Meet the Walkers: Jim

Jim from team Walking Talking Sport at Sporting Memories Foundation Scotland told us about his local walks and how the challenge has kept him motivated during lockdown. 

Walking has been great therapy during lockdown. Getting out in the fresh air and exploring woodland and country spaces I find great for clearing the mind of all of the concerns of ordinary life. Particularly as I've had worries about my wife who works in a residential care home and younger son who is a doctor in a Covid 19 ICU.

My walk options have been limited by the current restrictions but I'm lucky in having a number of green spaces on my doorstep. 

Most of my recent walks have been in Drumpellier Country Park which has myriad woodland paths and is centred on Woodend Loch which is populated by interesting birdlife. I'm a keen golfer and so I also walked my course at Drumpellier Golf Club, on many occasions playing the course remarkably well (in my head!).

The exercise itself is therapeutic because of the energy expended and the feeling of wellbeing after pushing oneself to a limit when walking quickly to a predetermined pace.
I was encouraged to participate in the Step Challenge by workmates. I found it a great motivation. I’m usually playing golf two or three times a week and also five a side football and walking football on another two or three occasions weekly. I was really missing that activity and the camaraderie in the early days of lockdown and was lacking self motivation. I quickly became lethargic and lazy and also noticed that I was putting on weight. 

The Step Challenge came along at just the right time for me. I'm quite competitive and so the league table was a great motivator to me and the other members of my team. We get on really well anyway but the challenge was a really good team building exercise with all of us encouraging each other to push ourselves to bigger and better results. We were really happy to finish 13th overall out of 924 teams from all over Scotland.