It didn’t take me long to respond to Cadi’s whatsapp message that included a link to one of Estonia’s long distance hiking routes with the accompanying text of “🏃♀️⛺?? 2023”. In fact it took us a total of 17 minutes between us to agree on doing it.
I suppose the enormity hadn’t sunken in at that point. I was excited to be having a big adventure. Possibly the biggest physical challenge I’ve ever had and also an adventure through a country I hold dear to my heart.
My dad’s side of the family are Estonian. My grandparents escaped Soviet rule in the 1940’s. First to Germany in the refugee camps. From there, they were invited to England to work the laborious jobs of agriculture, mining or the steal industry. My grandad worked down the Gedling pit in Nottinghamshire. From what I understand, at the time they had the opportunity to move to either England or Canada. Why they chose Nottingham, England over Canada I have no idea. I mean, Canada has some big mountains and masses of adventure potential! But anyway. Nottingham it was.
I’m pretty excited to have the opportunity to travel through Estonia on foot. Seeing parts I might not necessarily have visited on a standard holiday. There are bears, wolves and wild boar to avoid. The bears, Cadi tells me, are shy! I’ve done a quick search for bear attacks in Estonia and was relieved to find not many listed 😬 phew!! Now to check for wolves….
The route we’re taking is a long distance hiking trail that covers 370km. Our plan is to run it in 7 days with an average daily distance of 32 miles. Eeek.
Double eeek with the fact we’ll be self-supported and carrying all our own food and camping kit.
The decision to run Estonia was made at the end of December and it didn’t take me long to start thinking about my actual training. I knew Cadi was the stronger runner, especially over bigger distances. I also knew I had to up my game on the strength and endurance in order to give us the best chance of completing the challenge and not let either of us down. I wrote a list of all the strength exercises I wanted to incorporate. I pencilled in long runs that gradually increased in distance. Some with packs to mimic what we’d be doing whilst running Estonia and others without just so we could enjoy more of the training and also not completely knacker ourselves out before we even got there. There’s a fine line!
So far I’m actually enjoying the training. Noticing the subtle changes in my strength, endurance and body composition. I’m stronger and fitter now than when I was in my twenties. And that’s the way it should be! As the saying goes - “We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing”. The word ‘playing’ can also be interchanged with ‘moving’. And this for me, as a 43 year old woman, is my form of play and one of my favourite ways of moving.
We are currently planning the next step in our training. A two day, 60 mile run along the Weaver’s Way in Norfolk. This will give us a good idea of what we’re letting ourselves in for. Watch this space for my blog on how it all goes!
Estonian’s have this saying -
“all Estonian roads lead to the bog. Into the bogland they go, to free their mind and find their soul!”