTE: ...to the other. And that you can keep your speed up and you're not quite running, but it's a little bit more of a push and a bound.
KATY: You know what it was? It's ice skating. It's very similar to an ice skating pattern. You're sort of pushed back, but at a diagonal, which moves you forward and also slightly to the right to clear the path. And that's what I was doing. It's like, I am doing an ice skater's motion here as my walking motion. So just for people who love gait and nerding out on gait, terrain matters. I know I've said it before and I've given different examples, but here's yet another example where the terrain really ...
JEANNETTE: ...really did make a difference
JEANNETTE: Excellent. So, what about Mary? What did she think? Did she feel the same as you in terms of the beginning was challenging and then she got into it and felt in the same way that you did? She felt she adapted and she enjoyed the later. Or was it different for her?
KATY: Yes. Now, we're related. We're so similar in that way. But yeah. And she's very small. I'm 5'7, she's 5'0 maybe 5'1.
JEANNETTE: And she's very petite.
KATY: Yes, I weigh 150 pounds, she weighs 100. We are so different in that way. But we share a lot of similarities. Our anthropometric dimensions, relatively speaking, are the same. So we both have long legs, shorter torsos. Same walking speed. She might even be a little faster than I am, actually. But we did all the same stretches, you know, when we really took care of our body in that way. And we were just sort of marveling at, like, wow, how great we felt. And when I came back, it was actually really hard for me to stop walking that much per day. I had very much just gotten used to it.
JEANNETTE: Your body had got used to it. Interesting.
KATY: Yeah. I took four walks the day I got home. I was like, I have to go on a walk again. I just really can't sit here.
JEANNETTE: Isn't that interesting. So you alluded to a little bit earlier how you changed the shoes depending on how you felt.
JEANNETTE: Could we just go back to that?
KATY: So about on the fourth day ... So I had been in my Earthrunners. And then I had been in my zero boots for two days. And those were really great. But I did start feeling - my feet started feeling used. There was a spreading out. The zeros didn't really hold me in. And we were doing a lot of climbing up again in those crevasses. And so, you know, it's not like walking heel toe, heel toe, heel toe. You're sort of standing all the way on the outside of your foot. Or sometimes all the way on the inside of your foot. It's not the gait. You're not just taking what you know about flat gait and then putting it up a hill. What you're standing on is sloped at such extreme angles. And my foot moving around in the boot for those extreme angles. I felt like I was using my feet more than I normally would. Which, of course, like I'm doing more complex terrain. I'm doing it for so many days. But on the next day, I was like, I'm going to put on (and it was supposed to rain), so I was like, I'm going to bring out this Freet boot. And I'm so glad I did. Which, you know, when I first tried it on, it felt like a lot of shoe. Now it felt like exactly the right amount of shoe. I really appreciated being held in on the sides. It was like yeah. I mean, it's why we have shoes in the first place. Right? To give us some external support. And I really wanted that external support. I did not want it earlier on, but after multiple days, I was like, I ...
JEANNETTE: I need that now.
KATY: ...I need it now. And then it was like, I got brand new feet. Just like brand new feet. And they were so very warm. And that's another thing about waterproof shoes is they could be too hot to wear when you don't need them. I've never worn a waterproof shoe. And I was thinking like, wow, there's no breathability here. And I really wanted that breathability earlier. And then as we got further into the walk and the walk got wetter, it didn't rain during the day, but it had rained during the night and things were soupier. Really happy to have that support. I love them. Highly recommend. And my sister had bought - she wore zero boots too. We were both in zero boots most of the time. And then she had bought a couple of ultras and other kind of like a tenny hiking boot. And she was like, look how... they were the most only waterproof that she could find. Because we were really prepared for walking in wet. But she's like, they're so stiff and heavy. And so she, she's like, I'm going to get some
Freets when I get back. Because they're really perfect for exactly that.
JEANNETTE: Yeah, they are. They're the only ones that I've found that can ... I mean, I just used to get wet feet and it was miserable. But they work. They work really well for the kind of conditions that you experienced in England and Scotland.
JEANNETTE: Yeah, exactly. That's where they're made. I have one more terrain question, which is just an observation. So when you were walking the path, and you're walking from west to east, when you look left and right, could you see a difference in the terrain? I've never walked it. I always imagine that it's much more rugged as you look towards Scotland.
KATY: Mm-hmm.
JEANNETTE: And more pastural because the Romans were very clever to keep all the good pasture land.
KATY: Yes.
JEANNETTE: And then, you know, they were blocking out the land that either they didn't want, or was just full of Celtic people that were going to be troublesome.
KATY: Barbarians.
JEANNETTE: That's right.
KATY: Yes. So I do think the difference is not really clear on the low lands part.
JEANNETTE: Mm
KATY: And I really felt that, I mean, the Romans chose to build it at the highest point. And so when you're on the highest point and you look to the left, it's like a kind of a drop off, almost like a precipice...
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: ...sheer drop off. And then just miles of beautiful ... it didn't look rugged to me. But it looked, I mean, it was hilly...
JEANNETTE: Right. Yeah.
KATY: There were a lot of hills on the other side. And when I looked to the right, it was more like they built it on the edge of this hill. So to the right for all I could see was just like pasture. It was just more flat and level. But I'm not sure if they put the wall there to keep that land, or if they put the wall there because it made sense from a military perspective that it was the highest point. And also, I just want to talk about the sheer labor that went into building that wall.
JEANNETTE: Yeah.
KATY: They did not use slave labor to do it. It was actually built by the different I guess ...
JEANNETTE: Legions
KATY: Yes, the Legions. And they would sign their names when they were responsible for their one section of the wall. But I think an equal feat of effort or strength was there used to be a ditch that was on the Scotland side of the wall to increase the height of the wall.
JEANNETTE: That's right.
KATY: And it was like eight feet. I think it was maybe even eight by twelve. And I was just thinking this massive ditch, the whole thing just seems like ...
JEANNETTE: Insane. And it was very, very robust and very well made. And it was only, I think, in recent modern times, you know, that it's been stripped apart in places to be reused, you know, not now.
JEANNETTE: Yeah, it lasted, you know, 2000 years, which is amazing. Okay. So, just as we wrap up, any other insights that you can give us from doing a multi day walk, specifically.
KATY: Here were a few, I call them insights, just to these understandings of things. And one was a very long journey like this has sort of an arc of a relationship.
JEANNETTE: A good relationship?
KATY: Yes. Yes. But, but a long term, let's just say your romantic partner. Or I don't know if it's the same thing for a parent child relationship. But you start, and it's very exciting. And you know, you're fully engaged. You know, my sister and I on this walk, you get together first and you're excited and you're downloading and you're debriefing and you're doing all these things and you're sort of distracted. And then you get to the middle part where things get annoying (and I'm not talking about my sister in this case). But just, you know, the weather, how far it is, you're bothered by so much more. You're just a little annoyed. And then you settle into the end phase. And at the end phase, you don't even really need to talk at this point. You're just doing what you're doing. And you realize this whole experience is really about me. I might have be walking with someone, but they're having their own separate experience. And there's not as much at that stage, not as even as much talking between my sister and I. Or really even talking between the trail and I. It was just me. And this is just where I was. And I really appreciated that. I thought that I would ruminate a lot more. I thought, oh, like when you go out for a long walk, you go out to ruminate and process things. But I felt like the walk was what I was processing.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: And so because I was so physically active ... I wonder how much metabolizing of just, let's say the biochemistry of the energetics of my life I'm having to do through rumination. Because I'm not physically active.
JEANNETTE: Active. Mmm.
KATY: And by being physically active, I was actually metabolizing ...
JEANNETTE: Mm.
KATY: ... all of those things.
JEANNETTE: Or did you think it could also be sort of intention? Sometimes I would choose to go, I need to calm my mind or think something over, so I take a walk.
KATY: Yeah.
JEANNETTE: Whereas this trip for you had a different intention.
KATY: Well, for sure. My intention was to do the walk.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. And nothing more was expected from it.
KATY: And nothing more. But I do a lot of other things with different intentions and yet my mind still creeps in. So I have had that experience of, I'm not choosing to ruminate, but ruminating I am still.
JEANNETTE: I can resonate with that.
KATY: Yeah. So both. It just felt like my mind was not an issue on this walk at all - except for the parts of my mind, which was like, wow, you're tired but you're going to do it anyway. I wouldn't surmise to know what was going on, but that was my experience of it. Also my sense of time. We talked about the five main senses. But another sense that we humans have is the perception of time.
JEANNETTE: Right. Mm-hmm.
KATY: And I noticed that my perception of time was much longer on this walk than it is at home. Like a day took four times as long on this walk. So I was wondering how much of my perception of time is being affected by the number of transitions I have in a day. How many transitions do we have in a day? I took a walk this morning. And then it's getting the kids to school. And it's now it's podcast time. And then I gotta go do the kid thing. And then I gotta go to work and do another thing. Where you know, there's so many transitions. And so when you're living your life in so many short hours, yes, there's a loss of time just in the transition itself. But I feel like the parts of me that are monitoring time are being - I don't want to - I wanted to say co-opted initially - but I think it's just affected by. That our sense of time relates to how we're spending it.
JEANNETTE: Oh for sure.
KATY: And one of the reasons I like 20 mile walks in general is a break from transitions...
JEANNETTE: Mm-hmm.
KATY: ... because transitions are particularly ...
JEANNETTE: And I think also the thought of them. You're always like, I have got to get through all these things.
KATY: Even more time. How much time is actually being spent in energetics on…
JEANNETTE: Logistics.
KATY: ...managing the upcoming transition, let alone processing on the other side. And that's not even the thing that you're doing on the other side of those transitions. There's a lot more in the day that you're managing than just the seven things that you had to do. Everything in between was, you know, checking the clock and, you know, that's just so much.
JEANNETTE: That's right.
KATY: And when all you're doing is a walk, all of that goes away. And so the day felt really long. I'm normally excellent at telling you what time it is without a watch. You know, it's like, Oh, we've been doing this for 45 minutes. And I wonder if that's where my walking sense was also off on how far and how long we had been walking because my sense of time was calibrated to a different set of activities that I'm usually doing. So that was really fun to be living so slowly. I'm like, oh, that's what they mean by fast and slow.
JEANNETTE: Right. What a gift.
KATY: Yeah.
JEANNETTE: So if you ever think that time is running away from you, go on a multi-day walk.
KATY: And you don't need to fly to another place to be able to do it. But it is a gift of space. And I know that not everyone has the privilege of being able to do something like this. But if you have a holiday or a birthday or something where you're like, I'm going to go take myself to the spa for the whole day, consider doing something like this because it's restful and slow in a whole different way. In a way that, again, it's one of those dynamic rest ones. I feel like I ended up getting more rest, mental and physical by walking for nine hours if that makes any sense. It's a paradox.
JEANNETTE: I think it does. We had Vibar Creegon Reid on our show recently. And years ago, he did a series on BBC. And you might not have been able to listen to it, but I think it was...
KATY: I was in some of it.
JEANNETTE: Oh, you were in some of it. I think it was BBC World Service. So it should be, it should be free access to everyone. And there was one episode on backs. And he interviewed a cattle farmer. I don't know if you remember this one. And the guy walked all over the place with his cattle. That's what he did all day. And then he was asked what he does for relaxation. And it was to take a three hour walk. And I just thought that was so beautiful. He had been walking all day and then his relaxation was to take this beautiful long walk. I did wonder who was looking after his children and, you know, cooking the meal, but you know, he...
KATY: Sure. But he was nice and relaxed.
JEANNETTE: He was nice and relaxed.
KATY: Good for him.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. But yeah. So active rest. that's where it's at.
KATY: Yeah. And I guess the last thing was an insight that I had that was quite similar to the insight that I had when I turned 44. I'm always doing a big walking thing for my birthday. The year that I turned 44 instead of a 44 mile walk, I walked 10 miles a day for 44 days.
JEANNETTE: I remember that.
KATY: And that was exhausting. And what I did realize at that point, as well as at the end of this walk, is walking is not a complete movement diet. And when you're walking this much, it does not really leave time, even when it was just 10 miles, which is 3 hours a day of walking, which is still a lot. But you can sneak it into early in the morning. I can still do all of my life's responsibilities and fit 10 miles in if I'm using every - I'm walking on my lunch hour, I'm walking to get errands done. You just use all those minutes for walking. Which is different than stepping away from life and taking this long walk. But in both cases, something else for me is dropping off. So I feel like I lost even some muscle mass in this time of walking. Now I'm still using my body. I'm still carrying weight. But there's a lot of movements that add muscle mass to the body in areas that are not challenged by the walking. There are parts of my body that need different movements and stretches. That was not part of my stretches for walking package. And so while it was fun to dive into something like this, it would not, I think, ultimately serve me well to only do this. You know, then that's kind of like the argument against only running 10 miles a day, or 15 miles, or 15 miles three times a week. We need a really well balanced movement diet in order to, I think, feel good in our bodies day after day after day. So I love doing it, but it wouldn't be what I wanted to eat the entire time. And also what I ate while I was doing Hadrian's wall would not be what I want to eat all the time. Where are all the vegetables?
JEANNETTE: Not probably in the cafes.
KATY: They're not in the pubs.
JEANNETTE: Not in the pubs, for sure.
KATY: And mashed peas don't count. Everyone, you know, what about the mashed peas? I was like, I just want some leafy greens. But as soon as I got to the end, like the first thing I did was open my phone to try to find a vegan restaurant. I'm like, surely they will have vegetables at this restaurant before we had to fly back home.
JEANNETTE: I hope they did.
KATY: And they did. And it was amazing.
JEANNETTE: Good. Yeah, I know. I think Northern England and Scotland are not known for their their … unless you want turnips.
KATY: But we passed lovely gardens. We passed lovely gardens when we're walking. and it also seemed like the season was really late. this year. I saw raspberries in the garden. I saw blackberries that were still green.
JEANNETTE: We certainly had a very late...
KATY: Roses.
JEANNETTE: It was wet.
KATY: Mm hmm.
JEANNETTE: And our berries normally, they were very late and actually the blackberries didn't really come to anything
KATY: So, maybe that's why.
JEANNETTE: It was so wet and cold earlier in the year. So that's possibly, yeah.
KATY: So I know people are growing them. I could see that these little gardens that people have them. Just culturally, they're not going to show. They're probably in the cities. And I'm sure, but not in these very, rural 200 year old places that they just didn't have that.
JEANNETTE: Yeah.
KATY: Everything else was delicious and I was well nourished all around. It's not a complaint. It was more just like, where are all the vegetables? Where have they gone?
JEANNETTE: Yeah. Sorry about that.
KATY: I don't hold you accountable or anyone else. I had a great, great, wonderful, wonderful time.
JEANNETTE: And I just like to say I love the fact that you're wearing your shirt that you clearly got in Glasgow,
KATY: I did. This is my Celtics football club.
JEANNETTE: Celtic football club. Yeah. So I love that you're sporting some British garb. So thank you for that. That was a great debrief about all things walking. And yeah, thank you for that.
KATY: Thanks everyone for listening. I wish we could have spent more time together. Next time I come, let's do the Scottish Highlands.
JEANNETTE: Oh, yes, we can do that one. There's the Cape Wrath Trail, which has been my dream, but it's big. We might have to build up to it.
KATY: What is it?
JEANNETTE: It goes from Fort William to Cape Wrath, right up at the top northwestern point of Scotland. And it can take anything from 10 days to like weeks. So you can do sections of it. But I think we maybe should think about that.
KATY: And I and what I'm trying to do is I want to put together for anyone - the thing that I like most about this as far as - The nourishing aspects of it for me were not only did I walk all day long that when I was done walking someone would just make me dinner.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: I could just go to eat a meal that someone else made and cleaned up after. And the same for breakfast. And so that alone was such a vacation that I was thinking, how can I recreate something right where I live? And it could be small, you know. If you and your friends feel more like eight miles a day, or 10 miles a day, that you could find a way to kind of move yourself, like create something where you are. It doesn't have to be a big thing. It can always be a single day thing. But just someone else making you food when you are caretaking other children and other people, it's just The biggest luxury to me, I think.
JEANNETTE: Hmm. Absolutely.
KATY: I don't think I'm going to make any meals after my kids move away. I could just eat once a day. And I don't want to pack another lunch. I don't want to make another dinner.
JEANNETTE: The thing that I really hate is the multiple different meals. You might not have this in your house. But I have the, I don't like this. And then I'm difficult too. Because I don't eat, you know ...
KATY: You're vegetarian.
JEANNETTE: So I just want to make one meal that everyone will eat. Just that would be a gift.
KATY: I am a big fan of the build your own out of this thing of ingredients and then that way I'm only making ... And I don't make all the meals in the house. The kids are actually good at picking up food prep every now and then. And you know, my husband's also, like, sharing dinner duty. But even my half, I don't even want to do my half anymore.
JEANNETTE: You're done.
KATY: No, I'm done. I'm done. They're like, really? Salads again? I'm like, but there's 30 things you can put on it. So just make your own food. I cooked some ingredients.
JEANNETTE: We call it deconstructed meal. You just create it from...
KATY: Absolutely.
JEANNETTE: Okay. Thanks again, Katy. That was great.
KATY: Thanks everyone for listening. And we'll be back with deeper topics. But I really appreciate the debrief. I don't have I don't have a journal or a diary. I have a podcast. And so someday when I'm older, I will go back and listen to what I was saying.
JEANNETTE: That's true. You have no need of a journal. It's all right here.
KATY: My blog, I just feel like, yes, I feel kind of bad because I'm forcing you all to just listen to what would be in my journal.
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JEANNETTE: But we're all interested.
KATY: In my movement nerd journal. If only I had another interest. If I was a poet, you wouldn't care. But because I like to talk about movement ...
JEANNETTE: We're all in it with you.
KATY: Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks everyone.
JEANNETTE: See you next time.
KATY: Bye.
Hi! My name is Casey Rose from New Meadows, Idaho. This has been Move Your DNA with none other than Katy Bowman and Jeannette Loram, a podcast about movement. We hope you find the general information in this podcast informative and helpful. But it is not intended to replace medical advice and should not be used as such. This podcast is produced by Brock Armstrong and is transcribed by Annette Yen. Our theme music was performed by Dan MacCormack. Make sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to audio. And find out more about Katy, her books, and her movement programs at NutritiousMovement.com.
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